Assigned Media

@assignedmedia.org

64649 Followers 530 Following

An independent news website about trans issues, by trans journalists. assignedmedia.org Support our work: https://www.assignedmedia.org/support

The Chevalière is the only subject of this strip to date where it is impossible to piece together how they fit into our modern gendered language. Zagria of *A Gender Variance Who's Who* classifies them as a "cross-dreamer", and historian Peter Farrer refers to Charlotte's biographies as "very nearly cross dressing fiction, a century in advance,", due to the sheer number of liberties the Chevalière and her biographers took in describing her life. There's also significant reason to believe that the Chevalière herself started the rumors that she was born a woman. Whether it was to drum up an elaborate reason to return to France with her life and debts reset, or because she genuinely wanted an excuse to present herself as she pleased, is a reason only known to her. Whatever her intentions at the time, her persona as the crossdressing Amazon of Orleans would find a very different life and following nearly a hundred years after her death....but we'll talk about that next month. Stay tuned.
Illustration: A still life, featuring a dragoon's rapier, a French lady's summer hat, a rose, some papers, and a feather.
Illustration: A portrait of the Chevaliere d'Eon (a stocky transfemme wearing a very elaborate feathered cap) as Pallas Athena. The hand-lettered annotation explains that the drawing in question is based on an engraving by N. Pruneau, made in 1779.
Expected amount of jeers at the Chevalière's (and France's) expense notwithstanding, the public did not reject the concept of a cross-dressing French woman, turning her into a Joan-of-Arc-esque folk hero. An engraving by illustrator N. Pruneau bore an enscryption which compares her to the fearsome Greek goddess and guardian of Athens, Pallas, adding, "For a long time she has been feared, and now she is loved". Despite being publicly retiscent to give up her dragoon coat and sword for a dress, the Chevalière eventually settled into a more quiet life, She took up fencing for a while to pay the bills, leaning into her Amazonian image. But, racked with her own debts (due, in part, to the French revolution sending her employers en masse to the guillotine and rendering them unable to pay,) she died a spinster in England, devoting herself to writing on Christian feminism and an autobiography of her life as a woman forced to live as a man, which was ulitmately never published before her death. But, upon her death in 1810, her housemate made a startling discovery. The Chevalière didn't entirely lie. She *did* spend half her life as the wrong gender. Just not in the way she told everyone.
In 1776, King Louis XVI of France made a public announcement. A trusted French servant in London, one of the spies and ambassadors that made up the intelligence service known as Le Secret du Roi (The King's Secret), had pulled one over on the crown. This individual had served as a liason in Russia and a negotiator in Britan, one of king's most loyal men -- or so they thought. Rumors started to come around. Things were getting out of hand. And so, by order of King Louis, the bets were off. Charlotte d'Eon de Beaumont was a woman raised as a man to pay off her father's debts, or so the King was told. But this soldier was coming home to France; a hero, and -- now, legally in the eyes of the Crown -- a woman. She was to be relieved of her dragoon's uniform (only to be worn by men, naturally), and gifted a new wardrobe more fitting of her gender, fitted by the royal couturière in service of Marie Antoinette herself. Somehow, no one at the fitting for that wardrobe bothered correcting the Crown.
Illustration: A large sailing ship flying the French flag sails through a vast ocean.
the original, extremely janky Assigned Media logo, a photo of a spyglass on a background of trans blue white and pink stripes going diagonally across
There is one other thing Monica Helms did, and even if you never heard of her name before reading this strip, you’re more than likely very familiar with it. On August 19, 1999, a week after a conversation with the creator of the bisexual flag, Michael Page, she woke up with an idea in her head. In her autobiography, More Than Just A Flag, she describes her thought process: “The design I’d subconsciously come up with had five equal-sized stripes going horizontally across the flag. The top and bottom stripes would be light blue, the traditional color for baby boys. The two stripes inside of the blue stripes were pink, the traditional color for baby girls. The center stripe would be white for those either in transition, those who have a neutral or undefined gender, or those who identify as bigender or agender.” Speaking to Elliot Owen of The aBay Area Reporter in 2015, she stated, “No matter how you fly it, it’s always correct, which signifies finding correctness in our own lives.” “It’s important to note that the flag only represented how I felt about being trans…But I told myself that if other people wanted to use it too, they could. And apparently, they did.”
