Welcome to Thisgender

This book features research collected from over 100 trans*+ individuals and hundreds more individuals who are healthcare providers treating trans*+ patients, parents raising children who are trans*+ and non-binary, and mental health professionals. It offers transgender education frameworks useful for transgender and trans*+ affirming educators and practitioners considering trans*+ media, healthcare, and mental health representations. Lastly, it offers the term 'thisgender' as an addition to LGBTQIA to represent youth who medically transition so early that they never culturally transitioned. Essentially, Zebras among Us challenges the gender binary in every aspect of media, medicine, and mental health.

This comprehensive exploration of all things trans is the product of Dr. Abbie Goldberg and Dr. Genny Beemyn, two scholars committed to promoting trans*+ equity and inclusion. In it, Drs. Funk contribute an entry addressing the Amazon original, 'Transparent.'

In this peer-reviewed article, addressing transgender research, published by the Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice, Drs. Jaydi Funk, Steven S. Funk, and Sylvia Whelan, Esq. examine current medical practices and disclosure concerning trans*+ patients and argue that trans*+ individuals deserve more control over their personal health information.

In 'Trans Media Literacy Framework: Considering the Dynamically Shifting Terrain of Gender in Media and Considering the Assessment of Key Competencies,' a chapter contained in the book edited by Drs. Melda Yildiz, Steven S. Funk, and Belinha S. DeAbreu, Dr. Steven S. Funk offers educators a critical framework through which they can facilitate discussions surrounding gender, gender identity and transgender education.

This article suggests that educators play a critical role in challenging the history of transgender education and discrimination against gender expansive individuals and that their willingness to avail themselves of the material that currently exists is not merely a matter of taste, but a matter of social justice, of equity, and of proactively evolving the discourse of gender and its ideological implications in the classroom.

Transparent depicts Maura as a dynamic character, yet it also depicts her dispossession that results from sociocultural forces and from her own internalized transphobia (cissexism) as a “normal” part of “coming out”. Drs. Funk conclude that exposing the transgender dispossession depicted in Transparent could disrupt the normality of cisgender privilege to open a critical dialogue about the reification of the gender binary in media.