User:Tamzin/sandbox
Mira Bellwether[a] (March 31, 1982 – December 25, 2022) was an American author, artist, and sex educator[4] best known for Fucking Trans Women
Early life and gender transition
Mira Bellwether[a] was born on March 31, 1982.[5] Her mother, Tammy, was a hospice nurse; her father, Terry, was a respiratory therapist. In her youth she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, a disability that would frame the rest of her life.[4] Raised in the U.S. state of Iowa, she began playing dress-up with girls starting at the age of six, ending when her parents moved to a more rural area in her teens. Describing herself later as, Bellwether experimented with women's clothing and makeup—drag, in her words—while at the same time exploring her sexuality.[6] She left Iowa as soon as she was able to.[4] As of 2010, she described herself as.[1]
Fucking Trans Women and sex education
In 2010, living in Iowa at the time,[7] Bellwether self-published Fucking Trans Women #0, intended as the first issue of a zine about sex with trans women. (Bellwether grew frustrated in subsequent years as, despite issue #0's popularity, submissions for issue #1 failed to materialize.[4]) Bellwether emphasized this point throughout the rest of her life. She told Autostraddle in 2013: This attitude subverted prevailing associations regarding inability to become erect.[8] Lucie Fielding's Trans Sex (2021) cites Bellwether on this topic among others.[9] Fielding later said of Bellwether's influence on her crediting Fucking Trans Women as in her own gender transition.[4]
with Fielding promoting it in Trans Sex[10][11] Bellwether likewise continued to promote muffing as an affirming form of masturbation in the years following the release of Fucking Trans Woman.[12]
Fucking Trans Women is heavily colored by Bellwether's own experiences as a disabled trans woman. Writes Sloane Holzer in Them:[4]
Personal life and advocacy
Throughout Bellwether's 20s and early 30s, she traveled extensively through places including Chicago; Austin, Texas; and San Francisco. In 2016, she moved to New York, where she lived with her husband. The latter had read Fucking Trans Women years before, on the advice of trans friends, the first time he dated a trans woman.[4] In 2020, the two launched a GoFundMe seeking funds for Bellwether's planned vaginoplasty.[13]
Bellwether was an advocate for trans women, including supporting Camp Trans and speaking out for access to transgender hormone therapy. According to her widower, on at least one occasion she bailed out a transgender sex worker but took no credit.[4]
Illness, death, and legacy
Bellwether was diagnosed with lung cancer in October 2021. The cancer returned at stage four in September 2022. On December 19, 2022, two weeks into a hospital stay, Bellwether was admitted to an intensive care unit, where she had a massive stroke; she died on December 25 beside her husband and sister.[14] Her death led to grief within many trans communities.[15]
Kai Cheng Thom in Xtra Magazine wrote that[15] Holzer's profile in Them, published several months after Bellwether's death, begins[4]
- ^ a b Bellwether 2010, inside back cover.
- ^ Bellwether 2010, front cover.
- ^ White 2022; Kish 2022; Thom 2023; Holzer 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Holzer 2023.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
birthdaywas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Bellwether 2010, p. 61.
- ^ Bellwether 2010, p. i.
- ^ Rosenberg, Tilley & Morgan 2019, pp. 964–965.
- ^ Fielding 2021, pp. 77, 93.
- ^ Fielding 2021, pp. 93–94.
- ^ Stoya 2022.
- ^ Nadler 2013; Burns 2017.
- ^ Phillips 2020.
- ^ White 2022; Kish 2022.
- ^ a b Thom 2023.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).