I've been invited to write about my Transgender experience, to be published in a magazine.
Should I expect money? If so how much? I'm not very anxious to write this, but might. Has anyone else had a similar experience, and what did you do?
Ahabidah
Invited to write about my Transgender experience.
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Comments
Purpose for Writing?
Ahabidah, why are you exposing yourself and is this your idea or did someone talk you into it? There are dozens of questions which "should be" answered before you submit any biography for public consumption. I'm not the best person in the world to be giving advice to someone I've never met. Let's start someplace and you finish it out in your own time holding it up to the light of exposure and make sure you can handle it no matter what the outcome may be.
Telling the world one is trans is opening up one's personal life and emotions to microscopic inspection and hundreds if not thousands of opinions. Some of those will be supportive. Many will be negative. Are you able to handle the hate mongers? Do you have emotional support for those times when it seems the whole damn world vilifies you?
When one has been called every name imaginable and a lot not conceivable until one has heard them. When one has been threatened with bodily harm up close and personal and from others all over the world.
When so called "friends" are not to be found because they didn't want the slime on themselves.
When you aren't allowed to defend yourself because no one will listen to logic and reason over hate?
Her heart was in the right place. If she told the world who and what she was, others would be accepted as humans also. Lynn Conway and dozens of others had broken the silence barrier already. She accepted an interview on the Jerry Springer Show. Two days later she started up the car and sat there in the garage with the doors shut.
Some years back I was offered an interview on The Dr. Phil Show. I gave them the names of several ladies who would be an excellent choice to explain transgender, what it is and more importantly what it isn't. It takes sharpness of mind and instant recall to be interviewed personally. None of which I possess myself.
Whether you do or don't do the interview is a personal choice only you can make. Virtually every single trans I know who has been exposed still receives hate long after they came forward to tell the world they aren't "monsters or freaks". Make sure you're strong enough emotionally to weather the storm if you take that step.
I wish you happiness most of all. Accept what you have as a gift from God for few have been so blessed.
always
Barb
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Caution
What Barb says is filled with wisdom.
Let me add some of my experience.
A lot depends on what magazine has approached you. Is it a LGBTQ-friendly magazine? I've written stories for many magazines and newspapers. You'd be surprised what most of them consider to be acceptable "editing". Even if they don't make wholesale changes to your article, simply by adding misleading headlines and by placement of your article in relationship to other articles, the entire tone of your story can be compromised.
Most online magazines can't afford to pay for content. They're looking for people who are wanting to get their message out, who want link juice, or who are building a resume. I ran a website for several years. I still get offered free content on a daily basis. I'm totally convinced there are way more writers than readers on most issues.
Most newspapers are unprofitable and pay next to nothing. The national magazines I've written for have never paid me . . . I write to express opinion and to enhance my industry reputation.
For-profit magazines only want to be controversial so people will pay to read them. They will exploit you any way they can.
I've read nearly all of what you've written here. You're a sensitive person who expects the world to behave according to an acceptable norm. A good share of the world seemingly sees you as prey because of your idealism. In my opinion, writing the article you describe has much more potential for disaster than it does for turning out to be a positive event you will cherish.
BC offers you a great forum to tell the world about your life. Erin does her very best to make sure the bad people stay in their corners.
Good luck with whatever decision you make.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Lesson of the internet
People have hoped that the internet would break down barriers to human ignorance and bring us together. In some ways it has but the internet has shown that there is a huge amount of human 'dark energy' too that the internet shows how humans resist change and value their own ego over reason. That is the ownly reason an egotistical and thoroughly despicable man like Trump could have gotten elected.
So do expect to get a lot of the same force directed at you.
The Advice given so far is excellent
Ask youself this simple question
Is this going to give you the 'fifteen nano seconds' of fame that so many people crave and what then?
Just think what happens on 'Jerry Springer' in situations like this? There are consequences of any actions (Newtons first law). What if this goes badly? Can you trust the publication not to {cough-cough} edit your article to make it fit their political agenda?
etc
etc
etc
Take care with this decision
Samantha
What magazine
That's the biggest consideration. If it's for a supermarket gossip rag, then no way. However there some times a safe way to tell your story without exposing yourself. I was invited to do a similar thing (write my story as a trans person) and I took them up on it. It was supposed to be published in book form along with the stories of others.
I eventually posted the story here; "Silence is Golden." I no longer remember what the name of the publication was. The advantage for me was and is that no one knows me by my femme name except other trans people, so I had/have a measure of anonymity. Will they let you publish under a pseudonym?
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann