Tag: trans visibility Page 1 of 2

Participants march in the 53rd annual Chicago Pride Parade on June 30, 2024, in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI / AFP) (Photo by KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

The Chicago Pride Parade has undergone a dramatic transformation since its early days, shifting from a jubilant, sexually expressive act of defiance into a carefully curated and often sanitized celebration. What was once a radical protest against heteronormativity and state control has become, in many ways, a corporatized festival designed for comfort rather than confrontation. I witnessed this difference firsthand. In 1996, I marched in the Chicago Pride Parade representing Northern Illinois University’s LGBTQ student group. We carried signs demanding queer liberation, chanted with raised fists, and celebrated our bodies and desires publicly, unapologetically. That experience was one of joy, solidarity, and sexual freedom—a moment when Pride was still very much about disrupting societal norms, not being absorbed into them.

Back then, Pride was deeply rooted in the spirit of the Stonewall Riots, which were themselves an uprising against police brutality and sexual repression. The early parades were messy, loud, and intentionally provocative. The presence of leather dykes, drag queens, trans sex workers, and bare-chested men wasn’t seen as a liability to be managed but as a central part of the protest. The parade was a place where queer people could publicly celebrate their sexualities, assert their right to pleasure, and reject the shame imposed by religious institutions, the state, and the medical establishment. As Gayle Rubin (1984) argues in Thinking Sex, sexuality is a frequent site of oppression, and its liberation is integral to broader social justice.

In recent decades, however, the increasing influence of corporate sponsorship and political interests has dulled the parade’s revolutionary edge. Corporate logos now dominate floats where once activists had marched. Politicians use the parade for photo opportunities rather than advocacy. In 2017, members of Black Lives Matter were briefly detained for disrupting the Chicago parade to protest police presence—an incident that underscores how the parade now often serves authority rather than challenges it (Bridges, 2017). These developments reflect a broader trend in which the politics of Pride have been defanged in order to be palatable to mainstream audiences.

As corporate sponsors and city officials pushed to make Pride “family-friendly,” explicit expressions of sexuality became increasingly discouraged. Kink communities, once a visible part of the parade, have been pressured to tone down their presence. Nude or partially clothed participants are often now treated as potential public relations liabilities rather than as rightful members of the LGBTQ spectrum. This retreat from sexual expression is not benign. It represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what queerness means and why visibility matters. As Sarah Schulman (2012) notes in The Gentrification of the Mind, the loss of sexual politics from queer spaces is not accidental but a consequence of neoliberal attempts to assimilate LGBTQ people into systems that continue to marginalize them.

Moreover, this sanitization undermines the very people whose liberation Pride was supposed to champion. Trans people, sex workers, people living with HIV, and those engaged in non-normative sexual practices have seen their visibility diminish just as the broader LGBTQ movement claims “inclusion.” According to Ritchie and Mogul (2007), this erasure aligns with a carceral and assimilationist approach to queer politics—one that values respectability over radicalism and marginalizes those who don’t conform. What was once a space to celebrate and politicize sex has been repackaged into a space where sexuality must be discreet, marketable, and inoffensive.

The shift is especially devastating for younger queer people, who now encounter a version of Pride that often leaves out the sexual energy that was once central to our movement. In Gay Shame, Halperin and Traub (2009) explore how the repression of queer sexuality under the guise of “progress” leads not to freedom, but to a new form of policing—this time from within the community. When Pride becomes merely a parade of sanitized slogans and rainbow logos, we lose not only our history but our future.

The LGBTQ movement was born from sexual deviance, rebellion, and refusal to conform. Sanitizing that history does not protect us—it disarms us. If we allow Pride to become sexually lifeless, we are not making it more inclusive; we are making it less honest. Pride must be reclaimed as a space where queer and trans people can express their desires and bodies with the same unapologetic defiance that launched the movement. Otherwise, it risks becoming a museum piece: brightly colored, well-funded, and utterly devoid of power.

References

Bridges, T. (2017, June 25). Activists protesting police presence at Chicago Pride Parade briefly detained. Chicago Tribune.

Halperin, D. M., & Traub, V. (Eds.). (2009). Gay shame. University of Chicago Press.

Ritchie, A. J., & Mogul, J. L. (2007). In Queer communities, police presence isn’t about safety. ColorLines. https://www.colorlines.com

Rubin, G. (1984). Thinking sex: Notes for a radical theory of the politics of sexuality. In C. Vance (Ed.), Pleasure and danger: Exploring female sexuality (pp. 267–319). Routledge.

Schulman, S. (2012). The gentrification of the mind: Witness to a lost imagination. University of California Press.

The Legacy I Hope to Leave Behind

By Katherine Walter

On July 1, 2025

In reflection

Image: ChatGPT

Legacy is not built all at once. It takes shape over time—quietly, unevenly—through the choices we make, the truths we speak, and the lives we touch. I don’t imagine mine will be written in bold headlines or etched into stone. But I hope it will be felt in subtler, more enduring ways. In the freedom someone claims because I once stood up. In the insight sparked by something I taught or wrote. In the love that lingers in the spaces I leave behind.

I’ve lived many chapters in this life—some of them linear, others far more tangled. I began as a student of anthropology, drawn to the study of culture, meaning, and human complexity. It taught me to listen deeply, to question what seems natural, and to honor what is often ignored or devalued. Anthropology gave me not just tools for understanding others—it gave me a way to understand myself. As a transgender woman, as a spiritual seeker, as someone shaped by forces both seen and hidden, I learned to situate my life within broader currents of history and identity. That perspective never left me.

Eventually, I put my education into service in a different way—as a SNAP program specialist with the USDA. There, I saw how policy lives not in abstract theories but in the faces of people trying to feed their families. I worked at the intersection of administration and survival. It gave me a profound respect for the dignity of everyday life, and a deepened sense of duty to advocate for those so often silenced by red tape and economic cruelty. That role grounded me in the real: in food, in need, in systems and the people caught within them.

But even before all of that, I served my country in uniform. I am a U.S. Navy veteran. I served as a submariner and fought in Desert Storm. It was a life of discipline, of structure, of submerged tension—both literal and emotional. That chapter gave me a close relationship with mortality, with silence, with sacrifice. And later, it gave me the courage to live my truth. Because once you’ve survived war, you learn how little time there really is for pretending.

Though my time teaching in a classroom was brief, it was profoundly meaningful. Education, I believe, is one of the most radical forms of love and hope. I did not stay long enough to become a fixture, but I hope I was a spark. I hope that somewhere, a student remembers me not as perfect, but as present. As someone who saw them clearly, challenged them to think differently, and held space for who they were becoming.

Throughout it all, I’ve remained a writer, a creator, a witness. I write not just to tell stories, but to make space—for desire, for defiance, for complex and beautiful lives that rarely make it into the mainstream. I write for those on the margins, for the ones building new worlds from the ruins of the old, and for the future selves who need proof that we were here.

If I am remembered, I hope it is as someone who lived with fierce honesty. Who loved without shame. Who fought for justice, even when she was exhausted. Who stood in her womanhood and her queerness not as burdens, but as blessings.

I hope my legacy is not one of perfection, but of permission. Permission to live. To change. To desire. To dream beyond the roles assigned at birth or by circumstance. I hope I leave behind courage in those who need it. Gentleness in those taught to harden. Fire in those told to shrink.

And if some future soul—browsing an archive, reading a quote, hearing a story—finds a piece of me and thinks, “Because she lived, I feel less alone,” then that is all the immortality I will ever need.

What I Believe About Relationships

By Katherine Walter

On June 28, 2025

In relationships

Image: ChatGPT

Relationships are among the most intimate and transformative parts of life—but for me, they don’t follow the traditional script. I’ve spent a long time unlearning what the world tells us relationships are “supposed” to be and discovering what they can be instead. I want to share what I believe about love, connection, sex, and partnership—not because I have all the answers, but because my truth might help others feel less alone in their own journey.

I am aromantic. I don’t experience romantic attraction the way most people do. I don’t crave romantic courtship, fairy-tale declarations, or being someone’s “everything.” That’s never been how my heart moves. For a long time, I felt out of sync with a world that insists on romance as the highest form of human connection. But in time, I came to understand that my way of relating isn’t less—it’s just different. I still love. I still build deep, meaningful connections. I still crave touch, intimacy, laughter, and mutual growth. But I don’t desire romance, and I don’t build my life around it.

I also identify as polyamorous. I believe that love, affection, and connection are abundant and not meant to be confined to one person at a time. I reject the idea that exclusivity is the only—or the highest—form of commitment. I find beauty in the ways people can show up for each other in different capacities. Each relationship is its own living thing, with its own needs, rhythms, and dynamics. I don’t want to own or be owned. I want connection that is chosen, not claimed.

My sexual orientation is best described as heteroflexible. I tend to be drawn to masculine energy, but attraction is fluid and often defies tidy labels. What matters most to me is authenticity—how someone exists in their body and their spirit, how they treat others, how they engage with joy, and how they handle complexity. Gender and sexuality, for me, are far more expansive than the categories we’re taught to stay within.

As a transgender woman, I bring my full self into every relationship. My womanhood is not conditional, and I refuse to enter into any dynamic where I am expected to explain or defend my identity. My transness has shaped me. It has taught me resilience, self-determination, and the sacred power of transformation. I offer all of that—openly and vulnerably—to the people I care about.

I also embrace a fully sex-positive philosophy. I believe sex is sacred, playful, healing, and liberating. I do not see sexuality as something to be ashamed of or hidden away. Whether I’m expressing desire through kink, physical intimacy, fantasy, or open conversation, I treat it as something that should be approached with joy, creativity, and care. Being aromantic doesn’t mean being asexual—though both identities are valid. For me, it means I can enjoy sexual and emotional intimacy without it needing to be filtered through a romantic lens.

What I want from relationships is truth. I want honesty without cruelty, intimacy without entitlement, and care without pretense. I don’t need people to fit into categories like “partner,” “lover,” or “friend.” I need them to show up as their full selves, and to let me do the same. I want to build chosen family. I want conversations that last for hours, shared silence that feels like home, mutual support in the chaos, and connection that expands rather than restricts.