An older Monica Helms (drawn after photos of her at the New York City World Pride celebration, which she was grand marshal at) wearing a trans pride t-shirt and a hat that says NAVY holds a trans pride flag high in a parade. People are marching in the parade behind her.
A mid-40s Monica Helms stands in front of a crowd of trans women, smiling at the viewer. The American and trans pride flags are flying behind her, and the US Capitol building is visible in the background behind them.
Monica Helms didn’t just form Alpha Zeta. In her twenties, she served in the US Navy as a submariner, and ended up a member of the US American Submarine Veterans Group. After her transition in ’97, she re-applied under her own identity, but was refused. She persisted, and eventually was re-admitted, becoming the first woman–cis or trans– to ever hold membership in the organization. She would eventually found It’s Time Arizona, an org dedicated to helping trans veterans gain equal protection and respect for their military service, and co-found TAVA, the Transgender American Veterans Association, which exists to this day. Monica’s fighting spirit and activism didn’t stop there. Her time as a union organizer at Sprint in the ’90s and her experience forming Alpha Zeta would eventually lead her to Washington. She was part of a delegation to lobby Congress for equal rights for trans folk in 1999, and eventually would become part of the first trans delegation at the DNC in 2004. And, after moving to Georgia in the mid-2000s, she worked with and eventually became the executive director of TransAction, an org which lobbied Georgia homeless shelters to accept trans folk.
Summer, 1983. Two AV technicians at a video duplication startup in Arizona are hard at work building their new workspace, with a TV on in the background to keep them company. One day, the Phil Donahue show comes on. The guests are members of the Chicago chapter of Tri-Ess (check out our August 2025 strip for more on them), talking about their organization for cross-dressers. One of the technicians has a breakthrough, and writes down a contact number broadcast at the end of the show. She had known for almost a decade at this point. As she would later write, “in the year 1974 I had no easy access to information about gender identity. Only a few doctors in the world performed sex-change operations, they received limited publicity, and the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association Standards of Care wouldn’t be written for another five years.” But she called that number, and would later help found the Arizona branch of Tri-Ess, Alpha Zeta. Four years later, at a meetup called Holiday En Femme, attendees were videotaped by a member of the Arizona chapter and asked to introduce themselves. When the camera turned to her, she did just that. “Hello, my name is Monica Helms.” As for the name, as she would later recall: “it sounded simple, so that must be why I picked it.”
A person with ‘80s permed, curly hair glances at a television set behind them, which has two figures talking on a daytime talk show setup.
Sadly, despite clamouring for her portrayals of women, the industry writ large never seemed to understand Jones’ own womanhood. Her own autobiography page and a stream-of-consciousness “A Recollecting Remembrance” page on her website talk openly about her gender identity and struggles. Despite this, multiple obituaries from her own peers refused to remember her as herself. The Comics Journal’s Steven Ringgenberg insisted upon making a “deliberate choice” to misgender her throughout their recap of her early career. Fellow illustrator Steve Pratt chose to commemorate Jones’ life by pairing photographs of Jones in a dress with a story where Jones asks Pratt, “How does it feel to have your friend become a lesbian?” Despite his clearly deep respect for Jones and her work, Pratt does not refer to Jones as “she” a single time in the post. Jeffrey Catherine Jones was a personal influence of mine and many others. Her art distilled something subconscious about the trans experience and overtly about life itself–the wistfulness, the longing, the deep, rapturous want–and piped it through oil and ink in a way all her own, crafting brushstrokes into clouds, and love without fear.
A drawing of a woman facing away towards a wooded path.
A drawing of a pair of comic books.
Despite originally studying to be a geologist, Jones’s early career found her in New York, where she found her footing doing cover art paintings for Vampirella and pages of comics for Wally Woods’ Witzend, and Warren Publishing’s Creepy and Eerie. Eventually, she found her way into the underground comix scene, and published the recurring strips I’m Age in Heavy Metal Magazine and Idyll in National Lampoon. (Her 1973 solo book, Spasm, is preserved on the Internet Archive, and I highly recommend giving it a look.) Eventually, her and her wife divorced, and she moved into a small flat with Barry Windsor-Smith, Bernie Wrightson, and Michael Kaluta. Known collectively as “The Studio,” the space the four of them shared and the work they produced would eventually become the stuff of legend amongst illustrators, with their work compiled into a 1979 volume of the same name. As illustrator George Pratt states in the book, “Jeff was one of our gods…his (sic) work blew me away. He (sic) was our Rembrandt.” But Jones did not stick with illustration–after many years of being paid dirt and mistreated by the publishers of the day, she eventually declared “It is my firm opinion that illustration is immoral” and forged her own path. Eventually, she found success selling her paintings to private clients who clamoured for her unique vision, soft, glowing landscapes, and dreamlike female figures. “The female form just reflects light so simply and beautifully,” she once said.
