Social Media Spat Over Transgender Memoir
Multiple state officials in Florida spent days harassing a school system superintendent over a trans man’s memoir.
Humor by Aly Gibbs
So, look, there’s a lot going on right now. A lot a lot… which is saying something, considering the year we’ve had! Unfortunately, for once the Eye of Sauron isn’t directly on trans people at a national level (for, maybe, the next five minutes); right now it seems to be laser focused on Black and brown people of any gender or lack thereof, considering Trump’s takeover of DC, a city whose populace is 44% Black, and whatever the fuck is going on with ICE.
Is that Dean Cain?
Anyway, much as I’d love to be the kind of journalist who reports on those issues, I’m not. I’m your beloved independent trans journalist, and I’m here to tell you about the exceedingly weird and stupid social media spat between a school superintendent and Florida’s Department of Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas (a guy who, I shit you not, goes by Stasi) over a trans author’s memoir.
The whole sordid affair was covered by Tampa Bay Times, including embeds and links to the tweets between Hillsborough County Schools Superintendent Van Ayres and, chiefly, Commissioner Staatssicherheit Kamoutsas. The debacle began when Staatssicherheit tweeted on August 5 that Ayres had better remove the book Trans Mission: My Quest to a Beard by Alex Bertie, or he would be “[invited] to our next meeting,” presumably to a labor camp in East Germany. Ayres responded, immediately and quiveringly, with: “I understand Commissioner Kamoutsas’ concerns. To be clear, this book was not purchased since I was appointed superintendent but I will ensure that moving forward all books purchased at taxpayer expense are advancing academic achievement and student success.”
Ayres quickly instituted three changes regarding, to be clear, this singular title: It could only be checked out with parental consent, it would not be “prominently displayed” in any library in the district, and it would be immediately reviewed for inappropriate content. This, of course, wasn’t good enough for the jackals; Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and Board of Education member Ryan Petty issued further threats of reeducation, prompting Ayres to fill his pants and sob and tremble as he removed Trans Mission from Hillsborough County schools entirely.
An absolutely unsurprising display of cowardice of the highest order from Van Ayres.
In the wake of yet another capitulation in this, The Year of Kowtowing, let’s talk about Trans Mission and the “inappropriate content” it contains, to which hapless young Floridians were being exposed every single day until three grown men loudly farted at a fourth grown man on Twitter.
Trans Mission: My Quest to a Beard is a sweet little memoir released in 2017 by former YouTube personality/educator Alex Bertie, a transgender man from the UK who used to talk a lot about his life experiences, but has since pivoted towards private sector work. Bertie has largely disappeared from public activist work, as best I can tell, but it’s clear that the work he did in the 2010s remains important as his memoir was floating around even a dinky Florida school system.
The book itself is, to nobody’s surprise I’m sure, utterly inoffensive. I bought a copy and skimmed through it just to see what’s what, and it consists entirely of advice to trans teens, personal anecdotes about Bertie’s experiences as a young trans man, and cute drawings of relevant subject material. There is, at a glance, absolutely nothing objectionable in Bertie’s memoir… unless, of course, you find the mere existence or acknowledgment of transgender people and their experiences objectionable.
Which Staatssicherheit Kamoutsas and his buddies do.
Staatssicherheit was handpicked by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for his position in the Florida Department of Education, once DeSantis’ Deputy Chief of Staff. In a press release regarding his sponsorship of Staatssicherheit for the position, DeSantis praised his commitment to “parental rights, school choice, and fighting back against radical ideologies in education,” all dog whistles for transphobia and racism.
Entering into the position, Staatssicherheit already had a bit of a reputation, known for torpedoing an innocent woman’s career and hobnobbing with lobbyists. Since then, he’s engaged in such important work as threatening an entire school board because one woman rightly disparaged Hulk Hogan as a MAGA loser after his death, possibly influencing a superintendent to keep a teacher suspended for calling a student by a name they preferred, and casually threatening every educator in the state.
What a guy.
I guess this is nothing novel or shocking. Trans Mission, once shortlisted for the Polari Prize (which is itself taking a lot of heat right now for longlisting transphobic antisemite John Boyne, who can’t abuse the UK’s garbage libel laws and force me to apologize for accurately describing him, which he loves to do), has found itself banned before. These days, I suspect just about any book discussing lived trans experiences will be banned somewhere, at some point.
Thankfully, kids are better able to access literature than ever before, thanks to e-readers and online bookstores, and of course public libraries. If you know any trans boys who are struggling, consider grabbing them a copy of Trans Mission, or maybe make a point of supporting trans writers right now, because we’re all under fire in 2025.
Aly Gibbs (She/They), formerly Alyssa Steinsiek, is a trans writer who reports on news important to the queer community.
