Year: 2021

Diastasis Recti, Body Image, and Gender

Postpartum recovery is typically portrayed as a rapid return to pre-pregnancy weight and shape. For many people, this is not an accurate representation. Many people never return to pre-pregnancy weight or shape. Some do but have to put in a lot of work to make that happen.

I have a short torso so when I was pregnant, I carried my baby out in front. I started showing early and was very round. I had many stretch marks from early on and still have them. At halfway through my pregnancy people were surprised I still had a while to go. I was asked many times if I was having twins.

At six months postpartum my belly had shrunk somewhat but I still looked about the same size as when I was halfway through my pregnancy. While I knew that the media portrays postpartum recovery inaccurately, this seemed particularly slow. So I tested myself for diastasis recti and found a 3-4 finger gap between my abdominals. This was soon after diagnosed by a physiotherapist.

I started doing specific core exercises and regained my core strength fairly quickly. But at just over nine months postpartum, I still look the same as I did halfway through my pregnancy. While out for a walk with my nine month old baby in the stroller, a stranger congratulated me on the second baby I have on the way.

Having a round, pregnant shaped belly is a difficult experience for me for a number of reasons.

  • No one should ever comment on another person’s body shape, size, or presentation without being invited to do so and yet pregnancy seems to be a socially accepted time to do this. Being perceived as pregnant invites these sorts of comments.
  • In most people’s minds, being seen as someone who is potentially pregnant puts me in the category of ‘female’ or ‘woman’ and negates any other aspects of my presentation that might suggest otherwise. I dealt with this while pregnant for the sake of having my child but was really looking forward to not dealing with this anymore. And here I am, still being perceived as pregnant.
  • While pregnant, having a large belly helped minimize my perception of the size of my chest by comparison. Now that I am no longer pregnant and would like to flatten the appearance of my chest, doing so would only accentuate the size of my belly.
  • In order to heal diastasis recti, I have to avoid slouching. Standing up straight makes my chest look and feel bigger, increasing my dysphoria for the sake of healing my abdominals.

I know that recovery from or healing of diastasis recti is slow and takes diligent work. Being constantly aware of my posture, movement, and muscle activation takes mental effort. Making myself do core exercises daily takes will power. I am trying but I’m not always successful on all fronts. And without noticeable change in my function or shape, it is hard to stay motivated.

In search of answers and community, I recently turned to the internet and social media. I found lots of good information but every single resource used female terms and pronouns throughout. Finding community and support for part of my experience that actively excluded and invalidated other parts was painful, exhausting, and overwhelming.

Here is yet another topic where gender neutral terminology would not exclude or invalidate anyone and yet at every opportunity professionals refer to ‘ladies’ and ‘mama’.

Throughout this whole internal struggle with post partum body image, I have tried to be aware of where my thoughts and feelings are coming from. I avoid and reframe any thoughts I have about my weight. I try not to judge my body in negative ways due it’s size or shape. However, I can’t escape how my shape triggers my dysphoria or interferes with my preferred strategies for managing my dysphoria. And I can’t ignore how others perceive me when they assume I am pregnant.

No two people recover from pregnancy the same way. Don’t make assumptions about other people’s bodies based on their shape, size, or function. Don’t make assumptions about other people based on their bodies. If you are a professional supporting a community, question your use of gendered language. Substitute gender neutral terms and use language referring to a specific experience wherever possible. If this is something you would like help with, please contact me.

Did you struggle with body image after pregnancy? Did you or do you currently have diastasis recti? Leave me a comment below! I’d love to hear from you.

RELATED POSTS

Receive new posts in your inbox! Contact me at any time if you have questions, need support, or are searching for community.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

Trans Affirmations

I am important. 
My voice matters. 

My experience is real.
My experience, my identity, and my life have value. 
I deserve to take up space.

I am important. 
My voice matters. 

I do not owe anyone an explanation of my gender. 
I have control over my own identity. 
I have a right to any label that feels right for me.

I am important. 
My voice matters. 

I do not owe anyone an explanation of my transition process.
There is no 'right way' to be trans.
My transition is my own process and I don't need to compare to anyone else. 
I am proud of who I am and who I am becoming. 

I am important. 
My voice matters. 

While I am trying to avoid dysphoria, I will seek out gender euphoria.
I will seek out what feels right. 
I will do what makes me feel whole. 

I am important. 
My voice matters. 

I love my body for being my vessel in this world. 
My body belongs to me and no one else. 
My body is capable of amazing things. 

I am important. 
My voice matters. 

I am strong.
I am beautiful.
I am worthy of love.
I am enough.

I am important. 
My voice matters. 

I can do this. 
One step at a time. 
I will go at my own pace. 

I am important. 
My voice matters. 

I am allowed to be scared. 
I am allowed to let people assume I am cis.
Doing this does not make me a coward. 
Doing this does not make me less trans. 

I am important. 
My voice matters. 

There is a community out there that understands and supports me.
When I have the energy, I will advocate for myself and my community.
When I do not, I will find ways to protect, care for, and be kind to myself.

Because I am important. 
And my voice matters.

