Ellen Krug
Skirting the Issues: Acts of Kindness
As we contemplate how the virus has so fundamentally changed things—and even resulted in cancellation of this month’s Pride Festival—I want to share how several acts of kindness have helped me cope. One of those kind acts even helped my company to survive. I’ve had to pivot my business—training on human inclusivity—from standing in front…
Skirting the Issues: Fading To Black
For Pride this year, I have been thinking about younger queer kids. Because there are no other visible transgender adults out here at the edge of the prairie where I now live, and because I have a burning desire to make a positive difference in the world, several months ago I contacted the local school…
Skirting The Issues: Norfolk, NE
My very first Pride event was in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 2004, when I was freshly out, and naively believed that I was a gay man with a rabid panty fetish. (Boy did I get that wrong; it turned out that while I love men, it’s only if I can do that as a woman!) …
Skirting the Issues – Traveling While Trans
For the longest time, I believed there was an imaginary Tupperware-tight line that separated the Twin Cities LGBTQ bubble from the rest of Minnesota. Thus, if you headed west on Interstate 94, you would find that line midway between Maple Grove and Monticello—on one side, queer folks were relatively safe, inhabiting a world where two…
Skirting the Issues: Making Room
I’ve had the honor of writing for Lavender since the summer of 2011. I calculate that more than 100,000 of my words have appeared on these pages, where I’ve shared what it means to be an older transgender woman with a still-masculine voice attempting to navigate the world. In that time, over the course of all those…
Skirting the Issues: Relentless
In mid-October, the Texas legislature passed HB25, a law that bans transgender students from competing in K-12 sports according to their gender identity. This was the fourth attempt to get the law voted in; the three previous attempts had failed after over-the-top resistance by transgender rights groups and their allies. Texas now joins nine other…
Skirting the Issues: Speed Bump
In less than three months, my life will take a distinctive shift—I’ll move from the “under-65-years-old” category to “65-and-older.” For myself and many others, the age of 65 represents a gigantic speed bump. For example, with Covid-19, those “65 and older” were among the first to get the vaccine, and now it appears, perhaps the…
Skirting The Issues: Osseo
There are many ways to change the world. For example, some take to the streets and march with sheer numbers demanding change. Others stand on soapboxes, yelling into microphones with the hope that the powerful will listen. Still others—a small minority—resort to violence and destruction, something that can scar a society’s soul. I attempt to…
Skirting the Issues: Jack
Photo courtesy of Ellen Krug For someone who values her time—especially having the ability to sit and write uninterrupted or to ride my bike whenever I want—I recently did something incredibly counterintuitive (okay, maybe “dumb” is a better word): I got a puppy. His name is “Jack.” He’s an English cream golden retriever, which means…
Skirting the Issues: Unlearning Selfishness
Photo courtesy of BigStock/EvgeniiAnd For several years up through the present, whenever I speak to audiences, I make what I call “My Standing Offer”: that I’m willing to talk to anyone about gender or sexual identity issues or simply about surviving the Human Condition. “I’m making this offer to all of you,” I say to…
