Meaghan Ray

Let’s Talk Gender S2E3: Nonbinary Gender Presentation and Expression

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Hi Everyone. Welcome back to Let’s Talk Gender.

This episode is about nonbinary gender presentation and expression and how to figure out what works for you.

EXPLORING MY GENDER PRESENTATION AND EXPRESSION

I think of presentation as things people would see in a picture – clothes, hair style, makeup, facial hair, accessories. Expression is everything else – behaviours, voice, how you walk, gesture, and move, conversation style, word choice.

As I was raised female and I am generally identified as a woman by strangers, I started by adopting a more masculine clothing style. I did this before I even knew it was a gender thing. This was a fairly low risk change in presentation because it is acceptable for women to dress more masculine in my social culture. However, the same is not true for someone who is typically identified as a man by strangers who wants to dress more femininely. For that person, a change in clothing might come much later in the process of exploring presentation and expression.

Body hair was another aspect of my appearance that I figured out fairly early on. I was never comfortable with shaving my legs and intermittently comfortable with shaving under my arms. So I followed my instincts with those, again, well before knowing it was even a gender thing.

I have never had facial hair and haven’t experimented with it since I never felt like I wanted any though I have been thinking more about it lately and might try some experiments with makeup in the future.

My hairstyle was next. I had always had longer hair but kept it tied back. I cut it shorter for cuts for cancer one year and loved it. I never went back to having full long hair but didn’t have the guts to keep it short either. Then the undercut style came into fashion which was prefect for me – the one time I actually wanted to follow along with a fashion trend! I slowly went from an undercut to a side cut, to just cutting the whole thing short. This was the single most euphoric thing I have done in terms of presentation. Even now, about two years later, every time I get a haircut it feels great.

As someone who has breasts, I also wanted to try a binder. Having experienced my husband using a binder during his transition, I already knew that I would love how this looked and felt. Unfortunately due to a medical condition, I can’t wear it for very long or for more than two days in a row but this usually suits me fine as my gender fluctuates somewhat and usually doesn’t stay in the ‘male’ range for very long. I have since experimented with Trans Tape as well which definitely has a learning curve but on the third try I got a good result that I was comfortable with and will definitely keep it as an option in the future.

I have also experimented with wearing a small packer. This is something that was especially terrifying in public but I have come to realize that it is much more noticeable to me than to anyone else. So I mostly do it for the feel rather than the look. I find it particularly useful when I can’t wear my binder due to pain or length of time before I’ll have a chance to change, but I’m feeling more male and have moderate physical dysphoria.

In terms of expression, I always naturally had a more neutral or masculine interaction style and didn’t have to work particularly hard to get rid of the more feminine mannerisms. However, I have noticed this to be more of a struggle for some nonbinary people, especially those who were socialized male. Often we are unaware of which of our mannerisms are being read as masculine or feminine by those around us until it is pointed out so if changing your expression is important to you, I recommend finding a trusted friend who is typically read by strangers the way you want to be read and have them give you feedback on your behvaiours, mannerisms, and conversation style.

One aspect of expression I did specifically work on (and am still conscious of) is the pitch of my voice. As I’ve mentioned before on this podcast, when my husband’s voice lowered when he started taking testosterone, my voice sounded high in comparison. I worked at lowering the range of my voice and speaking in the lower part of my range until it became natural. Luckily I did have some singing training so I had lots of exercises that I knew how to do to strengthen or change the range of my voice. But if you don’t have this type of training you can definitely look up apps that will take you through these exercises.

I also became more conscious of how much I was apologizing and how often I would move over on a sidewalk or in a hallway, especially if a man was walking towards me and tried to avoid doing these things if they were unnecessary and simply a programmed reaction from being socialized female.

THERE ARE NO RULES

The practical aspects of what you want to change about your gender presentation and expression and how you explore that are going to be different for everyone.

When I was looking for ideas of what to try that might feel good for me, I found Instagram to be very helpful. I followed nonbinary hashtags and found people to follow who had a look that I wanted to emulate.

Remember there are no rules when it comes to nonbinary presentation and identity, despite what the media tells us. Nonbinary does not equal young, thin, white, assigned female at birth. Nonbinary presentation does not have to equal androgyny.

There is no such thing as ‘presenting as nonbinary’. Presentation and identity are two separate things. Do what feels right for you.

HOW TO EXPLORE YOUR PRESENTATION AND EXPRESSION

But how do you figure out what feels right for you when the options are limitless? I’ll talk you through a step-by-step approach that we used during my husband’s transition and I used to experiment with some aspects for myself.

Start by making a list of everything you can think of that you want to try. The questionnaire from Dara’s book that I talked about in Episode 2 helped me out with this a lot. Try to break it down as much as possible into small pieces. For example, say you want to try wearing nail polish. Clear nail polish is much more subtle than a brightly coloured one and black nail polish generally signals something different again. So if wearing a bright colour seems too scary or obvious, maybe add ‘wear clear nail polish’ to the list and start there.

Next, make a hierarchical list of environments including a variety of places and the people you would be around from most safe to least safe or most scary for you. This can include at home by yourself, at home with your partner or family, at a trusted friend’s house, out in public with a trusted friend or your partner, at work, around extended family, etc.

For each thing on the list, match it up with an environment that you would feel ok trying it in first off. Some of the more covert things might feel fine to do in public right from the start where some of the things on your list you might need to start by trying it in your most secure environment on the list.

As you’ve probably guessed, the next step is to start trying things. Start with something that doesn’t feel too scary to you and slowly work your way through your list.

First, I recommend trying each thing separately and later you can try combining parts of your presentation to see if that changes how you feel about a particular aspect. So for example, if you didn’t like wearing a skirt, that didn’t feel very good to you, later on, try wearing a skirt but with a more masculine top, or after you’ve cut your hair short, or while you have facial hair. Maybe the skirt will feel different in that context.

Once you’ve tried a few things in safe environments and figured out what you like, start trying them in the next environment down the list.

This type of practical experimentation can feel exhilarating. It is scary but also euphoric. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable and exhausting. Whichever way each experiment goes, it is definitely emotionally draining. So make sure you have a good self-care strategy in place for before, during, or after if needed. This can be a phone call check in scheduled with a trusted friend, meditation or journaling about the experience, making yourself your favourite meal afterwards, whatever works for you.

As you figure out what you like, what feels authentic, and what is comfortable even if it’s too scary to do in public just yet, keep adjusting and adding to your list. Start looking for interesting combinations to try or something you had rejected a long time ago, before even becoming aware of your gender identity.

For me, this was trying on a dress for the first time since high school prom.

PERSONAL EXAMPLE: WEARING A DRESS

I had this dress in my closet that my sister had given me that I really liked.

I was expecting to feel very uncomfortable and dysphoric when I put it on so I collected a bunch of my more masculine jewelry and a leather bomber jacket to wear over top. I also made sure I was home alone and would have some personal time afterwards if I needed it.

I brought everything to a room of the house that didn’t have any mirrors. And then I tried on the dress. At first it did feel uncomfortable. So I put on my jacket over top. That felt enough better that I wanted to take a picture of myself to see what I looked like. To my surprise and encouragement, I looked like my nonbinary self in a dress. I didn’t look like a woman I didn’t recognize. I had this irrational image in my mind that as soon as I put on the dress I would all of a sudden have long hair again, I would maybe have makeup on… Obviously, none of that happened. I still had short hair. I still looked like myself.

So I stepped out into the hall to see myself in a mirror. I spun in a circle and played with the skirt of the dress. I took off my jacket and looked at myself again. Yup, still nonbinary.

While this experiment was a success in terms of turning out to be affirming and decreasing my fear of trying something, I still wouldn’t choose to wear a dress in public because of what it would signal to others. While I still saw myself and felt like my typical nonbinary self, it’s unlikely that strangers would when they read me as female when I’m wearing my most masculine clothes.

But maybe, some day, I will feel comfortable going out in public wearing a long flowy skirt and a button up shirt with a binder or tape on and my leather bomber jacket on top.

MANY REASONS FOR CHANGING YOUR PRESENTATION

There are lots of different reasons for presenting in different ways. Making yourself feel as comfortable in your own skin as possible is one of them.

Safety is another one. Maybe it’s not safe for you to outwardly present in the way that would be most comfortable due to the threat of physical violence or the risk of losing your job, housing, or other forms of support and stability. In this case, you may choose to present in a way that blends in and find subtle or covert ways to present differently such as having your legs shaved or unshaved and wearing long pants most of the time, or wearing a more gender affirming style of underwear. Cutting or growing out your hair can also be less of a flag for people as it is much less tied to gender than many other aspects of presentation.

Another reason to alter your presentation may be for social attention or visibility, or so we can be more easily identified as queer to others in the community.

And sometimes we want to influence how people perceive us so they interact with us differently. I’ve noticed that people are less likely to interact with me in a feminine way or expect me to interact in a feminine way if I’m presenting more masculinely. This can help a lot with social dysphoria. I have definitely had days where I didn’t have a lot of physical dysphoria around my chest but I wanted to get people to interact with me as though I was male as much as possible so I wore a binder anyway.

NONBINARY PRESENTATION IS LIMITLESS

Unfortunately, in the binary society we live in, strangers will always try to categorize us as either male or female. For this reason, there really isn’t such a thing as ‘passing’ as nonbinary. The closest thing I have seen would be making people confused or hesitate, or passing as male in one situation and female the next.

Some people may find this inability to be recognized as who they are frustrating. Sometimes I do too. But I also find it liberating. If the goal isn’t to ‘pass’ as either male or female, you can do what you want. There are so many varieties of nonbinary presentations that I have seen.

There’s something like me which is kind of androgynous, kind of masculine some days. I like wearing more fitted tank tops with more baggy bottoms, that type of thing.

There’s having a flat chest (either due to not having grown breasts, having had top surgery, or wearing a binder or tape) and wearing more feminine clothes and makeup.

There’s having a full beard (either due to having a body that naturally produces testosterone, taking testosterone as HRT, or wearing a fake beard or makeup) and then also wearing a dress at the same time.

You can present differently day to day or find something that is fairly consistent.

You can take hormones to alter your presentation and expression in certain ways and then counteract some of the effects if they’re not for you such as wearing a binder or getting top surgery after taking estrogen or getting electrolysis to remove facial hair after taking testosterone.

If you’re afraid of what a more permanent change might mean, look at both types of typical binary transition as well as nonbinary presentations. Maybe following a more typical binary transition will actually work for you. That doesn’t mean you are any less nonbinary (unless you decide for yourself that that label no longer fits).

There are no rules. Don’t let anyone tell you differently. If you’re feeling lost, send me an email at letstalkgenderpodcast@gmail.com. I will try to help you connect with others that share your experiences or just be a sounding board if you need someone to listen. You are not alone.

That’s it for Episode 3 of season 2 of Let’s talk gender. Among the resources for this episode are two blog posts I did on wearing a binder – the first one on physiological effects and the second on recommendations and exercises you can do to minimize these effects so check those out if you or someone you know wears a binder.

The music for this podcast is by Jamie Price. You can find them at Must Be Tuesday or on iTunes.

Coming up in Episode 4 I will be talking about how to navigate names, pronouns, and other language as a nonbinary person. As other nonbinary people will attest, there is way more gendered language out there than you realize! Talk to you soon.

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Let’s Talk Gender S2E2: Nonbinary Gender Exploration

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Hi Everyone. Welcome back to Let’s Talk Gender.

This episode is about nonbinary gender exploration including my own personal exploration process and some other general ways you can explore your own gender.

