Trish Mifflin is a pen name for a male-bodied crossdresser living in the Pittsburgh area. She works in public relations and marketing for a large Pittsburgh organization. She lives most of her life presenting as male.

She knew from a young age that she didn’t feel like a “boy” but never heard the word “transgendered” until much later.

A recovering Catholic, she tried for years to “pray away the trans” only to find her feelings of being “out of place” getting stronger and stronger. She joined a support group in 2006 and came out to her family as transgendered about two years later. (And she joined the Episcopal Church, too.)

Walking both sides of the gender line makes her very aware of male privilege, and she’s become kind of a militant feminist (which, in her male life, sometimes surprises colleagues who don’t know about Trish).

She is happily married to a wonderful woman who has known about “Trish” since their third date. Trish’s wife enjoys having a spouse who shares her interests—and her taste in clothes!

Trish says “transgender” terms are a minefield, even for people who are active in the gay and lesbian community. So she happily recommends several books — “My Husband Betty” by Helen Boyd, “She’s Not There” by Jennifer Finney Boylan, and “Whipping Girl” by Julia Serano.

Also, Trish would like to assure you that transwomen and crossdressers aren’t going to the ladies’ room to spy on people … but like everyone else, they do need to pee!

Losing my religion: Part 4

Losing my religion: Part 4

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) When I left the Roman Catholic church, I felt lost. I knew I wasn’t a fundamentalist Christian. I have friends who have become Buddhists, and while I admire them, it wasn’t for me. I heard an interview with Rainn Wilson, who plays Dwight Schrute on “The Office,” and who’s […]

Losing my religion: Part 3

Losing my religion: Part 3

(Part 1, Part 2) One thing I probably should have made clearer from the outset: I don’t regard religion or even faith as a prerequisite to living a good live. I’ve met morally upstanding atheists and some really horrible people who also were professed Christians, Jews or Muslims. And I always regarded missionary work as […]

What’s in a name?

What’s in a name?

As a transgender person, I thought I’d chime in on Sue’s post about CBS-TV’s “Mike and Molly.” Maybe you’re wondering why “shemale” is unacceptable. It’s because “shemale” has almost exclusively become associated with pornographic depictions of transwomen. (Go ahead and Google “shemale” if you want to, but most of your results will not be safe […]

Losing my religion: Part 2

Losing my religion: Part 2

(Part 1.) My mom guessed I was transgender before I was ready to tell her. She had noticed a couple of things, like my long fingernails and plucked eyebrows. But the thing that really convinced her was when I told her I was leaving the church of my birth — the Roman Catholic church. I […]

Will trans* scouts and parents be protected?

Detail from a 1970 Norman Rockwell painting

Can I just say, as a former Boy Scout, that Jen rocks hard? And so do all of the other people putting pressure on the Boy Scouts? As far as I’m concerned, there have always been gay or transgendered Boy Scouts. We were the ones sewing our own sashes and pressing our own creases in […]

Losing my religion: Part 1

Losing my religion: Part 1

It’s hard for LGBTQ people to talk about religion, or even to interact with religion, because most of us have been victimized by religious zealots of one sort or another. Bigots have conveniently cherry-picked verses from holy books to tell us we’re abominations and deny us basic human dignity. As far as I’m concerned, if […]

Statistically significant?

Statistically significant?

Earlier this month, I went on a teensy bit of a rant about Human Rights Campaign’s Municipal Equality Index. Why was New Hope Borough, Bucks County, ranked, when we in Western Pennsylvania weren’t? As Sue points out, HRC included those communities among the top 50 municipalities in population, state capitals, and with statistically significant numbers […]

Pittsburgh, that far-off forgotten outpost …

I guess maybe it’s a good thing that City of Pittsburgh employees still can’t read this blog, because we were snubbed recently by Human Rights Campaign. (Or maybe Pittsburgh was snubbed because employees can’t look at pghlesbian.com? Hmmm. Ve-r-r-r-y interesting.) I hadn’t heard about this until today, when someone linked to HRC’s first-ever rating system […]

My ambivalence about remembrance

My ambivalence about remembrance

I don’t have a smart phone yet, so when I’m traveling, I’m mostly without email and Internet. Thanksgiving week, I was driving south with my partner to visit her family. We were somewhere in West-by-God-Virginia when Sue emailed, “Are you going to write something about Transgender Day of Remembrance?” Crap, I thought, when I finally […]

Think pink (not)

  In Japan, Honda has introduced its “first car exclusively for women.” “Honda Fit She’s” (sic) have pink instruments on their dashboards, hot pink stitching on their seats and steering wheels, and are painted in colors “inspired by popular eyeshadow shades.” They have windshields and “plasma cluster” air conditioning systems designed to prevent wrinkles. I […]