my latest email update

My latest email update is out – you can read it here. Highlights include: 

• Signed Books for Sale! (for the holidays or otherwise)
• Two new essays: Penises, Privilege, and Feminist & LGBTQ+ Purity Politics and Anti-Trans “Grooming” and “Social Contagion” Claims Explained (both no-paywall links)
• More news about my latest book Sexed Up: How Society Sexualizes Us, and How We Can Fight Back, including a September book interview on the podcast Vox Conversations (now called The Gray Area)
• A podcast interview about Whipping Girl for This Queer Book Saved My Life
• New social media platforms I'm on (including Mastodon, Post.News, Tumblr, and TikTok).

If you want to receive my email updates directly into your inbox (never more than once every few months), you can sign up here: http://eepurl.com/CxWWf 

new book readings, talks, interviews & debunking pseudoscience

I just published my latest email update, chock-full of new news. you can read it online here: https://mailchi.mp/64d1973d6b99/new-book-readings-talks-interviews-debunking-pseudoscience

and if you want to receive my email updates directly to your inbox, you can sign up here.

It is a fairly long update, so I won't reiterate it all here. But highlights include:

1) links to several recent interviews (in print, podcast, and YouTube forms) with me about my new book Sexed Up: How Society Sexualizes Us, and How We Can Fight Back – this includes two of the book events I did back in July. These interviews, as well as all the book excerpts, reviews, etc., can also be found on the Sexed Up webpage I just linked to.

2) On September 22nd, in honor of, Bisexual Visibility Day, I will be reading a few bi+ specific passages from Sexed Up at Fabulosa Books (489 Castro St, San Francisco, CA). The event begins at 7pm; masks are recommended but not required. Here is the Facebook invite for the event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1091569688453976 – please come out if you can!

3) Just in time for the 2022-23 academic year, I've updated my booking webpage to include a bunch of new presentations, some Sexed Up-themed, others covering trans, bisexual, LGBTQIA+, and feminist issues I often write about. If you are part of a conference or college organization that's looking for speakers, definitely check it out!

4) Debunking anti-trans pseudoscience, in two parts:

First, J. Michael Bailey and his protégé Kevin Hsu recently published a study in Archives of Sexual Behavior that attempts to refute the existence of “autogynephilia in women.” Jaimie Veale and I wrote a response that the journal just published: Autogynephilia Is a Flawed Framework for Understanding Female Embodiment Fantasies: A Response to Bailey and Hsu (2022) [PDF link]. In it, we point out numerous methodological and interpretive flaws with their study—including how their results are incompatible with Blanchard's original taxonomy—and make the case that “autogynephilia” is a flawed framework for considering both trans and cis women's sexual fantasies and desires.

Second, some of you may recall my 2019 Origins of "Social Contagion" and "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria" post, which is essentially a timeline of all the major events regarding the invention and dissemination of these ideas within anti-trans activism. I just updated the timeline with a newer entries, many of which are recent studies that undermine or outright disprove the basic tenets of these theories. All those new entries can be found in the Post-Publication Note toward the beginning of that post.

So that's what's in the update – please check it out!

newly added Sexed Up book event and interview!

Hello everyone! I've already mentioned that tomorrow (Thursday July 21st), California Institute of Integral Studies is hosting an online conversation between me and Abeni Jones entitled On Sexualization and Society. We will be talking about my latest book Sexed Up: How Society Sexualizes Us, and How We Can Fight Back. It will take place at 7pm PDT (10pm EDT), suggested price of $10 but pay what you can. Info about registering for the event and accessibility accommodations can be found via the link. Please come out!

But if you can't make it, I'm happy to announce that one more Sexed Up book event has just been added: On Thursday, July 28th, I will be doing a Conversation with Carol Queen in which we will talk about Sexed Up. The event is FREE and will take place at the Berkeley Good Vibrations store (2504 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94702) from 5:30 - 6:30pm PDT—there is very limited seating, so you must pre-register via the link if you wish to attend in person (masking required). But you can also watch it online (and for FREE) on Good Vibes’ Instagram Live.

Whether you can make it to these events or not, you should definitely check out the latest Sexed Up interview (by Marcie Bianco) that just came out in The Advocate: Author Julia Serano Separates Sex From Stigma in Sexed Up. It discusses how the book came to be, some of the topics it covers, how me being a biologist influenced my writing, and more! 

new updates about writings, upcoming shows & talks, etc!

