Mira Bellwether | |
|---|---|
 Bellwether in 2021 | |
| Born | (1982-03-31)March 31, 1982 |
| Died | December 25, 2022(2022-12-25) (aged 40) New York City, U.S. |
| Occupation |
|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Transgender sexuality |
| Years active | 2010–2022 |
| Notable works | Fucking Trans Women |
Mira Bellwether[a] (March 31, 1982 – December 25, 2022) was an American author, artist, andsex educator[4] best known forFucking Trans Women, a single-issuezine in which she wrote and illustrated all articles. Described inSexuality & Culture as "a comprehensive guide to trans women's sexuality",[5]Fucking Trans Women was the first publication of note to focus on sex with trans women and was innovative in its focus on trans women's own perspectives and its inclusion of instructions for many of the sex acts depicted.[6] Bellwether was also an advocate for transgender women and in opposition totrans-exclusionary feminism.
Bellwether's work has served as an influence to trans writers, journalists, and scholars, particularly in the field of transgender sexuality. Her death in 2022 was met with grief in the trans community, in which her work had attained a "mythic status" according toKai Cheng Thom inXtra.[7]
Mira Bellwether[a] was born on March 31, 1982.[8] Her mother, Tammy, was a hospice nurse; her father, Terry, was a respiratory therapist. In her youth she was diagnosed with anautoimmune disease, a disability that would frame the rest of her life.[4] Raised in the U.S. state ofIowa, 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 "the smallest, slightest boy [she] knew", Bellwether experimented with women's clothing and makeup—drag, in her words—while at the same time exploring her sexuality.[9] She left Iowa as soon as she was able to.[4] As of 2010, she described herself as "a transdyke and student ... afemme, aqueer, a dork, a cocksucker, and lots of other things".[1]
In 2010, living in Iowa at the time,[10] Bellwether self-publishedFucking Trans Women #0, intended as the first issue of azine about sex with trans women. Finding submitted materials insufficient, she chose to make the zine a solo effort and number it "#0" to leave room for a "#1" featuring others' contributions.[11] (Bellwether grew frustrated in subsequent years as, despite issue #0's popularity, submissions for issue #1 failed to materialize.[4]) The zine (sometimes abbreviatedFTW) explores a variety ofsexual activities involvingtrans women,[b] primarily ones who arepre-op or non-op with respect tobottom surgery.[12] Bellwether emphasized sex acts possible with flaccid penises or not involving penises at all,[13] writing that "almost all sexual discourse on penises" was "on erect penises, hard penises, penetrating penises".[14] Bellwether emphasized this point throughout the rest of her life. She toldAutostraddle in 2013:[15]
One thing that I really tried to capture inFTW was that there are all sorts of ways to pleasure trans women. I gave a lot of time to soft penises for this reason, because in sexual literature they are almost completely ignored, and if they're not ignored, they're treated as defective or at rest or, even worse, an object of pity or scorn.
This attitude subverted prevailing associations regardinginability to become erect.[16] Lucie Fielding'sTrans Sex (2021) cites Bellwether on this topic among others.[17] Fielding later said of Bellwether's influence on her, "Her work is stating that our bodies should not just be tolerable or accepted, but that they are there to be joyously experienced", creditingFucking Trans Women as "a huge lightbulb moment" in her owngender transition.[4]
Bellwether coined the termmuffing inFucking Trans Women to refer to stimulation of theinguinal canals with fingers, testicles, or both—a practice she discovered by accident whiletucking.[18] The zine in turn popularized that act.[19] Muffing has since received coverage inAutostraddle,[20]Playboy,[18]Broadly,[12] andThe Daily Dot,[21] with Fielding promoting it inTrans Sex[22] and inJessica Stoya'ssex advice column withSlate.[23] Bellwether likewise continued to promote muffing as an affirming form of masturbation in the years following the release ofFucking Trans Woman.[24]
Fucking Trans Women is heavily colored by Bellwether's own experiences as a disabled trans woman. Sexual health scholars Riggs et al. write in an editorial, "To speak of Mira Bellwether ... as a powerful trans advocate also requires speaking about Mira as a woman who lived in the context of a health-care system that failed to meet her needs."[25] Writes Sloane Holzer inThem:[4]
The innovative determination it takes to survive in the world as a disabled person is evident inFTW and all of Mira's writing about sex. She was tenacious and endlessly curious, always focused on sharing new, accessible ways to move through a hostile world and still find pleasure.
In her 20s and early 30s, Bellwether moved numerous times around the U.S. to cities includingChicago,Austin, andSan Francisco, ultimately settling down in 2016 in New York City with her husband, who had readFucking Trans Women for advice on dating his first trans girlfriend years prior to meeting Bellwether.[4] In 2020, the two launched aGoFundMe seeking funds for Bellwether's plannedvaginoplasty.[26]
Bellwether was a strong critic ofValerie Solanas's radical feminist workSCUM Manifesto. In the context of some criticizing Solanas astrans-exclusionary, Bellwether wrote on her blog that the manifesto was "the pinnacle of misguided and hatefulsecond-wave feminism andlesbian feminism".[27] She accused Solanas ofbiological essentialism for equating male-ness with having aY chromosome in order to argue that "the male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion".[28] In the essay "On Liking Women",Andrea Long Chu objects to Bellwether's association of Solanas with lesbian feminism[29] and argues that, by associating trans-exclusionary radical feminism with second-wave feminism, Bellwether incorrectly implies that it is a relic of the past.[30]
In 2015, Bellwether advocated for the release of an Illinois trans woman who was arrested after checking in to aDes Moines, Iowa, hotel with an ID bearing a male gender marker.[31] Bellwether's other advocacy for trans women included supportingCamp Trans and speaking out for access totransgender hormone therapy. According to her widower, on at least one occasion shebailed out atransgender sex worker but took no credit.[4]
Bellwether was diagnosed withlung cancer in October 2021. The cancer returned atstage four in September 2022. On December 19, 2022, two weeks into a hospital stay, Bellwether was admitted to anintensive care unit, where she had a massivestroke; she died on December 25 beside her husband and sister.[32] News of her death led to an outpouring of grief within many trans communities.[7] Bellwether's widower subsequently proclaimed March 31, 2023—Bellwether's birthday, and alsoInternational Transgender Day of Visibility—the "First Annual Mira Bellwether Buy a Trans Woman a Pizza Day", pizza in the trans community often serving as a placeholder for any sort of care.[33]
Trans authorEmily Zhou described her short story collectionGirlfriends as inspired by Bellwether's work.[34] Ro White ofAutostraddle,obituarizing Bellwether, said that "Writing about trans bodies in a way that centers playfulness—or really, writing about trans bodies atall—was revolutionary in 2010, and it's still revolutionary today."[35] Ana Valens, who had frequently written about Bellwether's work, credited her career to her, writing in atweet thatFucking Trans Women had "changed the landscape of trans and queer sexuality" and "saved countless trans people and opened their eyes to what their bodies can do and be".[36]Kai Cheng Thom inXtra Magazine wrote that "Bellwether profoundly transformed the conversation around trans women and sex, to the extent that her zine has attained mythic status among us: We tell each other about it as though we are passing on community lore to one another."[7]
Riggs et al.'s December 2023 editorial inWomen's Reproductive Health highlights the "outpouring of tributes" for "the late and great Mira Bellwether" as showing "how her words gave trans women and their lovers a voice to speak about desire and pleasure, when no one else outside of trans communities was speaking about trans women as desirable".[25] Holzer's profile inThem, published several months after Bellwether's death, begins, "Few people have done more to expand our understanding of women's sexuality than Mira Bellwether".[4]