In the news: Gene therapy treatment for HIV trial

A California biotech company is starting human testing of a potential HIV treatment that alters the patient's T cells to make them similar to those that are resistant to infection. Wired also has an article with some different details. While it's just a preliminary study to determine safety, so no one knows if it'll be effective, it's still interesting and vaguely promising.

Heterosexism in the TS community

I'm a member of several online trans communities,  and while they're often quite informative, one thing that continues to surprise me is how non-queer or even heterosexist many of the people (mostly trans women,  as that's the majority in the communities) are. These people tend to be straight before transitioning (attracted to women), and straight after transitioning (attracted to men). Which is fine, until they tell others that hormones will cause them to be more attracted to men, and put down those who are attracted to women. E.g., as part of a longer post in the same vein, "I feel many only associate with Lesbian women because they still feel that "dominate role" that they were use to". Because of course trans women wouldn't associate with lesbians because they're attracted to women. Nope. They continue with "Or they just can't fathom the thought of sleeping with a man and are afraid of being hurt physically. Transition requires a lot of sacrifice and soul searching about what a person is willing to give up and suffer at the hands of others."

One possible explanation for this is that trans groups seem to be divided largely between older people, who were straight and often married, and younger people who grew up in the queer/LGBT community. (This is a broad generalization, and there are many people who don't fit either of those.) I, of course, fall in the latter group. But there are many people, who don't see themselves as part of any larger queer or transgender community (which is a topic for another post). I suspect that it's these people, who have limited experience with the queer community and want to be accepted by society as simply women, who refuse to see themselves as anything other than straight, and think that transsexuals 'should' be straight.

While I see their line of thinking, it seems so alien to me, as I've been part of the queer community since before I identified as trans, and I see being trans as part of my queer identity.

Intro

So I've decided to attempt blogging again. This'll mainly focus on queer and feminist topics, with the occasionally foray into other things I find interesting, such as politics, religion and language. But I'll try to keep it mainly on topic, and update regularly.