Category Archives: What I’m Up To

Transgender Day of Visibility 2025

A Transgender Day of Visibility 2025 banner, with the words in the trans pride flag colors and the background in the pride rainbow.

Hello. My name is Jen Dantes. I am:

I am all these things. All of them help to define me.

This is me being visible in the face of a government that wants to stifle me, deny me, say I don’t exist or am mentally ill (well, I knew that part) or am some kind of horrible person for the sheet reason of what I am. I am standing up and telling them no, in this little way.

Doesn’t matter what the press says. Doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world — “No, you move.”

– Captain America

No, transphobes and MAGA and TERFS and all the rest of you who hate me for claiming my own identity.

You move.

If you don’t like it? Go to hell.

The announcement: I have published a novel!

Yes! That’s the big announcement for today, the thing that’s been being counted down to in the margin and in my other posts. I have published a novel! My first novel. And I’m excited.

It’s called The Ballad of the Grey Swan. It’s a swashbuckling fantasy novel inspired by things like:

  • my love of Dungeons and Dragons and fantasy
  • the works of Alexandre Dumas like The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers,
  • books like War for the Oaks which involve people rising up to be the equal of magical powers
  • swashbuckler movies
  • my desire to have a fantasy novel that reflects trans people and gay people as just people living their lives (well, as normal as you get in a fantasy world, but you get the idea) until things get weird
  • and an image I got in my head and had to get out one way or another.

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Transgender Things: The Cost of Being Yourself, Part 1: Name Changes

 A name change is important – you want to be yourself, and when you’re transgender, your name is a big, big part of it. This got brought up in a comment on my last post, so I thought I’d go into a bit of detail about the costs for a name change here where I live in the state of Pennsylvania.

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