In 1998, one of the greatest painters of the 20th century illustration world decided to stop living in fear. Jeffrey Catherine Jones had spent a life at the drawing board painting her favorite subjects, imbuing them with life through lavishly colorful brushstrokes and expressive, soft linework. Legendary draftsman Frank Frazetta reportedly called Jones his “favorite living painter.” But, at the age of 55, she realized that she couldn’t just live vicariously through her paintings of women anymore. She had known from the age of 5 that she was one, and she couldn’t hide herself any longer. As she put it on her website, “In the south, in the ’50s there were no gays and no lesbians, and certainly no one like me. So I became secretive. In my own mind I became ashamed, guilty and worthless…After many years of therapy, and many years of trying to drink away the shame, I arrived…I decided to stop the denial and start living as a woman.” “People have also said to me how brave I must be. If I understand courage to be self-possession and resolution in the face of fear, then there is certainly no bravery here. I had no choice, really. There is certainly no fear of being female.”
A drawing of a woman in black looking over her shoulder to the right.
Her penchant for performance was a survival strategy as much as it was a livelihood. She lived stealth for most of her life for safety reasons, apart from the greater trans and queer community, even hiding her identity from her husbands. But she eventually came out, releasing her autobiography and outing herself in the process in 2001. Aleshia granted several interviews and released a follow-up biography, The Woman I Was Born To Be, before her death in 2017, In her interview with Monika Kowalska, she offered advice to the new generation, saying: “It’s never an easy journey, but each plateau along the upward path offers its own rewards. I would never presume to tell others how to best live their lives; I can only hope that those so inclined will find their dreams fulfilled.”
An older Aleshia Brevard, with bright white hair, a boat-neck top, and a shining pearl neckless, smiles fearlessly at the sun and clouds above her.
Aleshia Brevard, as Gigantia – wearing a cavewoman one-shoulder dress and with a great big goofy smile on her face – talks to the actor playing The Atom, who is very tiny and sitting on a stack of books, gesticulating wildly.
Despite giving her a job and a start in California, the management at Finnochio’s nor the AGVA was not happy with her departure. As she recounts in her biography, The Woman I Was Not Born To Be, her union representative told her, “If you do not sign a new contract with Mr. Finocchio, I’ll see to it that you never work again.” But depart she did, finding herself on the operating table for one of the first SRS operations. She changed her name to Aleshia, and despite the threats from both management and her crooked union rep, she found work. She starred alongside Don Knotts in 1969’s The Love God, portrayed a cigarette girl in an episode of The Partridge Family, and found herself in Rod Sterling’s criminal roster in a 1972 episode of The Night Gallery. And, nearly fifty years before Nicole defied the possible in her role as Dreamer, Aleshia took the villain’s role as the first trans actress to play a superbeing, portraying (ironically) Wonder Woman’s arch-nemesis Gigantia for two episodes of Legends Of The Superheroes.
On October 14, 2018, the Supergirl episode “American Alien” aired on the CW network. For the first time, trans folk saw one of their own in a superhero uniform, as actress Nicole Maines took the screen as Nia Nal, the first trans superhero to ever make it to television. But, while Maines has the honor of being the first hero, she wasn’t the first superbeing to ever hit the airwaves. And, perhaps fittingly, before we were ever allowed to play the hero…society first had us play the villain. Born in rural Tennessee in 1937 and eventually ending up hitchhiking to San Francisco, Aleshia Brevard’s transition first found her under a stage name: Lee Shaw. She performed as a “female impersonator” (or, as we now call it, a drag queen) at Finnochio’s, a revue and nightclub which “glorified the American boy.”. Aleshia was not interested in staying a boy, however; eventually, she found access to female hormones and into the patient room and client list of Dr. Harry Benjamin.