What words do you find affirming? What do you remind yourself of in the face of transphobic politics, family members, and workplaces? Add your words of strength, encouragement, and assurance to mine by leaving a comment.

I’d love to have you in my community. Receive new posts in your inbox, read about my experiences, reach out.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

My First Parental Celebration Days as a New Parent

I recently celebrated my first Nonbinary Parent’s Day and Mother’s Day as a parent so I thought I’d share what those days felt like for me as a nonbinary person.

Some background:

  • I am more comfortable being called a parent than a mother or a mom
  • I identify with parts of ‘mom culture’ but the parts I don’t identify with feel really wrong to me, mostly for gender related reasons
  • My parental term of choice is ‘Mur’ which is a sounded out version of M and R for Meaghan Ray (my name)
  • The majority of people in my life do not yet know about my chosen parental term or my discomfort with the label of mom or mother

NONBINARY PARENT’S DAY

Nonbinary Parent’s Day fell on April 18 this year. I didn’t even know about it until my husband mentioned it a few days early. We didn’t plan anything special, just went about our normal activities. But the day still felt special. I was more in tune with my connection with my baby, more grateful, thankful, and had an sense of inner peace and oneness.

Only a couple people other than my husband knew to wish me happy Nonbinary Parent’s Day the way you would for Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. This wasn’t surprising since I hadn’t even heard about the day until he told me and hadn’t broadcasted it to the world. I did see lots of celebratory photos and posts on social media from other nonbinary parents which gave me a much greater sense of community and connection.

So while celebrating this day felt great personally, it has very little recognition in the wider world as of yet. I’m hoping this will increase in future years. Starting next year, I will be more proactive at letting my friends and family know that this is my preferred parental celebration day.

MOTHER’S DAY

I had no idea how I would feel about celebrating Mother’s Day, or at least being wished a happy Mother’s Day by others. Turns out it was a complicated experience.

I was looking forward to getting to celebrate my first Mother’s Day as a parent alongside celebrating it for my own mom. I was looking forward to the sense of understanding, shared experience, community, and recognition. Turns out that when the title of ‘Mother’ doesn’t sit right, being wished a happy Mother’s Day doesn’t feel great either.

I did some translating self talk every time someone wished me a happy Mother’s Day. Something like – they’re recognizing my new parental role, expressing their understanding of the work that goes into being in the primary parental role that I’m currently in, and I appreciate that. This translation helped a bit but it also took effort.

Every time I was wished a happy Mother’s Day, while I knew it came from a good place, I also knew that it meant that they had overlooked how my gender interacts with my role as a parent. Feeling seen in my new role as a parent and simultaneously invisible in my gender makes for a confusing and isolating experience on a day when I was hoping to feel seen and connected.

A few friends were careful to wish me a happy Parent’s Day or happy Gestational Parent’s Day on Mother’s Day which definitely felt better. These wishes were more personalized and recognized my gender in addition to my parental role but didn’t lead to a feeling of being connected to any community with similar experiences. I let these friends know about Nonbinary Parent’s Day and was wished a happy belated Nonbinary Parent’s Day instead.

For me, celebrating Nonbinary Parent’s Day feels like the right fit. It’ll take a while for my friends and extended family, and especially the wider world, to recognize this annual day but at least we can make a tradition of it in our family of three.

Next year on Mother’s Day, I will try to use a gentle response such as: Thank you, but I celebrate Nonbinary Parent’s Day instead which is the third Sunday in April.

RELATED POSTS

RELATED LINKS

Receive new posts in your inbox so you don’t have to remember to check back!

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

Baby Clothes and Gender

Baby clothes are predominantly marketed as being for girls or boys. Even though the babies that wear them are too young to have any concept of gender. Even though clothing isn’t inherently gendered. The only reason for this is so that families that have a second child of a different sex than the first have to buy a whole new set of clothes.

Society has bought into this idea so strongly that a baby’s clothing is often used to indicate their ‘gender’.

This is not something I agree with. I don’t think clothing is inherently gendered. I don’t think we should restrict a child’s clothing based on their sex assigned at birth. And I don’t think clothing is an appropriate way to indicate gender. My goal as a parent is to provide my child with a wide range of clothes, toys, and experiences from all areas of the socially defined gender categories.

We got most of our clothing second hand in one big batch from one family. At the time, they were getting rid of 0-6 month old clothes that were predominantly pink and styled as ‘girl’s clothes’ and 6-12 month old clothes that were predominantly blue and styled as ‘boy’s clothes’. We were given a bunch of neutral and boy style newborn sized clothes so that expanded the range of clothing for the first little while. But since they outgrew the first sizes, we have been predominantly dressing them in ‘boys’ clothes (because that’s what we have).

This has gone against my gender-free/gender-full parenting wishes so I intentionally went shopping for clothes that would fit my baby that were pink and purple, or had flowers and butterflies, or were otherwise more on the ‘girl’ side of the clothing spectrum. I love seeing a variety of clothing in the drawer to choose from.