MY INITIAL GENDER EXPLORATION PROCESS

I started with a list of what I knew:

Both male and female
My gender fluctuated somewhat
I had both physical and social dysphoria
I felt invisible but didn’t feel ready to come out yet

I then made a list of what I wanted to find out:

How much my gender actually fluctuated
What triggered my dysphoria and how I could manage it or increase euphoria instead
How to flag my gender to those around me so they interacted with me in a way that is more comfortable
Whether I needed to transition socially, medically, or legally in the future

TOOLS I USED

Gender Tracker

I found this to be the most useful. I was already using a bullet journal for my day to day organization, personal notes, and journaling, and a habit tracker already built into that so I made a gender tracker to go along with it. I tracked my physical and social sense of gender separately using a dot and a circle on a scale of 5 female to 0 to 5 male. This scale works for me because it matches my personal gender identity but if you listened to season 2 episode 1 you heard me talk about various different ways to represent nonbinary identities. If it doesn’t work for you, use a different scale or create your own. Send me an email or leave a comment below with what you come up with. I’d love to see it!

I plotted my gender daily for a month and a half using markers such as where and how much I was feeling dysphoria, what was triggering it, what made me feel better, and just generally how I felt gender-wise.

It showed some very useful patterns:

Exactly how much my gender fluctuates
When dysphoria or a sudden fluctuation in gender related to my mood
How my menstrual cycle affected my gender (not a surprise)

Maybe some of these same patterns will show up for you or maybe you’ll find your own. I do highly recommend at least tracking mood, energy level, social engagements or other aspects that may influence or be influenced by your gender during this period so the information in the tracker is as useful to you as possible.

You and Your Gender Identity: A Guide to Discovery by Dara Hoffman-Fox

The first part of this book that I found really useful was the questionnaire about how comfortable I am with various aspects of my identity, body, and presentation as they relate to my gender. It gave me a good starting point and some objective information. I was able to repeat the questionnaire half-way through my process and then again once I had achieved a lot more comfort and self-awareness.

Other exercises from the book included one where it forced me to write down my fears, one where it helped me come up with a self-care strategy to use for more difficult exploration tasks, and how to design practical gender exploration experiments related to changing my presentation. All of these exercises were really useful and I came back to them multiple times throughout my gender exploration process.

Self-care Toolkit

One of the other things in the book that I will talk about separately is a self-care toolkit. Dara recommends having a small box or pencil case that you can take with you on a daily basis. I left mine at work where I struggle with gender the most. Inside the box are things that are affirming, bring you comfort, and things that provide sensory stimulation for distraction or grounding.

Mine included things like precious stones I could carry around in my pocket, a subtle scent I could dab on my wrist, strong tasting gum, and talismans that reminded me of the support I have in my life.

Other things you can include are slips of paper with affirmations, music playlists, reminders of self-care activities you can do, or names of supportive people written on them, or small pictures of supportive people or yourself when you felt the most euphoric.

Journal

I found it really useful to get my thoughts and feelings out in a stream of consciousness style with no judgement. I had a weekly check in with myself for a little while, and then that switched to monthly once I was doing better. I used this to review how I was doing and what I might need to do differently or if I was ready to try the next thing on my list.

6 MONTHS LATER…

After about 6 months of this exploration process I had figured out quite a lot about my gender.

How much my gender fluctuates
How much social and physical dysphoria I have and what specifically triggers each of them
What situations and presentations make me feel the best – euphoric and seen

Remember that exercise from Dara’s book about putting fears into words? One of the biggest ones I had was that exploring my gender would put more of a focus on the dysphoria that I had and would make me more uncomfortable rather than more comfortable. For the most part I had either proven my fears false or at least balanced it out. I have a lot better self-awareness to recognize when dysphoria is what’s making me uncomfortable and burnt out, I have much better management strategies, I can communicate how I’m feeling to supportive people in my life and seek them out, and I have much better support networks either through groups or online, or even just my partner and co-workers.