Two femme figures stand side-by-side, both bathed in starlight and with spotlights highlighting their faces. On the left is Nicole Maines, wearing a low cut leather top with a lace-scalloped hem and with her long brown hair unfurled around her neck. On the right is a younger Aleshia Brevard, wearing a country-western button-up with very flashy earrings, her hair done up in a ’60s style.
“In this case, the New York Times relied on a quote that was itself sourced from another outlet,” they said, describing an “echo effect” that distorted the AMA’s underlying policy framework.
In recent days, AMA communications to the New York Times have requested a correction on their part to reflect the actual language the AMA used in response to their inquiry. Additionally, a letter to the editor has been submitted requesting a public correction—this was neither a policy change nor was it an endorsement of a position taken by another medical society. In addition, during Congressional testimony in mid-March, I had the opportunity to set the record straight stating to the Subcommittee on Health of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that there has been no change in AMA policy with respect to access to and provision of gender-affirming care. This will appear in the Congressional Record.
Despite the Nazi's crushing defeat, their hatred lived on. The Allies' own censorship and anti-gay laws helped erase the queer dead from the record and kept the living hiding or imprisoned To quote the Auschwitz Memorial's own website, "embarrassment is the reason that scholars remain silent about Nazism's homosexual victims". In the decades since, many queer stories from the era have been unearthed, and many read as losses upon losses. John Topham's photographs of the battery in drag were banned from publication in the UK. Queer men like Alan Turing were subjected to chemical castration. Christine and Roberta both spent their lives as outcasts, hounded by the press and, in Christine's case, dened her own marriage due to the court ruling her a man and her union sodomy. I do not need to point out the parallels. I *do* need you to help us ensure that this history is not allowed to repeat itself. LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND. --piper
(Image description: the gates of Auschwitz, with two train tracks leading towards the ominous looking building and a road on the side for trucks.) But for the handful of trans women we know survived the war and went on to complete their transition in a brave new world, hundreds if not thousands more were murdered in the camps...and many were kept there jailed long after the camps were liberated. When the Allies took Germany, they forced the broken-up German states to repeal nearly all of the Nazi-era laws. They did not, however, require them to revise or repeal Paragraph 175 of the criminal code--the one which criminalized male-on-male sexual acts, and which many self-desribed transvestites found themselves running afoul of. As a result, gay and trans folk were often simply moved from the camps to another jail cell, and as researcher Wolfgang Röll puts it, left to be "deliberately suppressed and forgotten in both postwar German societies".
(Image description: A portrait of Roberta Cowell -- a strong-faced woman with very curly hair and a headband wearing a checkered blouse top and pearls -- and Christine Jorgensen -- a very dainty and well-dressed woman with an off-the-shoulder dress and flower earrings, with well-permed hair) Statisically speaking, there were very likely trans folk affected by these policies, some of whom likely participated in those drag shows. The trans folk we *do* know about from this era, though, only came out in the years after WWII, if they survived at all. Christine Jorgenson, for instance, left her job at RKO Pictures and served in a clerical capacity during the war before recieving her landmark sex reassignment surgery, and the UK's Roberta Cowell served as a pilot in the No. 4 Squadron of the Royal Air Force before returning home and beginning her own gender transition.
This doesn't mean that the military, or the public at large, were anywhere near A-OK with queerness outside of the stage revue. Aggressive screening and discharge policies were commonplace, and as Allan Bérubé put it in _Coming Out Under Fire_, "In combat, gay GIs pointed their guns at enemy soldiers. But some gay servicemen also found American guns pointed at them". Dishonorable discharge was, for many queer soldiers, the most lenient punishment they could hope for if they were discovered, or if they made the mistake of asking for help. Discussing their situation with military psychiatrists hoping for guidance often ended up with them being reported to their CO, with some being "interrogated about their sex lives, locked up, physically abused, and subjected to systematic humiliations in front of other soldiers."