When I dress my baby to go out for a walk or visit with family, I am conscious of what clothing I put them in and what assumptions people will make or associations people will have as a result. Despite the fact that I don’t feel that clothing has a gender and I don’t think clothing should indicate gender, I’m also aware that the majority of people do hold these beliefs. This forces me to consider the ‘gender’ associated with the clothing I am choosing for my child. And then I find myself thinking of pink as girly and a blue football motif as boyish.

I’m constantly playing this tug of war with myself. I don’t want to think of clothing as gendered. I put my baby in whatever clothes I want the majority of the time. I mix and match and alternate but this gendered thinking still creeps in. I have to constantly remind myself to think of clothing as different styles, colours, and patterns, not different genders.

I also think about what clothes my baby was wearing the last time they visited with a particular person and try to pick something contrasting the next time. Again, I have to remind myself, not something of a different gender, something with a different colour, pattern, or style.

Because, ultimately, baby clothes are not only for the baby, but also for the adults they are interacting with. And by influencing the adults around my baby in subtle ways, I can hopefully maintain a more gender creative and inclusive environment with fewer overt and potentially confrontational conversations.

The internal struggle against gendered thinking is constant. But when I feel the binary veil lift and I can see my baby for who they are as a giggling, food-loving, good-sleeping, commando-crawling 8 month old, I feel more connected and at ease in my role as a parent.

RELATED POSTS

Receive new posts in your inbox!

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

Trans Wisdom: Consumer Categories are Irrelevant (Part 2)

This is a continuation of Trans Wisdom: Consumer Categories are Irrelevant (Part 1)

INTERESTS AND CAREERS ARE FOR EVERYONE

I think you’re getting the picture by now. This categorization of clothing, jewelry, makeup, toys, and just about every consumer item also gets applied to activities and careers. Many cis people fight against this with varying levels of difficulty. But many people are unaware that they have been guided towards some interests and away from others.

Many trans people transition while in the work force and either start out as the odd one out or become the odd one out in their field. Only after transitioning do they realize how hard it was to swim against the current or how much harder it is now that they have to.

The extra effort it takes to do something we love, either for fun or for work, when it is not something that our gender category should be good at or interested in is unnecessary but very real. Sometimes it is subtle – confused or disparaging looks from friends and family when you talk about it or messaging that is always aimed at the other binary gender category. Sometimes it is overt – harassment, withdrawal of family support, lack of promotion, less pay, difficulty getting hired. These pressures are like the banks of a river, trying to keep us in line. But sometimes rivers chart a new course or spill over the bank.

Don’t let societal pressure stop you from doing something you love. Find the support of people who believe in you and other people in the same situation as you. Form your own group and keep going. (Caveat: if fighting this type of fight against the current is taking too much of a toll on you, don’t be afraid to step back. Find a different way to do what you love, even if it wasn’t plan A. Your mental health matters more than changing the system from the inside.)

MASCULINITY AND FEMININITY ARE FOR EVERYONE

What is masculinity? Write a list of what masculinity means to you. Now, beside each trait, write the name of a person who identifies as a woman who exemplifies that trait.

What is femininity? Write a list of what femininity means to you. Now, beside each trait, write the name of a person who identifies as a man who exemplifies that trait.

Masculinity and femininity do not equal male and female or man and woman. Anyone can embody traits that are deemed by society to be masculine or feminine and often we all do. If we question society’s categorization of these traits, we start to realize that the terms ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ lose their meaning. That is because they are arbitrary. Everyone’s definition of these terms is going to be different depending on their experiences.

Some traits that are deemed masculine are referred to with words that have a positive connotation when referring to a man with that trait and a negative connotation when referring to a woman with that trait. Managerial vs bossy for example. The same goes for feminine traits. A sensitive woman vs an emotional man. Be aware of how people are described and see if you notice this use of connotation to indicate a positive or negative value of their level of masculinity or femininity. Try describing the person using a word with a positive connotation and see how people respond.

List your own traits – personality, presentation, interests, etc. How many of them can you easily label as masculine and feminine? Did you write any using negative words? What category do those fall under? Can you find a word that means the same thing but with a positive connotation? (Think of applying that word to friend – how would you flip it?)

Masculinity and femininity are not specific to sex, gender, name, pronoun, race, social standing, or any other category. They are for everyone.

YOUR PRESENTATION IS YOURS TO PLAY WITH

If clothing, jewelry, makeup, toys, interests, careers, and any other masculine or feminine (or androgynous) trait is available to everyone, that means you get to decide what you include in your presentation, regardless of consumer category. You can pick and choose whatever parts feel best for you on a given day.

Presenting in ways that defy consumer categories will attract more attention, often negative attention. Trans people are painfully aware of this. Before transitioning, they sometimes hide who they are and work hard to fit in with a presentation that is expected of them. Then, during their transition, they fight to present how they are most comfortable despite all the negative attention. After socially transitioning, they sometimes present in a way that matches a binary consumer category in order to avoid that same negative attention. It takes a lot of support, self-confidence, courage, and often privilege to be able to consistently defy consumer categories and present how you prefer.

