News :: Commentary

Transmissions: Common ground

Transmissions: Common ground

  • by Gwendolyn Ann Smith
  • Feb 23, 2022

By the time you read this column, Florida's House of Representatives may have already voted on House Bill 1557/Senate Bill 1834.

Guest Opinion: SFUSD management seeks to fire beloved queer mentor and math teacher

Guest Opinion: SFUSD management seeks to fire beloved queer mentor and math teacher

  • by John Lisovsky
  • Feb 18, 2022

The national teacher shortage has not spared San Francisco, which is seeing extreme difficulty filling teaching positions.

Transmissions: When a swimmer is not a swimmer

Transmissions: When a swimmer is not a swimmer

  • by Gwendolyn Ann Smith
  • Feb 9, 2022

Lia Thomas is a swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also a transgender woman. The latter statement is currently jeopardizing the former.

Transmissions: The transition shower

Transmissions: The transition shower

  • by Gwendolyn Ann Smith
  • Jan 26, 2022

A friend of mine alerted me to a social media post from a woman named Becca Green, and I wanted to share it here. In it, Green shares a brilliant possibility.

Transmissions: A walk in my shoes

Transmissions: A walk in my shoes

  • by Gwendolyn Ann Smith
  • Jan 12, 2022

It is a new year: a chance to start with a clean slate, of course.

Transmissions: Taking back 2022

Transmissions: Taking back 2022

  • by Gwendolyn Ann Smith
  • Dec 29, 2021

The holidays can be a hard time to be a trans person. More often than not, we don't have a lot of family to go home to for the holidays, and end up spending many days far removed from the trappings of the season.

Transmissions: A little humanity

Transmissions: A little humanity

  • by Gwendolyn Ann Smith
  • Dec 15, 2021

There's one thing that transgender people have that is routinely stripped away from us and it is something we so desperately need extended to us right now — and that is humanity.

Transmissions: The darkness before the dawn

Transmissions: The darkness before the dawn

  • by Gwendolyn Ann Smith
  • Nov 17, 2021

For 22 years, transgender people have gathered near the end of November to honor those lost due to anti-transgender violence over the year for the Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Transmissions: A change of the season

Transmissions: A change of the season

  • by Gwendolyn Ann Smith
  • Nov 3, 2021

Fall is one of my favorite times of year. Unlike the other seasons, it feels like an unhurried transformation, as we move through the hanging days of summer, slowly feeling the air grow chillier.

Transmissions: Butt of the joke

Transmissions: Butt of the joke

  • by Gwendolyn Ann Smith
  • Oct 20, 2021

In February 2006, Dave Chappelle was interviewed by Oprah Whitney about walking off his eponymous Comedy Central sketch show.

Jock Talk: Gruden exposed for the racist homophobe he is

Jock Talk: Gruden exposed for the racist homophobe he is

  • by Roger Brigham
  • Oct 12, 2021

The worst part of now-former Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden's emails wasn't the racist imagery or the homophobic language. It was that he felt so comfortable saying those things to people in the sports world he considered friends.

Transmissions: Three reasons to care

Transmissions: Three reasons to care

  • by Gwendolyn Ann Smith
  • Sep 8, 2021

The United States Supreme Court opted to let Texas Senate Bill 8 go into effect.

Transmissions: They're just clothes

Transmissions: They're just clothes

  • by Gwendolyn Ann Smith
  • Aug 25, 2021

I recently came across the following post on Twitter.

Transmissions: Olympic-sized double standards

Transmissions: Olympic-sized double standards

  • by Gwendolyn Ann Smith
  • Aug 11, 2021

It wasn't until 2003 that the Olympics had a formal policy for trans participants.