Quick Hit: Interview with Fucking Trans Women author Mira Bellwether

Fucking Trans Women #0 is an incredible resource. It’s the only text I’ve ever come across that’s real about ways of having sex with a body like mine. There’s a lot of misconceptions about trans women’s bodies and sexualities. Zine author Mira Bellwether tears all that down simply by talking about sex in a grounded, useful way. Do you know what muffing is? I didn’t until I read this zine, and I’m a trans woman.

Kennedy Nadler interviewed Mira over at Autostraddle about the first issue of the zine. Here’s an excerpt:

What’s your briefest synopsis of Fucking Trans Women?

Fucking Trans Women is, at its heart, a how-to manual, and the finished product is good sex.
I wanted to stress the biological facts of our bodies. We have to build a very basic vocabulary and common understanding in terms like, “this spot has lots of nerves running through it. This part likes pressure, this part likes stroking, this other part can do X, Y, and Z.” If you keep sex at the conceptual level, I think you find that it’s not as rewarding as you want it to be. In order to have good sex, I think we have to acknowledge our bodies, come to terms with them as they are, and be able to inhabit them. In other words, to be immanent rather than transcendent.

One of the reasons this zine happened was that I got really sick of explaining things and teaching my lovers about my body during time that should have been spent having sex. When one of my lovers said that she wished she had an instruction manual for my body, I took that and responded to it pretty literally.
Even at 80 pages, there’s still so much more to talk about.

You can read the full interview here and buy Fucking Trans Women #0 here for $5 – it’s worth every penny.

Boston, MA

Jos Truitt is Executive Director of Development at Feministing. She joined the team in July 2009, became an Editor in August 2011, and Executive Director in September 2013. She writes about a range of topics including transgender issues, abortion access, and media representation. Jos first got involved with organizing when she led a walk out against the Iraq war at her high school, the Boston Arts Academy. She was introduced to the reproductive justice movement while at Hampshire College, where she organized the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program’s annual reproductive justice conference. She has worked on the National Abortion Federation’s hotline, was a Field Organizer at Choice USA, and has volunteered as a Pro-Choice Clinic Escort. Jos has written for publications including The Guardian, Bilerico, RH Reality Check, Metro Weekly, and the Columbia Journalism Review. She has spoken and trained at numerous national conferences and college campuses about trans issues, reproductive justice, blogging, feminism, and grassroots organizing. Jos completed her MFA in Printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute in Spring 2013. In her "spare time" she likes to bake and work on projects about mermaids.

Jos Truitt is an Executive Director of Feministing in charge of Development.

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