If your preferred presentation matches pretty closely to one of the two consumer categories, you are lucky. But don’t let that stop you from finding the subtle ways that you butt up against the edge of your typical category or even cross the boundary into the other one. These are the aspects of yourself that tell you that you are being authentic, an individual, not a slave to binary gendered consumerism.

Go and be free! Consumer categories are irrelevant! Be who you are, present how you want to, defy expectations!

RELATED POSTS

Join our community and receive new posts in your inbox!

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

Trans Wisdom: Consumer Categories are Irrelevant (Part 1)

CLOTHING IS FOR EVERYONE

Have you ever been shopping for clothes in the part of the store that is labeled with your gender and felt like nothing fits you or feels like the right style? Have you ever shopped for yourself in the other section of the store?

Because our society sees masculinity as the standard and femininity as a deviation that is only acceptable for specific people, I would guess that people who identify as or are assumed to be women are more likely to shop across consumer boundaries. It is less likely, and potentially dangerous, for people who are assumed to be men to shop in the section labeled ‘women’.

Trans people have to find ways around this in order to find clothes that feel good. They find a friend who is assumed to be the gender of the category they want to shop in who is the same size as they are and go shopping together. They pretend to be shopping for a partner or friend ‘who is the same size’. Or they go in a group so they are less likely to be harassed or have support from each other if they are harassed.

Clothes from different sections are shaped differently. Sometimes our bodies don’t match the shape that the consumer category says we should have. Sometimes our bodies are closer to the shape of the opposite consumer category. Or we prefer the style of the clothes from the other category but they don’t match the shape of our bodies. Many trans people learn how to alter their own clothes or find a friend from the community who will do it for them. Or pay to have alterations done.

Nonbinary people especially have free reign. There is no ‘nonbinary’ section of clothing stores. What would even go in that section? A little bit of everything? Next time you go clothes shopping, pretend you’re nonbinary if that helps you ignore the gendered categories on the signs.

You don’t have to compromise on clothes that are the right style just because the manufacturer decided that they were for a different body type than yours or a different gender. Find the clothes that feel good for you, alter them if you have to, and ignore the label above that section of the store.

ACCESSORIES AND MAKEUP ARE FOR EVERYONE

As with clothing, play around with accessories and makeup if you have never done it before. ‘Dainty’ jewelry isn’t only for ‘women’ and heavy, thick jewelry isn’t only for ‘men’. I have had to alter every watch band I’ve gotten in the last few years because the watch face I want only comes on a band that is too big for my wrist. As if no man could possibly have such a narrow wrist. Or no one with such a narrow wrist would choose to wear a large faced watch that doesn’t have sparkles on it.

If you like bright colours, try wearing nail polish if you never have before. Start with a clear coat that is nearly invisible to see how you feel about it. If the idea of makeup interests you, ignore what the consumer categories say about who it’s for and try a bit of eye shadow or lipstick. If you have a child who was assigned male at birth and you are raising as a boy, let him play with makeup and jewelry without shaming him.

Again, this sort of exploration is going to be more difficult for anyone assumed to be male or assigned male at birth who wants to explore things that are labeled ‘feminine’. They especially need lots of support, protection, and community. But that doesn’t mean that it is wrong. Just that society tries to convince us it’s wrong. Trans people know better.

TOYS ARE FOR EVERYONE

A lot of trans people remember wanting to play with specific toys as kids and being told no or even punished for it. The stupid thing is that toys are inert. They don’t have preferences. So why can’t any child play with any toy?

If you go into a toy store or the toy sections of a superstore you will see a pink aisle with dolls and ponies and unicorns and maybe some pink blocks and you will see another aisle with bold colours like blue, red, and black filled with all kinds of vehicles, tools, blocks, building sets, and first responders. This is completely unnecessary and is designed to get parents to buy more toys by making them feel like the toys for one child are not transferrable to a child of a different gender.

As adults, you see the same thing. Bikes are built differently with the assumption that women will be wearing skirts or dresses and will need to cross their leg over the bar instead of behind the seat. Anything that is labeled ‘masculine’ will only appeal to women if it is pastel coloured or sparkly. Anything labeled ‘feminine’ has to be rebranded entirely and labeled ‘masculine’ before it will appeal to men. No, the gendering of inanimate objects doesn’t end with kid’s toys.

Next time you go shopping for something fun for yourself, your partner, a friend, or your kids, ignore the categories. What is their favourite colour? What would they enjoy having? Think of them as an individual rather than a member of a gender category. If they are a man that has dry hands and enjoys gardening, get them a cream that has a scent that reminds you of their garden.

Stay tuned for Part 2 next week.

RELATED POSTS

Join our community and receive posts in your inbox.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

Trans Wisdom: Language Is Important

PRONOUNS ARE FOR EVERYONE

Since trans people have become more visible, pronouns have been discussed a lot more openly. The funny thing is, we were all using pronouns the whole time. We were simply assuming the gender of the people around us based on their presentation and then assigning the pronoun that related to that gender.

What trans people are trying to show the general public is that not only can you not assume someone’s gender based on appearance but you also can’t guess what pronouns someone is most comfortable with. This means we have to ask people what pronouns they use. Not only if someone looks ambiguous or doesn’t fit our cis-based expectations. Everyone.