(Image description: several GIs in shepherd girl dresses dance a goofy ragtime dance on stage.) Those weren't shepherd girls by any means; John Topham just happened to be working on a project to document the rehersal of that particular troop's concert party revue. The men were rehersing a drag number when the siren sounded, and had no time to change into something less fabulous. Revue shows like this were quite common in both the UK and the US during the first two world wars, providing the men with laughs on the front lines and an escape from the despair and dreariness of war. Despite homosexuality and cross-dressing being outlawed to various degrees in both countries, the shows were popular enough to get the silver screen treatment even after the war, with films like _This Is The Army_ and _Splinters_ both portraying men in uniform donning dresses to entertain and delight.
(Image description: A man in a GI's helmet and a shepherd girl dress directs an artillery battery to fire upon a target off in the distance. Two other men, also in frilly frocks, push the barrel of the battery around to face the target.) Christmastime, 1940. All's quiet on the shore--until the sirens go off and a flurry of men run to the Mk. VII mounted on the battery. As photojournalist John Topham would later write, "‘Jerry’, like Time, waits for no one". Thing was, whichever Jerry would have been on the scope for the Nazis must have been mighty confused that day....because, as sure the devil was the fascist's witness, he must have sworn he was looking down the glass at a squad of shepherd girls in bonnets aiming the turret in the seconds before the shrapnel pierced his skull.
Some may ask why, of all the stories I could be telling right now, I'm choosing to give a historical recounting of a brave trans man, in a society who didn't accept him, doing what he thought was right and putting his life on the line to take the fight to a bunch of racists who threatened to rip the United States apart. (Image description: A list of the individuals killed by ICE so far this year. The list reads as follows: Luis Gustavo Núñez Cáceres - Jan 5, died in custody Geraldo Lunas Campos - Jan 3, murdered in custody Luis Beltrán Yáñez–Cruz - Jan 6, died in custody Renee Nicole good - Jan 7, murdered in the streets Parady La - Jan 9, died in custody Víctor Manuel Díaz - Jan 14, presumed suicide Heber Sánchez Domínguez - Jan 14, presumed suicide Alex Jeffrey Pretti - Jan 24, murdered in the streets) Oh, y'know. No reason in particular. Just seemed timely to pay respects to veterans who fought to make the world safe from thugs and fascists, and the Union boys taking a stand against slavery and a divided nation was just on my mind today. Anyways, tune in next month, where I write about queer folk taking the fight to Hitler. That also seems topical. MORT AUX FASCISTES. CHINGA LA MIGRA. --piper <3
Sadly, like many trans stories in this era, Cashier's also ends in medical malpractice followed shortly by public fiasco. Despite being sworn to secrecy when he was admitted, someone in the home eventually leaked that the old boy soldier wasn't born male, and it did not take long for the local papers to find out and have a field day with it. (Image description: Albert Cashier's grave.) The other men in his regiment stuck by him, however, and reportedly often visited him in the home. They brought him newspaper clippings of his valour to remind him of the times they had shared, spoke highly of him to the press, and even requested he be buried with full military honors upon his passing in 1958.
Fellow Illinoisan Abraham Lincoln later would refer to the siege of Vicksburg as "the key to the war" and eventually, the Union took it, in no small part due to the valor of the men of the 95th Illinois. Albert's name is still on the Illinois section of the memorial at Vicksburg today, commemorating he and his men's role in this important siege. (Image description: The Illinois memorial at Vicksburg, MS; a large domed mausoleum with granite stairs leading up to it.) The war eventually ended, and Cashier returned home to Illinois. He made his way doing odd jobs, keeping to himself until he broke his leg in 1911 and found himself disabled and living in he Illinois Soldiers and Sailors Home in Quincy, IL.
The claim that trans folk cannot serve with honor or valor falls apart when examining the service records of many queer troopers, and Albert's is no exception. In the battle to take Vicksburg, MI, in 1863, Cashier 'ran to the front, mounted the trunk of a tree, and waved his hat and yelled, “Come on, all you damned rebels, so we can see you and get a shot at you.”' (Image description: Albert Cashier hangs off of a tree trunk, flying his hat in the air. The Union line stands behind him in the distance, and smoke billows from the battlefield.) At one point, Cashier found himself captured by Confederate forces. He responded by stealing a gun from one of the guards, knocking him one, and escaping.
