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Jun. 7th, 2015 01:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolariSo, there are a lot of people who have added me on my social networks these last three incredibly hectic days. For those of you, welcome. You probably have no idea who I am other than what the articles out there say I am: "Call me Jenn."
Had I known this was going to go viral (or, to be honest, nuclear), I probably would have written something more profound like Crystal did. I felt she wrote it better anyways, and I have a bad habit of stcking my foot SQUARELY into my mouth.
So. Who am I. Let's stick with the #myvanityfaircover stuff first.
Basically, I'm the person who absentmindedly got the ball rolling with a tweet that said "Where's MY Vanity Fair Cover" once Caitlyn Jenner's Vanity Fair cover came out. I wasn't trying to be narcisstic or selfish...but realizing that transwomen like me (a kind of pudgy looking Mexican from South Texas) just aren't seen. I probably should have said "Where's OUR Vanity Fair cover?" (See that "foot in mouth" comment earlier). And it just kinda stuck in the back of my head all day. One of those thoughts that just sits and churns.
That afternoon, my roomie Crystal was taking her dog (an excitable corgi named Calamity) out for a walk, and being transgendered ourselves, began talking about the Jenner Vanity Fair cover, and some of the portrayals of transwomen on the mass media lately.
There seems to be a latch onto the white late male-to-female transitioner with plenty of resources in the media. And to be fair, that IS a valid transition. I'm not demeaning that in anyway. I simply don't want that to be our "archetype" in the public eye. And there are folks like Laverne Cox and Janet Mock are helping to steer that archetype away as well.
Now, I may have got the ball rolling on this...but Crystal took that ball, put it into a cannon, and shot it into the stratosphere. She created some templates and posted her pic and statement first. I did my own simply quoting Crystal. Then we threw the template out there figuring some of our other trans friends would like it. We expected, at the most a couple of dozen of these.
And then my pic with Crystal's post began getting reshared. And reshared. And so much resharing. I think right now I have 17,000 notes on that pic. We both decided...well..okay then. Let's start reposting these to our own tumblr accounts, and they'll get more exposure. And the pics just kept being sent in. And the thing we noticed - there were so many different shades and colors and bodies and genders...this needed to be it's own thing.
We made the myvanityfaircover.tumblr.com site to be a place where we could see those faces.
I've mostly been the one who finds and posts the pics and news articles. We don't blindly repost anything, there's actually some checking to make sure the pic is legitimate, and if not, we err on the side of caution. It takes some time to check up on these, and it's eaten up most of our non-day-job hours.It's been a struggle to keep up with the pics at time, so don't feel bad if we've missed yours (or posted it three times...we get very tired at the end of the day).
Crystal also does picture reposting, but also answers all the questions, maintains the tumblr and the templates and deletes my duplicated pictures and accidental crossposts. I'll let her tell her story on her own.
Professor Calamity Mythos, our morale support, mostly looks at us and wonders why she can't eat our dinner.
Outside of all this, I'm a cartoonist who has been drawing two fairly popular (in rtansgender circles) webcomics since 2001. "Closetspace" about a pair of transgender roomies who don't know about each other, and "A Wish for wings" about a woman who wants to be an angel. I won't spoil: you can find both at http://www.dolari.net
I'm an avid roadtripper, often dissapearing out into the countryside for hours on end, exploring and learning about the smaller areas of the Washington State wilderness, a habit I picked up from my Dad taking me all over the Texas Hill Country. Our biggest claim to roadtrip fame? A trip from San Antonio to Seattle using no freeways (well, except for the twenty-six miles near Santa Fe...oh, and the crash we had twenty miles from home).
I love videogames as well, especially fighters (Super Street Fighter II Turbo, and Mortal Kombat II mostly), Racers (Mario Kart 8!) and puzzlish games. Current addiction: Splatoon.
And there you have it. A little about us, a little about me, and a lot about what we're doing. Thanks for posting the pics, thanks for being brave, and thanks for making this "A Thing."