I believe that love is not a single, fixed thing. It’s a spectrum, a mosaic, a process. It doesn’t always follow a script. It doesn’t have to end in a wedding or a shared mortgage to be real. It doesn’t have to be romantic to be profound. And it certainly doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s version of love.

Being aromantic means that I love differently. Not less. Not worse. Just differently. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that we need more room in this world for different ways of loving. I want people to know that there are many valid ways to connect—and that living outside the traditional narrative can be not just fulfilling, but joyful, liberating, and deeply human.

So this is me, being honest about what I believe: in love without possession, sex without shame, intimacy without obligation, and relationships that are defined not by convention, but by care. If you’ve ever felt like the world’s idea of love doesn’t fit you—know that you are not broken. You are simply someone who deserves to love, and be loved, on your own terms.

Why Teaching Requires More Than Pedagogy

By Katherine Walter

On May 16, 2025

In educational institutions

Created with ChatGPT

As someone who holds a Master’s degree in Anthropology, I entered the world of education with both passion and purpose. While my primary focus was cultural anthropology, I—like every graduate in the discipline—was trained in all four subfields: cultural, linguistic, archaeological, and biological anthropology. That meant I not only studied cultures and societies, but also the scientific method, human evolution, genetics, and the biological roots of human behavior. I came to education with a deep respect for science and evidence-based learning.

This is why, during an assignment as a substitute teacher in a high school science class in Illinois, I was shocked when the regular teacher told me—without hesitation—that “scientific theories are not factual.” He dismissed evolution as “make believe,” clearly unaware that a scientific theory is one of the highest forms of scientific understanding—built upon repeated observation, experimentation, and peer review. Evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology, not a matter of personal belief.

This isn’t a harmless slip-up. This is a fundamental failure in teacher preparation. It’s not enough to teach students how to learn if we’re giving them incorrect or ideologically distorted content. I’ve read critiques arguing that college should be limited to learning within one’s major, and that students should have mastered foundational knowledge in high school. The reality is, many high school students aren’t mastering those foundations—because their teachers are not adequately prepared to teach them.

Too many teacher preparation programs emphasize methods over mastery. Aspiring educators are trained extensively in classroom management, differentiated instruction, and educational theory—yet not always required to have a deep command of the subjects they will teach. In some cases, they’re licensed to teach science with little more than a generalist background.

And the problem doesn’t end with science.

I was working toward my teaching license through a Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program when I encountered another systemic problem—this time around sex education. I have a sex-positive stance, one rooted in both personal conviction and research-based evidence. In one health class I observed, students were assigned to budget for the costs of raising a newborn. It was clear the goal was to instill fear—to use financial anxiety as a scare tactic to promote abstinence. But studies have consistently shown that abstinence-only education not only fails to prevent teen pregnancy and STIs but can also be psychologically harmful, particularly to students who do become young parents.

Sexual health education should be empowering and factual, not shame-driven. But when I expressed my concerns, I encountered resistance—not just from individual educators, but from the institution itself.

Things came to a head when a student created a video montage of several posts from my account on X (formerly Twitter). These were not instructional posts. They were personal, blunt statements about my sexual desires—an expression of my identity as a sex-positive transgender woman and my belief that it is okay to have sexual feelings as a man or trans woman who is attracted to men. These posts were part of my advocacy: normalizing desire, refusing shame, and affirming the validity of trans and queer sexuality.

The school’s administration didn’t see it that way. Despite my academic progress and professional goals, my student teaching was terminated by the principal and HR. The university I was attending stated that they supported me—but they offered no legal or practical assistance in dealing with the district. Ultimately, I was left to fend for myself, and I made the painful decision to withdraw from the MAT program.

This experience left me disillusioned but not without resolve. It exposed not only the institutional discomfort with sex positivity and LGBTQ+ inclusion, but also a broader systemic issue: we are not preparing teachers who are content experts, nor are we protecting those who challenge outdated or harmful norms. We are failing both our educators and our students.

This is why I firmly believe that the time has come to rethink our entire approach to public education. In today’s complex and fast-paced world, a high school diploma is no longer sufficient preparation for the workforce—or for responsible citizenship. I believe a community college education should become the new baseline, just as a high school diploma was once considered the minimum requirement. Community colleges offer an affordable, accessible means of deepening one’s understanding of science, mathematics, communication, and civic literacy. They can provide a critical bridge to more specialized training and help ensure that our future educators, health workers, and citizens are equipped with both knowledge and critical thinking skills.

We need teachers who understand evolution, who can explain the scientific method, who are prepared to address the realities of human sexuality without resorting to fear or shame. We need school districts that protect educators from ideological purges, and universities that do more than offer symbolic support when their students face political or cultural backlash.

I may have been pushed out of the MAT program, but I have not given up on education. I still believe deeply in the power of teaching—and in the need for radical reform in how we prepare those who take on that responsibility.

Our students deserve teachers who are not only caring and skilled, but who actually know what they’re talking about. Anything less is a betrayal of their potential.