This means cis people should also get asked what pronouns they use. Even better, cis people should be initiating the conversation about pronouns with each other. Specify your pronouns and then ask a new acquaintance for their pronouns. Keep doing this until it no longer feels awkward.

Have you ever thought about what pronouns you are comfortable with? Have you ever tried referring to yourself with a set of pronouns you don’t typically use? Try it. See how it feels. If it’s extremely uncomfortable, you will have a better understanding of what trans people experience. Maybe you’ll discover that a different set of pronouns actually does feel better than what you’ve been using. If pronouns do not equal gender, your gender can align with what you were assigned at birth (you can be cisgender) even if you are more comfortable with a different set of pronouns.

KNOW WHAT LANGUAGE FEELS GOOD TO YOU

There is a lot of gendered language out there other than pronouns. Depending on your history with various terms, some of it will be comfortable for you and some won’t. You can think critically about the language that people use to refer to you on a daily basis and decide what you’re okay with and what you’re not. And then you can ask those around you to use the language that you’re comfortable with.

This practice is part of the trans experience but is not exclusive to being trans. When someone comes out as trans, most of what gets talked about is respecting their name and pronouns (very important). But another component is using appropriately gendered language. Saying ‘hey girl’ in greeting to a trans man is likely to be extremely uncomfortable for them while saying it to a trans woman might be very affirming.

More to the point, there might be cis men that like being greeted with ‘hey girl’ and cis women who hate it. You are allowed to specify what language people use to refer to you. But in order to do that you have to know what language bothers you and what language you would prefer them to use instead.

ANYONE CAN CHANGE THEIR NAME

Lots of people change their last names when they get married. Trans people often change their first names. If trans people can do it, so can cis people. You do not have to change your gender marker when you change your name. Those are two completely separate processes. You can change your name to anything you want. You can do this legally without asking people to call you by the new name, you can ask people to call you a different name but not bother to change it legally, or you can do both. It is a challenging, irritating process but it does not require you to provide proof of being trans.

If you or someone you know might be interested in changing their name and is wondering where to start, ask a trans person who lives in your area! If they haven’t gone through the process yet, they can likely find out how from someone they know.

LANGUAGE CAN BE DANGEROUS OR PROTECTIVE

It is extremely important to be aware of the context in which you are using language. It can be irresponsible and possibly damaging to your relationship if you refer to a mutual friend’s recent cancer diagnosis when you were the only person they had told. Or if you treat someone differently after they tell you they’re pregnant and thus alert others to that fact before they were ready.

Outing someone as trans in a situation where they are vulnerable (to their employer, to a group of people who are potentially transphobic, to their family that they live with) can be extremely dangerous. This could happen a couple different ways: if they are assumed to be their correct gender by those around them (stealth) and you make reference to their trans status or misgender them, or if they are assumed to be their gender assigned at birth and you refer to them with their correct name or pronouns.

However, constantly misgendering someone in situations where they want to be identified for who they are also has a chronic negative effect on their mental health. For this reason, making sure to gender them correctly has a protective effect. It also sets a good example for the people around them.

So if gendering them correctly and gendering them according to their sex assigned at birth could be both dangerous and protective depending on the situation, how are you supposed to know what language to use?

You ask them privately, or better yet, in advance.

It is important to find out who knows what type of information and who it is safe to mention it to. This is the same strategy that you should use for other types of sensitive information such as a cancer diagnosis or pregnancy. Find out who else knows and how that should inform the language you use around them.

INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE REQUIRES SPECIFICITY

Lots of people or organizations want to be inclusive. They filter out any words from their messaging that label a specific group of people assuming that the more generic their message, the more inclusive it is. For a general statement of address such as changing ‘ladies and gentlemen’ to ‘honoured guests’ this is fine. But for anything more specific than that, in my experience, generic does not equal inclusive.

If language doesn’t specify a group of people or a specific experience, the assumption is that it is designed to meet the needs of the majority, not designed to be inclusive.

Another way people try to use language to be inclusive is by naming a specific group and tailoring their services to that group. This becomes a concern when their services are actually related to an experience, not a group. They make the assumption that everyone in that group shares that experience and everyone with that experience belongs to that group. For example, labeling everything related to pregnancy as a woman’s experience. Instead, it is more inclusive to name the experience instead of a group. For example, ‘people who menstruate’ instead of ‘women’.

In order to use language in inclusive ways you also have to know how the meaning of words has changed over time and how different groups of people use words differently. The same messaging could mean very different things to people of different generations, different races, or different classes.

It’s hard to be completely inclusive but using language that is as specific to what you really are talking about makes it more clear who you are referring to.

RELATED POSTS

Receive new posts in your inbox so you don’t have to remember to check back!

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

Trans Wisdom: The Power of Community

COMMUNITY HAS EXPERIENCIAL KNOWLEDGE

Many things in life, including transitioning, are difficult, complex, and not well understood by the general public. Navigating these experiences is difficult in part because there is so little information available about what to expect, what to avoid, and what resources are available and helpful.

