GRISHNO.com

"Ask a Tranny" is a new section here at grishno.com on the band new resources page.  Readers are encouraged to submit their questions or solicit advice from me or any of the other contributors here by sending an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .  While we may not be able to answer all of the questions that we receive, we will do our best to get to as many people as possible, and post our answers/advice/whatever right here.

I got a message on Youtube this morning from a young person in England.  This person is currently going through exactly what I was going through at their age and wanted to know what kind of advice I would have for them.

Hi Erin, I'm C, I'm 15 and I'm from England. Ive been watching your youtube videos lately and it amazes me just how brave you are to talk about this stuff so openly. And your stories about how you felt before came are exactly how I feel now.

Some of my first memories was trying on girls clothes and i remember doing this at various points during my childhood. And it felt just so....right. It made me feel like me. I got caught once by my dad who ignored at and put it down to curiosity. Since moving to live with my mum I've had more freedom but its been very hard.

These feelings have..they're killing me, I hate my boy-like body so much. I don't like being expected to like football or be strong, i want to have girl like expectations. When certain styles like "emo" were new, I tried girls jeans on because that's how it was and it felt just amazing.

Since then I've had more confidence to buy girls underwear, body sprays, jeans, hoodies, nail varnish and shave under my arms, it just feels so natural! but then my girlfriend found my stuff and took away the only bra and knickers (I still have girl boxers) I had the courage to buy.

So I'm just left with this feeling that every time I wake up I hope so much that my boy bits are gone, that i have girl ones and I've grown breasts and when i go to shower, I look in the mirror and I get depressed and start to cry. I don't know where to go from here. I hate my body so much, i want a girls so badly! I hardly have any girls clothes and I have a girlfriend who stops me from shaving my legs and being who I want to be more than anything in the entire world, please can you help me?

Read my reply to C after the break.

At the moment I'm finding it very hard to comjure up adequate words to describe what exactly I'm feeling.  I've touched on this topic before(Hate Crimes against Transfolk Rise 28% in 2008), and it is, without a doubt, always a downer, however I feel it is important to address these kinds of things.  The Trans Murder Monitoring Project, a collaborative project between (Transgender Europe) and (L...) is reporting that there have been 204 reported murders of transfold worldwide in the last year and a half, 83 of those have taken place between and June of 2009.  This equates to 1 trans person being murdered every 3rd day).

The map here shows the reported murders for 2009. Via Feministing

"(Ask a Tranny)" is a new section here at grishno.com on the brand new resources page.  Readers are encouraged to submit their questions or solicit advice from me or any of the other contributors here by sending an e-mail to ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ). While we may not be able to answer all of the questions that we recieve, we will do our best to get to as many people as possible, and post our answers/advice/whatever right here.

Today's letter comes from a young transsexual who is working on being able to come out.  Initially it was hard for me to see myself as someone who could look up to or solicit this kind of advice from.  This was something that took me a while to become comfortable with.  I look at myself and I see the long road I still have ahead of me... sometimes I fail to see how far the road extends behind me.

I still remember what it was like having just come out.  I remember looking up for a fellow transgirl that I'd met on myspace.  I was the student and she was the teacher, and sometimes it is hard for me to see myself in any other role than that.  Letters like this continue to help me see myself as someone who can and is making a difference in people's lives.  The grasshopper has become the master.

With that all out of the way, we come to the letter I recieved this week which asked an interesting question... one which I hadn't thought of before.

Dear Erin,

I recently watched your coming out story video on YouTube and I wanted to know what you recommend.  What do you think you could have done better? I will probably come out after High School which is a little less than a year now so I have time to prepare, but I just wanted some advice from someone who went through a similiar situation and succeeded.  I am also a transsexual and have always felt like I should be a girl.

I am sorry if this is too personal, but there isn't any sort of help near me, and you seemed as if you were willing to help.

Thank you, N

Read my reply to N after the break.

By Guest Author: Erin Klink

Everyone has their own success stories, and unfortunately downturns, some even have their fears of acceptance rooted so deeply they may never come out. Until society becomes more accepting of transgender individuals, we all live in fear of reprise.

My own story is one that has its own successes and fears all wrapped up in one. In December of 2008 I was going through some tough self esteem problems and my wife kept asking me what was going on in my head. One night I confessed my deeply rooted “issue” of feeling like a woman trapped in a mans body, something I have felt since I was 14. After a long night of talking she gave me her blessings to transition; what a shock! Well that was easy…NOT!

She and some of my friends may have given me their blessings, but I still have yet to face her parents, very conservative Lutherans who I have heard denouncing transgender people while I was in the same room as them, something that made the room seem suddenly smaller. I am still yet to conquer that obstacle but plan to do so soon.

To some people, coming out is one of the biggest hills to scale, yet to others it’s merely a speed bump. We go to extreme lengths to hide our real identity, then when it’s “time” to “reveal” ourselves, we shudder in fear. Why do we do this, is it societies negative view of transfolk, is it the fear of violence, or lack of self worth as individuals or a community as a whole. Once we do come out, are we going to be viewed as “the other kind of person”? Why do we feel like this and what can we do?

I was browsing through my twitter feed today, and noticed a retween from @angryfaggot. Curious as to who this @angryfaggot is, I looked through their feed, and noticed there was a comment about them being a certain percentage hetero.

@angryfaggot is 57% hetero. Check yourself and others at 

02:00 am from angryfaggot

I'm curious as to whether they just made it up ... or they're really only 57% ... and what does that mean ??? So I decided to check out the link, and see what all the fuss is about.

Bascially it's a page that checks a specific twitter account, and then based on that user's tweets, gives a percentage of how "hetero" that twitter user is.

I had to try it, so I immediatly put in my twitter name (eMacAddict), and here's what I got:

According to the hetero norm (eMacAddict) is

27% HETERO!
Found words: bruno, rent, cheap, brüno, ass

You seem to be holiday hetero. Anything can happen when the relaxation kicks in and you have a couple of glasses from that bottle of wine you got as a birthday present from work.

And I figured I'd try Erin, and see how hetero she is:

According to the hetero norm (grishno) is

01% HETERO!
Found words: pride, trans, parade, gay, coming out

You got nothing of it in you. Really? Nothing at all? Well, welcome o pride.

Something to think about huh ? it ends with:

The way our fellow humans judge us can be based on the words we use as well as who's hand we're holding. During this year's Stockholm Pride we [will] discuss the hetero norm and how it restricts us all. How are you effected? PS. Come as you are.