Welcome to the Boing Boing guestblog, Andrea James!

I am very happy to introduce Boing Boing's latest guest blogger, Andrea James. She explains....

I'm a writer, activist and filmmaker. I wrote ads in Chicago for ten years, which led me into consumer activism that focuses on quackery and fraud, especially in medicine and academia.

I also work on behalf of the transgender community. I maintain Transsexual Road Map, a site on the practical aspects of gender transition, and HairFacts, a spinoff general-market site on hair removal. In 2003, I moved to LA and co-founded Deep Stealth Productions, to counter the dismal depiction of trans people in the media and to expand my earlier web-based educational efforts. I founded GenderMedia Foundation and serve on the board of Outfest, which showcases and preserves LGBTQ media, as well as TransYouth Family Allies, which helps families with gender-variant children.

I am also very interested in online phenomena like hoaxes, trolling, the free culture movement, social networking, and crowdsourcing projects like Wikipedia. Please email me with any tips or thoughts you'd like to share, or just to say hi!

Welcome, Andrea!

• [Hellian]

  Wow you have done so much for the transgendered community! I have a brother (female to male) who is transgendered, and it’s extremely inspiring to see activists such as yourself really making a difference.

  I have to say, I am quite smitten with you already and I cannot wait to read your blogs.

• [Tdawwg]

  I am also very interested in online phenomena like hoaxes, trolling

  Welcome!

• [Anonymous]

  Awesome :D, Andrea is so smart and a fellow skeptic, thanks boingboing.

• [Anonymous]

  YOU GO GIRL! Sock it to em”
  ~JON

• [faithmanon]

  Looking forward to your perspective on both skepticism and trans issues!

  Yay Boingboing for bringing on such great guests!

• [Anonymous]

  Hi Andrea, I wanted to chime in with another “thanks for being there / hosting TSroadmap”
  It was really great to find a decent resource at the start of my transition.

  I didn’t know you worked with TYFA, that’s awesome. They’re an amazing bunch of folks.

• [Anonymous]

  TYFA is incredibly wonderful.

  As to blog posts, well, I’ll wait and see.

  But thank you for any help you’ve been giving TYFA!!!

• [Sundance]

  I love it when strong, intelligent, women fight the good fight. Keep up the good work Andrea.

• [Anonymous]

  Welcome Andrea! Years ago, your website, then TS roadmap ( and later, hairfacts ) were an invaluable source of information in organizing my successful transition. Thanks for all that! I look forward to your posts.

• [mermaid]

  Looking forward to reading your posts. Welcome!

• [Hair Remover Queen]

  I’m so pleased you have Andrea guest blogging.

  She is a true role model and has made a difference to many people’s lives including my own.

  I look forward to reading more.

  Ally

• [infinity]

  w00t! welcome aboard, sister!

• [Anonymous]

  What a good guest blogger!

  A x

• [Anonymous]

  Welcome, Andrea. I’m so glad to finally see a trans guest blogger here on Boing Boing. Looking forward to your posts!

• [lupatini]

  Welcome!!!!

• [RevelryByNight]

  Excellent! Now I’m excited! Thanks, Andrea & boingboing!

• [Anonymous]

  Hey, your piece on privacy was just linked by Instapundit, a major libertarian/conservative blog. Cool, if you ask me. I’m going to coin a new term like ‘politically queer’ or just ‘politiqueer’ to denote that leanings are not either/or but span a range along a complex continuum – as we have learned about the complexity of gender.

  P.S. My friend just transitioned – I’m sure your resources were (and are) a help to her, as she mentioned how information online helped to make sense of who she was, even as her family of origin disowned her.

• [cuvtixo]

  Welcome Andrea. I’m guessing that you are not a transgendered person yourself, but perhaps you have certain views about when and whether it is appropriate to announce that? Will your writing put a subtle new spin on the site name? ;)

  • [zuvembi]

    Actually if I recall correctly, Andrea is transgendered and there were (a long time ago) some very interesting shots of facial feminization surgery involving her. If I remember rightly they were taken down because of trolling or some such?

    I remember reading a lot of TSRoadmap back in, oh god, it must have been the mid-90′s. A really interesting and invaluable resource. I’m glad to see it never faded away.

    I’m looking forward to a lot of interesting posts from her!

• [samanth0r]

  Whoo I think you’re an awesome person. TS Roadmap wave invaluable for me…

• [Anonymous]

  ‘….quackery and fraud, especially in medicine and academia.’
  would love to hear more re academia.
  golbelization and restructuring have sweep the world, yet academia holds out unchanged

• [Cassandra]

  As a genderqueer queer woman, I’m always happy to see boingboing inviting reasoned and interesting discussion on issues of gender. Can’t wait to see what you post, Andrea!