Communities are full of people who have gone there before you. They have way more knowledge and information that is tried, tested, and true than any professional or google search can provide. The bigger the community, the wider the range of experiences and suggestions you will find and the more likely you will find something that works for you.

Without the local trans community, we would not have known that ‘the proper referral process’ that our family doctor was following was outdated and incorrect. We would not have found a doctor willing to follow the current referral process to prescribe my husband Testosterone. We would not have had personal recommendations for where to go for surgery. We would not have had scripts to use when encountering resistance at various governmental and private institutions when trying to change his name and gender marker on documentation. We would not have had scripts to use when acquaintances, friends, and family asked inappropriate, invasive, or poorly worded questions. We would not have been prepared for how long the waitlist was for specialist referrals needed to complete paperwork.

So much of what we learned about how to navigate my husband’s transition came from our community. Without the community, we would have struggled significantly more, waited for specialists that were not required, and felt incredibly alone.

COMMUNITY PROVIDES SUPPORT

We need support from a variety of sources when we are going through something difficult and big. Support from a broader community is one of those sources. Being part of a community of people that are all experiencing something similar normalizes the experience and provides validation.

Often, when our experiences are rarely or poorly represented in mainstream media, we are left feeling like we are the only ones going through this. This can lead to questioning whether your experience is legitimate, whether your reactions to this experience are valid, whether you should be dealing with it differently or better, or whether you’re doing the right thing. We can feel lost, isolated, confused, self-conscious, fearful, anxious, and angry. We can internalize the judgements and negative responses from those around us, including what is represented in mainstream media.

While having a community won’t automatically make the experience an easy, positive one, it will show us that there are others out there struggling and thriving in similar circumstances to our own. Seeing someone else describe their own experience in the same way we would, navigating the same barriers and systems, struggling with similar emotions, tells us that our experience is shared, normal, and valid. We find voices other than our own to counteract the negativity and judgement that we have internalized.

Normalization and validation of our experiences doesn’t take away the difficult aspects, but it helps fortify us against the toll that those parts of our experience can take on us. It helps us weather them. Community gives us someone to talk to who will respond with positivity, understanding, and support without us having to first explain our experience to them from the beginning.

COMMUNITY MEMBERS HAVE IMPLICIT UNDERSTANDING

People who share our experiences will automatically understand our struggles, milestones, and achievements. This is huge. If you need support, even just an ‘aw that sucks’ or ‘I hear you’, and you share your point of struggle with someone outside your community, instead of support you might get a blank stare, a confused look, a platitude, or an inappropriate question. In order to get the response you’re looking for you would have to explain your situation from the beginning, often sharing a lot of personal information in order to bring them up to speed, and may not ever get them to the point of understanding enough to provide the support you need.

I repeated this process many, many times over the course of my husband’s transition. I spent more energy in the explanation than I received in whatever support I got back. The more marginalized your experience is, the less likely it will be that you will automatically get the response you’re looking for. I found a huge difference between the support I got when I had a miscarriage vs the support I got when my husband was transitioning (and we were struggling against systemic barriers).

It was always such a relief when we could tell a group of trans people about something that had happened and immediately get the response we were hoping for, be it support, commiseration, information, or celebration, without having to provide any explanation or background. I learned through trial and error when it was worth explaining my situation to non-community members and when to keep my struggles and triumphs to myself until I had community to share it with.

COMMUNITY HELPS US CELEBRATE

I didn’t realize how important this function of community was until I had something to celebrate and got a response from non-community members that was sympathetic or blank instead of excited. It really takes away from the positive experience when someone assumes it’s negative and you have to explain the whole backstory before they conceptually get it. Even then, they don’t really feel excited for you.

But members of your community do. They have celebrated the same things or are looking forward to the moment when they can. They understand how hard it was to get there. They understand why that milestone is worth celebrating. Without community, the milestone passes you by with a small blip of excitement, self-satisfaction, accomplishment, pride, relief, and perhaps some apprehension about what comes next. But when you get to celebrate with community, your milestone is celebrated by so many others that it is magnified. It becomes a bright moment in a timeline of struggle that you can look back on to give you strength when you need it.

Being able to celebrate the high moments with people that understand can shift our perspective of the entire experience. It can shift the focus from the struggle and loss to the achievement, hope, and success. The story of our experience, when we look back on it, is now characterized by the moments we celebrated with the community. They shine so brightly that they overpower the dark parts between them. They don’t erase the struggle but when the experience if viewed from farther away, they stand out as the most important parts. They make the rest of the experience worth it.

COMMUNITIES HAVE LOUDER VOICES

The voice of the many is often louder than the voice of the few. The more marginalized your experience is, the more powerful the effect of the community. These are also the experiences that get the least attention from media, politicians, health care, and research. Community is necessary to amplify our voices to share our experiences and gain access to the resources and services we need.

The members of a community often have a wide range of outside expertise, connections, and influence. So not only do they have a louder voice, but they can often find a way to get their message heard by the right people with a lot less effort than a single person might.

