Yesterday was a report on the first murder of a transgender person in 2017. So I figured I needed to lighten the mood a bit. How does citizen journalism accomplish that?

Comics!

The above by Assigned Male Comics highlights how easily otherwise well-intentioned people can other transpeople.

1) It shouldn't be assumed that trans people base their identity on what others think about them.

2) Comments on trans people looking like a "real" man or woman are inappropriate, even if meant as a compliment.

3) While trans people who face unique challenges, calling them "brave" simply for being themselves can make them feel singled out.

The strip is written/drawn by Sophie Labelle. Sophie is a Canadian from Montreal. She is a former elementary school teacher.

Amy Hunter, the transgender advocacy project coordinator for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan, wrote in an April 2016 piece that North Carolina's bathroom bill HB2 sought to "otherize" trans people by forcing them to use bathrooms and locker rooms associated with their biological sex at birth.

Traces of the tactics used against women’s suffrage, desegregation, the Equal Rights Amendment and gay rights are all evident in the fight for dignity and respect for transgender people. In all of these struggles, the groups seeking equal treatment under the law and in society were, like trans people, “othered” too. Women, for instance, were painted first as not being intelligent enough to have the vote, then as threats to the status quo.

--Hunter