Serena Sonoma
Freelance Journalist
Freelance journalist who focuses on fashion and culture. SerenaSonoma1@gmail.com
PROJECTS
Harper's Bazaar
How Black Trans Women Are Redefining Beauty Standards
To be deemed pretty in the transgender community means looking as cisgender as possible. Much like cisgender women, trans women are expected to cater to conventional standards of physical beauty; they're asked to be feminine and soft—to be able to blend in. The message being conveyed: exist as little as possible.
Pretty privilege and passing privilege are terms that most trans women are aware of. But when you are a black transgender woman, the conversation doesn’t end there. For centuries, id...
theestablishment.co
6 Perspectives On Being In A Monogamous-Polyamorous Relationship
These narratives are a snapshot, not a complete picture. But they help to provide contours to a narrative that’s too often blunted.
them.us
The High (and Often Deadly) Cost of Resistance for Black Queer and Trans People
“Be Strong. Stay Proud.” is the mantra heralded on the website for the Stonewall Columbus Pride Parade, an organization that claims to “stand ever firmly behind our LGBTQ community and all of our communities that demand inclusion, full enfranchisement and equality before the law,” according to its website.
But on June 17 of last year, with arms locked and mouths taped shut, four protestors fatefully challenged that.
Bustle
5 Black Trans Women in History Who Paved The Way For Me
Throughout its history, the movement for transgender rights has often been criticized for centering white people in its leadership and values. As much of history has gone, the impact of Black people within the trans community has too often been erased or simply ignored. But so much of the culture created by Black trans women and femmes has influenced so much of what we know today: Take ball culture for example, created in 1860s Harlem by trans and femmes of color, which gave way to voguing — ...
intomore.com
The Continued Exploitation That Comes With Transgender Visibility
Visibility for transgender people has been gaining momentum in recent years. With Ines Rau becoming the first transgender playmate to get her own centerfold in Playboy, to Andrea Jenkins and Danica Roem becoming the first out transgender politicians in American history, their representation is helping other transgender people to become a part of industries that seemed inaccessible before.
Yet the focus on the trans community has also given way to exploitation.
When headlines use forms of micr...
Bustle
10 Transgender & Nonbinary People On What It’s Like To Date A Cis Partner
I am 24 years old, yet I am still relatively new to the world of dating. It was just last October when I went on the first date I’ve ever been on. We met on a dating app, and we went out for ice cream. Before dropping me off at my house, we ended the date with a kiss — then I never heard from him again. Another date I went on ended abruptly when I brought up my gender identity: My date had not read my dating profile, where I clearly state that I’m transgender, and soon the ...
wearyourvoicemag.com
8 Non-Binary People on What Society Should Learn About Gender
We have to deconstruct what we have been taught about the gender binary, and that is why non-binary visibility is pivotal in the fight for both transgender and non-binary rights.
VICE
Trans Women Explain Their Favorite Parts of Transitioning
From the way they wear their hair to specific changes in their bodies, some changes can serve as a refuge from body and gender dysphoria.
wearyourvoicemag.com
Keaton Jones, Ashawnty Davis and the White Supremacist Limits of Empathy
We live in a society where empathy and compassion is limited for Black, Indigenous, and children of color and it is instead reserved to white children, who only have agency due to their white privilege, period.
It’s hard not to look at the viral video of Keaton Jones, an elementary school boy, looking straight into the camera, completely distraught over the kids who bully him at school. In first watching the video, my initial instincts were those of pain and understanding, I too was a victim ...
The Daily Dot
9 transgender and non-binary people explain what gender dysphoria feels like
When your physical body doesn’t align with your identity, it can be debilitating—but there’s hope.
wearyourvoicemag.com
6 Trans And Non-Binary Creatives Describe Their Paths To Success
Navigating spaces has never been easy for transgender and non-binary people who have to go through the hurdles of various forms of discrimination in the workplace, finding romantic partners, using public restrooms, violence, sexual assault and just being seen as human.
wearyourvoicemag.com
Feminism 101: A Cheat Sheet on Sexism, Misogyny, Misogynoir and More
When it is all said and done, both male and female identified people need feminism.
Bustle
How Can You Cope With Catcalling? 10 Women Explain How They Deal With It
***THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN BY (https://www.clippings.me/blkkatie) I AM ONLY CREDITING AS AN INTERVIEWEE***
wearyourvoicemag.com
Myth-Busting: Trans Women Aren't Tricking Cis-Hetero Men Into Sex
Myth-Busting: Trans Women Aren't Tricking Cis-Heter...
wearyourvoicemag.com
How You Can Help Create a Safe Space for Trans People in the ...
How You Can Help Create a Safe Space for Trans Peop...