Communities can form organizations, develop a funding base, and develop their own resources. They can hold fundraisers that are coordinated across an entire country. They can pool their resources from multiple sites and put them towards something that no one person from the community would be able to change.

Feeling like your voice is being heard and that you helped to change the system so that the next person to go through a similar experience will have a slightly easier time of it than you did is huge.

What experience have you had where being a member of a community made a big impact on you or the wider world? What other ways did being a member of a community impact you? Leave a comment below or send me an email!

RELATED POSTS

Join our community! The more the merrier!

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

Trans Wisdom: You Define Your Identity

YOUR IDENTITY IS YOUR OWN

In the first post in the Trans Wisdom series, I talked about how the bodies of trans people don’t determine their gender identities (or any other aspects of their identity) which means that is true for everyone. It is your choice to allow your body to inform your identity in whatever way makes sense to you. You have control over your own identity.

This is not only true for your relationship to your body. This is also true with respect to the roles you identify with in your life, your career and interests, your family history, your culture and race, your sexuality and sexual orientation, and your personal experiences. No matter how other people use this information to label you, interact with you, or connect with you, YOU are the only one who gets to decide how these inform who you are.

You also get to decide the balance of the different aspects of your identity. Is your role in your family the most important part of your identity, followed by your career, and then your culture and race? Or is how your career impacts who you are most important, followed by your personal experiences, and then your gender? Identity is like a 3D pie chart with blurry, overlapping lines between the sections and some sections that influence the whole thing but are only forefront a small part of the time.

Or maybe it’s more like a cloud, more ephemeral, and shifting over time.

IDENTITY CHANGES OVER TIME

Trans people go through a huge identity shift when they discover that their discomfort in their life has been related to gender. This can happen at any age but the longer they have lived as their gender they were assigned at birth, the larger the shift. Regardless, looking back over their life, they can say that their identity clearly has changed over time. In fact, this is true for most queer people.

Funnily enough, this is actually true for everyone. Anyone who has become a parent has experienced this shift in identity. Anyone who has changed careers, entered a committed relationship, experienced a health crisis, or lived through a global pandemic has experienced a shift in identity. Even something as simple as turning 18, learning how to drive, entering high school, or moving away from home cause a shift in our identity. We may not be aware of it at the time or feel like we have control over it but our identities shift as we adapt to new life circumstances.

You may not being able control the circumstances that influence these changes in your identity but you do have control over HOW your identity changes. How quickly do you adapt to the new circumstance? Is it a positive change or a negative one? Does it eclipse all other aspects of your identity, even for a short time, or simply become another component of who you are? Is this an aspect of yourself you will keep hidden or share openly with others?

If our identities change over time, why are sexual orientation and gender seen as constants? They are simply components of our identities and therefore are influenced by our experiences and circumstances just like anything else. I think everyone should feel free to explore their sexuality and gender at any point in their life and as often as they choose. Even if you conclude that nothing has changed, you may decide you feel like expressing some aspect of yourself differently or that it influences other aspects of your identity in a new way.

IDENTITIES ARE COMPLEX AND INTERSECTIONAL

As you can see from what I’ve said so far, and probably know from personal experience, no one is made up of only one component of their identity. And no aspect of our identities are the same for any two people because they are all influenced by every other part of who we are.

When someone is coming out as trans, they get the same reactions and get asked the same questions over and over. Because, historically, trans people have had to hide their identities and mainstream society is only just now becoming aware of this identity and experience, the story that gets told about trans people is a monolith. Anyone who doesn’t fit that story is either not recognized as being trans or labeled as an exception.

If every aspect of identity is variable between individuals, why do we assume that someone’s experience is the same as our own or the same as that one other person we know with that identity when they identify in a similar way? If our identities are complex and intersectional, so are everyone else’s. It takes time, patience, and open communication to learn where our experiences overlap and where they differ. Being open to this type of communication allows for authentic bonding over the similarities and learning and growing from the differences.

IDENTITIES ARE NOT CATEGORIES

In some settings (such as medical and legal forms) we have to check off boxes that relate to our identities. These boxes are for the sake of information gathering, not to be used as a guideline of how to interact with someone.

As a medical professional who has to read patients’ charts and then interact with those individuals, the image you get of a person from their chart is never accurate. It tells you nothing about their personality, attitudes, or cultural experiences. And a medical chart holds a ton of information. So why do we feel like we can judge someone based on their appearance? Or the awareness that they identify as trans? Or their identity as a man or woman?

No identity is a monolith. No identity should be treated as a category or a box. Masculinity, femininity, and androgyny belong to everyone. No two people’s experiences of parenthood are the same (though some will have more in common than others).

Which aspects of your identity do you feel confined by? Do you experience that aspect of your identity a certain way because that is the narrative you have always been told about how you should feel, act, or look? Can you find examples of people that share that same identity but embody or express it in a different way?

Your identity is your own. You get to determine what parts of your life inform your identity. You get to determine the balance of the different aspects of your identity. Your identity shifts over time. You can let those shifts happen based on outside influences, experiences, and circumstances, or be take an active role in deciding how those outside influences with impact your identity. Every aspect of your identity is influenced by all the others creating a complex, intersectional, and unique individual. If this is true for you, it is true for everyone else. No aspect of identity should be considered a monolith, a category, or independent of any other aspect.