In a previous post, I described my two different email lists: The julia update comes out about 4–6 times a year, and shares all of my latest writings, shows, and creative endeavors. Then I have a music-only update (for my two music projects *soft vowel sounds* & Bitesize) that comes out more frequently, anytime I have a new music show or release. You can sign up for them via those links, if you wish.

I'm telling you this because I just released two new updates: a music one, and a more general julia update — I encourage you to check them out! Here are a few highlights:

• I recently published a new Medium piece: The Superstition that LGBTQ+ People Are “Contagious” — please share and give it lots of "claps"!
• follow up pieces and interviews (plus a meme!) related to last month's Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria essay.
• my first college speaking events of the 2018-19 year are coming up in early October! If you want me to visit your school, please check out my booking webpage.
• two new San Francisco *soft vowel sounds* shows: a free one this Thursday (Sept. 20th) and a Halloween show on October 17th!

Finally, a reminder that I am giving away a free mp3 of one of my songs with each music update – another reason to consider signing up! This month's free song is the Bitesize classic "Yellow Belt" – check out the update if you wanna download it!

October/November events, plus essays and interviews!

On my Patreon page, I just posted an update that includes: 1) all my October & November readings/talks/performances, 2) a recent podcast interview with me, and 3) my Twitter essay/thread debunking the latest fear-mongering article depicting transgender as a mere "social contagion."

You can access that post & info here for free!

And if you appreciate my work, please consider supporting me on Patreon. If you do, you'll get access to behind-the-scenes updates, unpublished writings & recordings + more! Depending upon how much you pledge, you may be eligible for rewards, such as free eBooks, signed copies of my previous books, or requesting me to write about specific topics.

Thanks for listening, -julia

trans women are women! plus free book chapters & a NY Times interview

Yesterday I sent out my latest email update - you can read it via the link and/or sign up for my email list here. Here are some of the highlights:

I was interviewed in the New York Times as part of their Pride 2017 coverage - the article is called Julia Serano, Transfeminist Thinker, Talks Trans-Misogyny. You can read it via that link; if it's behind a paywall, here is a PDF version.

I wrote a new Medium essay called Debunking “Trans Women Are Not Women” Arguments. If you like the piece, please click the "heart" icon at the bottom of the article - that way more people on Medium will see it!

I recently made three chapters from my latest book Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism freely available for download - all of them challenge psychological theories and diagnoses that needlessly pathologize transgender people (which is why I wanted to make them readily accessible). Find out how to download them (btw, the linked post also includes excerpts from my novel-in-progress).

I am able to make these book chapters and the Debunking “Trans Women Are Not Women” Arguments piece freely available thanks to my Patreon supporters. If you support me there (for as little as $1 per month) you'll have access to behind-the-scenes updates & polls, and unpublished writings & recordings. If you pledge at higher levels, you may be eligible for rewards such as free e-books, signed copies of any of my previous books, and/or choosing the topic of a future blogpost. So if you appreciate my work, please consider supporting me there!

first Outspoken review! (and future excerpts, reviews, and interviews)

As you may (or may not) know, at the end of 2016, I released my third book, Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism. It's a collection of forty-eight chapters spanning the last decade-plus, including my early slam poems and spoken word, essays and manifestos written contemporaneously with my previous books Whipping Girl and Excluded, plus my recent writings addressing differences within trans communities and activism.

I self-published Outspoken (on my own imprint Switch Hitter Press) and (for personal reasons) I haven't been able to do much promotion for the book until now. In the coming weeks, I plan to publish numerous excerpts from the book, and I've already started uploading YouTube videos for some of the slam poems that appear in the book! (More will be released later this week...)

If you are a writer and/or run some sort of zine, podcast, website, etc., and are interested in potentially reviewing the book and/or interviewing me about it, feel free contact me and I can try to get you a copy!

three interviews, an audiobook, and a big Outspoken sneak-peak!

Hello, this is my first post here in a bit, as I've been in the throes of finally completing & releasing my third book, Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism. It will be available for purchase on Amazon no later than Wednesday, November 9th, with e-book formats and bookstore/library purchasing (through Ingram) up and running shortly thereafter.

If you are interested in "sneak-peaks" of the book, I encourage you to follow me on Patreon, a crowdfunding platform where (for pledges as low as $1 a month) you can get behind-the-scenes updates on what I am working on, access to many of my in-progress & unpublished writings, plus other goodies -- all the details are explained here.

There are currently two Outspoken excerpts exclusively available on my Patreon site:
1) A long-lost chapter originally intended for Whipping Girl
2) Sneak-peak: the last essay of Outspoken and online glossary