One such account is that of Albert Cashier of the 95th Illinois Infantry. A good portion of his life story is found, frustratingly, in records of women in the Civil War--there are many recording instances of women donning pants and a man's uniform, only to later resume their old feminine identity after the war. Cashier, however, never referred to himself as a woman, and lived as a man both before and after his tour of duty. (Image description: A portrait of Albert Cashier, drawn from an old photograph of him with a friend from the 95th Illinois Infantry. He is wearing a black hat and Union army coat, and looks very stern.) As he later put it, "Lots of boys enlisted under the wrong name. So did I. The country needed men, and I wanted excitement."
One year ago, the Trump administration made one of its first official priorities removing perfectly capable trans folk from military service, declaring trans people as being incapable of living the "honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle" that military service provides. Last month, a DC circuit panel upheld that ban, citing *US V. Skrmetti* as precedent. (Image description: A facsimile of the Pentagon-issued memo "Additional Guidance on Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness". The words "gender dysphoria are incompatible with the high mental and physical standards necessary for military service." are highlighted.) Despite the current bollocks, there is historical evidence for trans folk serving with valor on behalf of the United States as far back as the Civil War; although, seeing as the two most credible examples in that conflict served for the Union, it makes sense that this crop of fascists would complain about it not counting. Y'know, the Southern Strategy and all that.
A crudely drawn version of a standard fundraising tracker. An obelisk-like shape (helpfully labeled "not phallic") is being filled with squiggles in the colors of the trans pride flag. At the top is scrawled Jan 2026 with an arrow pointing to $20,000!! in gold letters. Arrows and gold letters also demark the region of the matching funds, about a quarter of the shape, near the top. The shape has been completely filled, with a small amount of off-white color above the top denoting funds in excess of the goal. On the side are printed labels updating the progress. The first says "Monday 1/19 1pm $2672." The most recent says "Wednesday 1/28 349pm $20,751."
A poorly drawn version of a standard fundraising tracker. Here, an obelisk shape (helpfully labeled "not phallic") is being filled with squiggles in the colors of the trans pride flag. At the top is scrawled Jan 2026 with an arrow pointing to $20,000!! in gold letters. Arrows and gold letters also demark the region of the matching funds, about a quarter of the shape, near the top. Along the side are printed labels updating the progress. The first says "Monday 1/19 1pm $2672." The most recent says "Tuesday 1/27 91pm $15,284."
A poorly drawn version of a standard fundraising tracker. Here, an obelisk shape (helpfully labeled "not phallic") is being filled with squiggles in the colors of the trans pride flag. At the top is scrawled Jan 2026 with an arrow pointing to $20,000!! in gold letters. Arrows and gold letters also demark the region of the matching funds, about a quarter of the shape, near the top. Along the side are printed labels updating the progress. The first says "Monday 1/19 1pm $2672." The most recent says "Tuesday 1/27 9am $13, 736."
A fundraising progress tracker, very poorly drawn. At the top in freehand lettering it reads "Jan 2026" with an arrow pointing to $20,000! written in gold. "NOT PHALLIC" in parentheses appears on the obelisk-like shape. Trans pride flag colors have begun filling the tracker, which has passed the halfway mark. Labels mark the progress with the first one saying "Monday 1/19 1pm 2,672" and the most recent saying "Monday 1/26 7am $11,952." In yellow scrawl, arrows show a matching funds area of $3000 + $3000 yet to be filled.
A fundraising progress tracker, very poorly drawn. At the top in freehand lettering it reads "Jan 2026" with an arrow pointing to $20,000! written in gold. "NOT PHALLIC" in parentheses appears on the obelisk-like shape. Trans pride flag colors have begun filling the traffic, currently sitting a little under the halfway mark. Labels mark the progress with the first one saying "Monday 1/19 1pm 2,672" and the most recent saying "Friday 1/23 12n $8,992."
A fundraising progress tracker, very poorly drawn. At the top in freehand lettering it reads "Jan 2026" with an arrow pointing to $20,000! written in gold. "NOT PHALLIC" in parentheses appears on the obelisk-like shape. Trans pride flag colors have begun filling the traffic, currently sitting a little under the halfway mark. Labels mark the progress with the first one saying "Monday 1/19 1pm 2,672" and the most recent saying "Thursday 1/22 1030am $8,048."
A graphic similar to other fundraisers where a shape is slowly filled up to indicate progress towards a goal. This one is drawn very poorly, by someone who doesn't even seem to be trying to make it look good at all. At the top is scrawled "Jan 2026" with an arrow pointing at $20,000 in gold letters. There are markers on the side and a halfway point labeled $10K. The region to be filled is a sort of open bottomed oblong. Vertical letters in its center helpfully inform the reader it is "NOT PHALLIC." At the bottom, a region is scribbled in with baby blue. Some small font text labels this region "Monday 1/19 1pm $2672" Above that is a similarly sized region scribled in pastel pink. The text label reads "Tuesday 1/20 730am $5380" Barely above that is another squiggle of pink labeled "Wednesday 1/21 8am $5782" A bit above that is a third pink band/squiggle labeled "Wednesday 1/20 330pm $7086"
A graphic similar to other fundraisers where a shape is slowly filled up to indicate progress towards a goal. One unique aspect of this one is that it is drawn very poorly, by someone who doesn't even seem to be trying to make it look good at all. At the top is scrawled "Jan 2026" with an arrow pointing at $20,000 in gold letters. There are markers on the side and a halfway point labeled $10K. The region to be filled is a sort of open bottomed oblong. Vertical letters in its center helpfully inform the reader it is "NOT PHALLIC." At the bottom, a region is scribbled in with baby blue. Some small font text labels this region "Monday 1/19 1pm $2672" Above that is a similarly sized region scribled in pastel pink. The text label reads "Tuesday 1/20 730am $5380" Barely above that is another squiggle of pink labeled "Wednesday 1/21 8am $5782"
A graphic similar to other fundraisers where a shape is slowly filled up to indicate progress towards a goal. One unique aspect of this one is that it is drawn very poorly, by someone who doesn't even seem to be trying to make it look good at all. At the top is scrawled "Jan 2026" with an arrow pointing at $20,000 in gold letters. There are markers on the side and a halfway point labeled $10K. The region to be filled is a sort of open bottomed oblong. Vertical letters in its center helpfully inform the reader it is "NOT PHALLIC." At the bottom, a region is scribbled in with baby blue. Some small font text labels this region "Monday 1/19 1pm $2672" Above that is a similarly sized region scribled in pastel pink. The text label reads "Tuesday 1/20 730am $5380"
A graphic similar to other fundraisers where a shape is slowly filled up to indicate progress towards a goal. One unique aspect of this one is that it is drawn very poorly, by someone who doesn't even seem to be trying to make it look nice. At the top is scrawled "Jan 2026" with an arrow pointing at $20,000 in gold letters. There are markers on the side and a halfway point labeled $10K. The region to be filled is a sort of open bottomed oblong. Vertical letters in its center helpfully inform the reader it is "NOT PHALLIC." At the bottom, a region is scribbled in with baby blue. Some small font text labels this region "Monday 1/19 1pm $2672"
“There’s been a lot of stuff that, on paper, shouldn’t be legal, that nonetheless has managed to happen under this administration, and I’m very eyes-open on that,” Urquhart said. “I’m concerned about legal and government suppression, more broadly. I take it very seriously. I try and be really aware of what the risks are.”
So, if you don't have much of a reason to want Santa or the other mythical god-figures that everyone seems to be singing about around, consider looking into the historical traditions from wherever you happen to be, instead. You might just find someone that looks more like you in the old storybooks. And hey, the midterms are next year, and no one says you have to stop at primarying your moderate Democrats and unseating your Republicans. Maybe instead of cookies for Santa, we can all come together as a country and make a Yuletide tradition of feedin' the lot of 'em to Krampus and the Christmas Cat. SEE YOU NEXT YEAR <3 --PIPER (Alt text: The Christmas Cat (the gigantic three-eyed cat from the last panel) walks triumphantly towards the viewer, holding what looks to be a politician-looking figure in its jaws. An arrow pointing towards the figure says, "for legal purposes, this is an effigy".)
It wasn't until the seventeenth century, Parsons points out, that Gryla was codified as both woman and devil, retooled as a boogeyman and reduced to hunting down children who hadn't studied their catechism well enough. The modern incarnation of Gryla still lives on today in Iceland, with a cadre of Yule Lads and even a gigantic pet Christmas Cat to keep them company in the tales, tourism brochures, and festival costumes that represent their legend today. (Alt text: A somewhat cozy looking cabin home in the snowy mountains, until you notice the trail of blood leading towards the front door, the "CAT FOOD" bowl roughly the size of the house itself with blood seeping out of it on the front yard, and the gigantic three-eyed black cat taller than the cabin hiding behind it with a mischevious smile.)
