All things considered, internal and external, BC has a bright future.
Jill
Looking Forward to Many More BC Years
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Comments
Let's Hope So
As long as the assholes don't implement Project 2025.
Project 2025
Is far reaching and extensive. The thing to remember about political change is the process to make it permanent grinds slowly. Yes executive orders happen overnight, but they change with each administration. Laws require the agreement of both the house and the senate. Some things will undoubtedly make it through, but the odds of the whole agenda making it is nil.
I grew up in the fifties and sixties. I discovered my feminine side in 1953 or 1954. Back then the admitting you were what would come to be know as transgender would likely buy you a stay in a padded cell and the joy of electric shock treatment. Yet we all survived.
They can try, but they won't stamp us out! You can't legislate gender identity.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Normally I Would Agree with You
I discovered my feminine side in 1952. I lived in fear of being sent to the insane asylum.
In Nazi Germany, transgender people were prosecuted, barred from public life, forcibly detransitioned, and imprisoned and killed in concentration camps.
There are people on this site who support this lunatic. They make false equivalencies.
Make no mistake about it . . . if Trump wins and the house remains in Republican control and the Senate is flipped, the trans world is in deep trouble.
It's possible that Trump isn't lying when he disavows a connection to Project 2025. But listen to his own words.
Pay attention to Trump saying transgender is a new concept. These are his own words of January 2023.
Do you think it's possible he doesn't know about the Holocaust?
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
This Man Is Terrifying
He sets out his agenda very clearly. It is the obliteration of the transgender community. Make no mistake. The lives of you and your children are forfeit if he gains power. When he says he knows nothing about Project 2025 he is lying.
Your future is in your hands.
Super Factors
Two main factors for a strong future are:
1.) Incredible stable of authors posting amazing, high-quality stories.
2.) Melanie is working in lockstep with Erin to maintain the site.
What is it that makes you feel bullish about BC?
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Hopefully it will disappear
only when it is no longer relevant. Being transgender is gaining acceptance in many places. If that trend continues we could see a day when transgender fiction is as interesting as left handed fiction. Probably not in this century but I would love to be wrong about that.
I'd prefer to think that acceptance would make us stronger.
After all, there are lots of places devoted to all kinds of fiction with massive public support/acceptance. And we're trying our best to be more than just a niche site, but to make sure that our authors can be read by as many people as possible.
Which reminds me:
New authors and site members are not just welcome, they're needed for us to continue to thrive. I know that not all of our members are in places in their lives where they *can* share us with others, but for everyone who can... share your favorite stories with friends. Share the site, and our community, with others, to help us grow.
*hugs*
Melanie E.
Mainstream
About two decades ago I edited a manuscript for a new writer. I asked her what her goals were.
She said, "I want to write a good story that happens to have a TG element."
We all have our reasons for writing. For many on this site, it seems to be based on self-discovery. It was for me.
Dimelza achieved her goal. Her "Mister" is one of the best TG stories of all time.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
The Promised Land
It’s The Promised Land, isn’t it? A world where our differences don’t make a difference in how how we’re treated. Maybe, there are even those who will find value in the unique perspective we can bring. Lord knows, I have met so many truly amazing people here. The world would be blessed by accepting their talents.
But wandering in the desert changes you, I think. It changed the Hebrew tribes, forged them into a covenant people. The Israelites, thereafter. Even if I live to see the Promised Land, I don’t know if I could enter it. Perhaps, like Moses, I’d just have to let those who are younger, bolder, maybe more trusting, forge ahead. The darkness of these days will stay with me.
All of you here — writers and readers both — have been mana in my desert, and life-giving water. I can’t predict BC’s future, or any future. But for the gifts you have already given me, I will always be grateful.
— Emma
The site may not be needed
BCTS may not be needed as a 'refuge' for trans fiction. I have no doubt trans fiction will be written, even if it's not classified as 'trans fiction.' It'll just be fiction with a trans main character, or supporting characters. It could be about trans lives, or the trans elements could be a support to the main plot.
Trans people are a fact of life, stories featuring trans people should continue on, maybe just in different ways. That's the nature of most things, even enduring things, they way they're consumed changes, the thing itself might change, the truth at the heart of them, though? That they're about people sometimes in extraordinary situations? That'll last as long as people do. Let's just hope trans lives last as long as others lives, whatever form that trans life takes.
New Concept?
Hardly - the date of origin of the following description of the myth dates to B.C.E (Before the Common Era) rather than B.C., which either represents Before Christ or Big Closet. (Or even the old comic strip by Johnny Hart and now Mason Mastroianni)
You'll notice that Bernini produced a very relaxed Hermaphroditus, circa 1620 AD. Neither Bernini nor his contemporaries were shocked, unlike some folks today.
from Pergamon. Hellenistic period, 3rd - 2nd century BC.
"Hermaphróditus" was a child of Aphrodite and Hermes. According to Ovid, he was born a remarkably beautiful boy whom the naiad Salmacis attempted to rape and prayed to be united with forever.
A god, in answer to her prayer, merged their two forms into one and transformed him into a hermaphrodite, he being considered the origin of the name. His name is compounded from his parents' names, Hermes and Aphrodite. He was one of the Erotes." Statues usually portray them as female with male genitalia.
The above fresco dates circa between 1 - 50 AD (Anno Domini). Or around 1900 years or so before Roberta Cowell or Christine Jorgensen, or my birth, for that matter. This is not to diminish the experience of those brave pioneers, but rather to put into context how history tried to explain intersex and other gender variations.
It's not a new concept by any stretch of the imagination. The bottom line is that we've been around for a very long time.
On a personal note, My 73-year-old self found the courage to come out if only in explanation to my niece. She supports me as do my son and daughter-in-law, who have known for several years, as did Mrs. D.
However, as some have alluded to in their own stories, coming out in my youth in the early 1960s would have been perilous. As one of my therapists explained, "If your father was willing to beat you (and your sister) just for throwing eggs at the backyard shed, what do you suppose he would have done to you if you told him you were a girl?"
We cannot allow the current nor the next generation of transgender kids to be bullied into oblivion.
Love, Andrea Lena