I guess we got OUR Vanity Fair covers....
--Jenn
#myvanityfaircover
Had I known this was going to go viral (or, to be honest, nuclear), I probably would have written something more profound like Crystal did. I felt she wrote it better anyways, and I have a bad habit of stcking my foot SQUARELY into my mouth.
So. Who am I. Let's stick with the #myvanityfaircover stuff first.
Basically, I'm the person who absentmindedly got the ball rolling with a tweet that said "Where's MY Vanity Fair Cover" once Caitlyn Jenner's Vanity Fair cover came out. I wasn't trying to be narcisstic or selfish...but realizing that transwomen like me (a kind of pudgy looking Mexican from South Texas) just aren't seen. I probably should have said "Where's OUR Vanity Fair cover?" (See that "foot in mouth" comment earlier). And it just kinda stuck in the back of my head all day. One of those thoughts that just sits and churns.
That afternoon, my roomie Crystal was taking her dog (an excitable corgi named Calamity) out for a walk, and being transgendered ourselves, began talking about the Jenner Vanity Fair cover, and some of the portrayals of transwomen on the mass media lately.
There seems to be a latch onto the white late male-to-female transitioner with plenty of resources in the media. And to be fair, that IS a valid transition. I'm not demeaning that in anyway. I simply don't want that to be our "archetype" in the public eye. And there are folks like Laverne Cox and Janet Mock are helping to steer that archetype away as well.
Now, I may have got the ball rolling on this...but Crystal took that ball, put it into a cannon, and shot it into the stratosphere. She created some templates and posted her pic and statement first. I did my own simply quoting Crystal. Then we threw the template out there figuring some of our other trans friends would like it. We expected, at the most a couple of dozen of these.
And then my pic with Crystal's post began getting reshared. And reshared. And so much resharing. I think right now I have 17,000 notes on that pic. We both decided...well..okay then. Let's start reposting these to our own tumblr accounts, and they'll get more exposure. And the pics just kept being sent in. And the thing we noticed - there were so many different shades and colors and bodies and genders...this needed to be it's own thing.
We made the myvanityfaircover.tumblr.com site to be a place where we could see those faces.
I've mostly been the one who finds and posts the pics and news articles. We don't blindly repost anything, there's actually some checking to make sure the pic is legitimate, and if not, we err on the side of caution. It takes some time to check up on these, and it's eaten up most of our non-day-job hours.It's been a struggle to keep up with the pics at time, so don't feel bad if we've missed yours (or posted it three times...we get very tired at the end of the day).
Crystal also does picture reposting, but also answers all the questions, maintains the tumblr and the templates and deletes my duplicated pictures and accidental crossposts. I'll let her tell her story on her own.
Professor Calamity Mythos, our morale support, mostly looks at us and wonders why she can't eat our dinner.
Outside of all this, I'm a cartoonist who has been drawing two fairly popular (in rtansgender circles) webcomics since 2001. "Closetspace" about a pair of transgender roomies who don't know about each other, and "A Wish for wings" about a woman who wants to be an angel. I won't spoil: you can find both at http://www.dolari.net
I'm an avid roadtripper, often dissapearing out into the countryside for hours on end, exploring and learning about the smaller areas of the Washington State wilderness, a habit I picked up from my Dad taking me all over the Texas Hill Country. Our biggest claim to roadtrip fame? A trip from San Antonio to Seattle using no freeways (well, except for the twenty-six miles near Santa Fe...oh, and the crash we had twenty miles from home).
I love videogames as well, especially fighters (Super Street Fighter II Turbo, and Mortal Kombat II mostly), Racers (Mario Kart 8!) and puzzlish games. Current addiction: Splatoon.
And there you have it. A little about us, a little about me, and a lot about what we're doing. Thanks for posting the pics, thanks for being brave, and thanks for making this "A Thing."
I guess we got OUR Vanity Fair covers....
--Jenn
#myvanityfaircover