Myth often finds itself repeated across geographical boundaries, and Iceland's own variation on the "winter punisher" formula, Gryla, is no slouch either. As Terry Gunnel put it to Smithsonian Magazine, “She ate one of her husbands when she got bored with him. In some ways, she’s the first feminist in Iceland.” Surprising no one, Gryla's gender assignment is (again) mostly thanks to the Church. Icelandic scholar Katelin Marit Parsons argues otherwise in her paper "Hán Grýla?", stating that -- in at least one poetic record from the Icelandic island of Vigur -- Gryla is described as "two-tooled", or hermaphroditic, and is depicted as picking and winning fights with full-grown men. (Alt text: A portrait of Gryla -- an ancient-looking woman with a gigantic nose and sharp teeth, wearing a babushka's headscarf and black topper -- tearing a hunk of flesh out of a severed arm with her teeth, with a snowy landscape behind her.)
So how did Frau Perchta become Krampus? If you guessed "the Church", then good job on finding the "free space" on the Bingo board of modern myths. The church's attempts to de-pagonize the mountain folk often involved painting local gods as Christ-opposed devils, and Martin Luther even name-dropped the Frau in several of his speeches. Interestingly enough--at least in some regions--Frau Perchta seems to have *became* Krampus, with her place in the mythos being directly replaced by her male counterpart. Does this put Krampus squarely in "trans-masc icon" territory? I'll leave that questions for the professionals. And by "professionals" I mean the AO3 kids.
Most folks these days are aware of the legend of Krampus, the fuzzy, horned beast that often finds himself as the anti-Santa mascot in holiday horror flicks. But tragically under-portrayed is the figure which he evolved from; Frau Perchta, or, as Al Ridenour puts it, "the egg from which it all hatches" Frau Perchta's origins have her not as a curmudgenly child-scaring mnemonic device, but as a goddess. Some legends have her leading the Wild Hunt alongside fellow god Odin--who, it can be argued, was pretty damn queer himself. Others have her as a psychopomp, ushering the dead into the afterlife they deserve. (Alt text: A double portrait of Krampus -- a terrifying demonic-looking wolf-man, with ram horns curling backwards and his teeth bared in a roar -- and Frau Perchta -- an old crone with a hood of stars and sharp horns poking out of her skull. The two are surrounded by snow, and seem to be melting into each other.)
We've covered a lot of heavy topics this year in this column, from the unsung heroes of the AIDS epidemic, to the trans men written out of history, to cautionary tales of exclusionist writings in trans history....and my dear friends, it is the Holiday and I need a damn break. So, in the interest of giving myself some fun things to draw and giving all of my fellow goth kids some new blorbos to love on, this month we're diving into the very, very queer roots of the modern Christmas myth, and the history of the Christmas monsters of folklore. (Alt text: A portrait of the illustrator -- a short-haired femme with a fluffy short fringe-laden haircut and a beanie wearing a tank and yoga pants and smoking a tobacco pipe -- sitting at her drawing table looking very tired. An arrow is pointing at her, with text reading "REAL fuckin' eepy".)
America is at an inflection point. North Carolina officials have dismantled a library board to censor a single book about a trans child. Critical, fact-based journalism was sacrificed to political considerations this weekend when, at the behest of its new top editor, Bari Weiss, CBS pulled a widely promoted investigative report on the experiences of migrants sent to a brutal Salvadoran prison. JD Vance, positioning himself to become the heir to Trump’s autocratic state, just refused to condemn antisemitic views and stated unequivocally that America "always will be a Christian nation” — in defiance of his oath to defend the Constitutional guarantee against establishment of an official religion.
We were told to scrub any mention of gender or transgender people from dozens of research papers and surveillance reports that had already been published or were going to be published, and to stop collecting information from participants about their gender identity. For example, we had to recalculate our numbers on HIV among men who have sex with men, or MSM, a category that the CDC changed to “males who have sex with males.” The CDC had no director at the time. The order came from on high. And there was no discussion about whether we wanted to comply with the directive.
Kin Folkz, standing at a clear podium, holds aloft a proclamation from Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee recognizing Miss Major. Behind them a diverse group in red and white robes are applauding