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February 1, 2018 7:21 PM

To Be or Not To Be, by Masha Gessen
posted by So You're Saying These Are Pants? (7 comments total)

So they are transitioning?
posted by k8t at 7:30 PM on February 1, 2018

Masha Gessen is - as always - profound and awesome.

For a joint project, I stitched a panel in Marsha's name. I feel so happy about it.
posted by jb at 7:49 PM on February 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

strictly speaking, it was a cross-stitch OF Masha Gessen's name. Also a rainbow-fied St Basil's.
posted by jb at 7:51 PM on February 1, 2018

Cool. Always happy to hear someone is joining the ranks.
posted by lilies.lilies at 8:22 PM on February 1, 2018

Fucking hell, this is beautiful and so nuanced. Thank you for posting it. This paragraph resonated so much that I nearly vomited:

I found myself feeling resentful at hearing these stories. I too had always felt like a boy! It had taken some work for me to enjoy being a woman (whatever that means)—I’d succeeded, I had learned how to be one. But still: here I was, faced with the possibility that in the parallel life that my left-behind self was leading in the United States while I was in Russia, I would have transitioned. True gender (whatever that means) didn’t have much to do with it, but choice did. Somehow, I’d missed the fact that it was there.

posted by carbide at 2:50 AM on February 2, 2018 [4 favorites]

Wonderful essay -- thank you for posting it!
posted by Westringia F. at 6:00 AM on February 2, 2018

Good post, thank you!

My first exposure to Masha Gessen came a couple years ago reading her terrific book about Pussy Riot's incarceration, Words Will Break Cement.

Her article Autocracy: Rules for Survival is linked near the bottom of this interesting piece about proposed arrest of US mayors

Don't miss Gessen on Samantha Bee Full Frontal, either :)
posted by maniabug at 9:36 AM on February 2, 2018