Just for fun, try writing a list of the different components of your identity. Now re-order the list from most important to least important (or strongest influence on how you view yourself to least influence on how you view yourself). Are there other components that you remember used to be part of your identity but no longer are? Are there components that you anticipate will be part of your identity in the near future? Try this activity again in a couple weeks, or a month. Has the list or the order changed?

Leave a comment with the results of this activity! I’d love to hear what you learned.

RELATED POSTS

Receive new posts in your inbox so we can keep in touch!

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

Trans Wisdom: Our Bodies Don’t Define Us

YOUR BODY DOESN’T DETERMINE YOUR GENDER. YOU DO.

Trans people learn very quickly that their body and all the assumptions that go along with it don’t define their gender. Whether the body they were born into feels wrong or not, their identity is separate.

If this is true for trans people, it is also true for cis people. Maybe you feel at home in your body and the gender you were assigned at birth. But is your experience of your gender based on your genitals? Is it solely made up of your secondary sex characteristics? Or is it more than that? Do you have an innate sense of being the gender you are? What aspects of your personality, behaviours, and presentation are related to your gender?

Once you learn how to think of your gender as more than various parts of your body, you also learn that you can choose how to express your gender. Do you wear the clothes you wear because they align with your gender and make you feel good or because it’s what society expects you to wear? Have you ever tried wearing clothes or jewelry that you think will make you uncomfortable? You never know! You might discover something you like even better than your original presentation.

YOUR BODY DOESN’T DETERMINE YOUR WORTH.

It goes beyond gender. Our bodies also don’t determine our worth. Regardless of your body type, ability, size, colour, or sex, we are all worthy of love and care. Society may not treat us that way, but we have to treat ourselves that way.

Trans people learn this throughout the difficult journey to self-acceptance. As we learn who we are and take steps to communicate it to others, we are faced with uncertainty, confusion, anger, fear, and even violence which are really easy to internalize. If we take steps to change our bodies to align more with our sense of who we are, we learn that though the change may alleviate some dysphoria and make it more comfortable to go about our daily lives, it does not automatically result in an increased sense of self-worth. This is something we have to consciously work on at every stage of our journey (and throughout life).

YOUR ABILITY TO REPRODUCE DOESN’T DEFINE YOUR GENDER.

The reproductive organs you possess and whether or not you are able to reproduce has no bearing on your gender. It may be a component of yourself and your experience that you choose to include as part of your gender identity but this does not mean that is true for everyone with a similar experience.

Trans men and nonbinary people who have uteruses can get pregnant and successfully birth a baby. Cis women who have had hysterectomies are no less women. Trans women who produce sperm are no less women. Cis men who do not produce sperm are no less men.

Your gender (and your worth) is not defined by the ways in which you can or cannot reproduce.

SOCIETY’S PERCEPTIONS DON’T HAVE TO BE YOUR PERCEPTIONS.

Trans people are assigned a gender by almost everyone they encounter. Often, this assumption is either entirely or partially incorrect. Having a trans identity is also perceived as wrong, unheard of, a burden, or inappropriately fascinating. It takes work to unlearn these perceptions and hold onto our own self-concept, even when we feel like no one else around us sees us for who we are.

Are you judged by society in a particular way because of an aspect of your body or appearance? How society perceives you does not have to dictate how you perceive yourself. It’s often hard to identify which perceptions we have internalized and constant work to fight against that perception internally but it is worth it.

SURGERY IS PART OF A PROCESS, NOT AN END GOAL.

Many trans people undergo one or more surgeries in their effort to align their body with their identity. Often, when they are looking forward to the upcoming surgery, they have the perception that once they have the surgery, everything will be better. They fall into a mode of waiting for the surgery and build high expectations of the positive impact of the results.

No matter what the surgery is, it is always a difficult experience. There is pain and healing. There are often activity restrictions and limitations, sometimes for months afterwards. Sometimes there are complications. And regardless of the outcome, it does not automatically change their self worth or self confidence. If they are lucky, there is a decrease in dysphoria but often, over time, the dysphoria will shift to another area of their body, or they will become more aware of the dysphoria once the other source has been relieved.

Trans people learn the hard way that surgery is part of the process, not an end goal. Whether you are undergoing surgery for cancer treatment, weight loss, pain relief, or transition, it is never the only component of the process and often isn’t even the component that makes the biggest difference. If there is something going on in your life that is big enough to require surgery, it is definitely big enough to have emotional components and other milestones that come before and after surgery. Try to keep it all in perspective while you work towards or recover from surgery. Don’t leave ‘the rest’, whatever that is, until after surgery. Work on everything else while you wait for surgery. You’ll be glad you did.

What are your experiences around how your body does or does not inform your gender or other aspects of your identity? What societal perceptions have you worked hard to unlearn? Leave a comment below with your story!

RELATED POSTS

Receive new posts in your inbox!

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.