OTHER WAYS TO EXPLORE YOUR GENDER

There are lots of different ways to explore your gender so if none of the ones I have mentioned so far work for you, I’m going to go through a list of some of the others.

The most common is practical experimentation which I will talk about more in episode 3 on gender presentation and expression.

Another way is you can use vicarious experiences via books, podcasts, social media (especially YouTube), descriptions of labels and definitions, or talking to people in your community who have similar identities to what you’re curious about for yourself.

You can use the process of elimination by defining for sure what you are NOT and steering in a different direction.

You can use objective guidance such as filling in a gender tracker, following steps in a book like You and Your Gender Identity, or talking to a therapist that specializes in gender identity

Or you can test out a particular identity by writing about yourself in the third person using a different name and/or different pronouns. Especially if you have an experience that made you really uncomfortable based on gender, maybe try rewriting it using a different description of yourself, different name and pronouns to see if that makes the experience feel any better for yourself. Try rewriting it a few different ways.

You can also test out your identity by joining an online chat group using a different name and pronouns, especially if you can find a gender affirming one where you can use different pronouns or a different name at different times. Or ask a group of 2 or more friends that you trust to use a different name or pronoun for you and with whom you can present however you feel comfortable.

There are even apps you can use (or there’s always the standard photoshop) where you can see what your face would look like if you had facial hair or none, had make up of various styles, or had shorter or longer hair.

WRAP UP

Exploring a nonbinary identity can feel a bit like deciding to step off the path in the middle of the woods with no map, compass, or destination in mind just as it starts to get dark.

Don’t be intimidated!

There are lots of gradual, safe, and private ways to explore your gender identity that don’t involve the sensation of jumping off a cliff. If you need someone to talk to as a sounding board, send me an email at letstalkgenderpodcast@gmail.com. I am not a therapist (and I highly recommend you find a gender competent one if you can and have the means) but I have done a lot of this myself, have talked to a lot of people, and would love to help if I can. Also reach out to queer support groups in your are or online.

You are not alone.

That’s it for Episode 2 of Season 2 of Let’s Talk Gender. Check out the links below for related blog posts and past podcast episodes. Next week I will be talking about nonbinary gender presentation and expression. Or in other words, what can I change about how I look and how will that affect how people perceive me?

RELATED POSTS

CREDITS

All music for this podcast is written and performed by Jamie Price. You can find them at Must Be Tuesday or on iTunes.

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Let’s Talk Gender S2E1: Nonbinary Identities and Labels

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INTRO

Welcome to Season 2 of Let’s Talk Gender. I’m Meaghan Ray, a nonbinary person. My husband Jake is a trans man. We have been together since before either of us began exploring our gender identities. I co-hosted Season 1 with Jake where we discussed our experiences through the gender transition process. Season 2 will be radio host monologue style and is all about life as a nonbinary person.

To start off Season 2, I will be talking about nonbinary identities and labels. We talk about this in Season 1: Episode 1: Language and Labels but this time I’ll focus specifically on non-binary identities and labels.

WHERE MY GENDER STORY BEGAN

I’m going to start off with my personal story so you know where I’m coming from and how I arrived at my current sense of my own identity.

When I was in Grade ten I had a few months of switching back and forth between feeling like I was Meaghan and feeling like a boy named Ray. I didn’t know how to put that into words at the time. All I knew was that some days when I woke up I was comfortable in my more feminine clothes and being called Meaghan and some days when I woke up and went to school I felt very uncomfortable in my feminine clothes and I had to wear my baggier clothes and I would randomly respond to the name Ray of this boy in my year who had a locker down the hall from me.

I couldn’t understand it, I couldn’t explain it, I didn’t talk to anyone about it, I just kind of lived through it. I would switch back and forth every few days, maybe have a week or a little bit more as Meaghan and then switch back to Ray for a few days. It got very uncomfortable.

This was around January to March of Grade 10. So around March break when our family went up to cottage I found a quiet space by myself with a notebook. I wrote out a list of personality traits that I felt like I embodied when I was Meaghan and a list of personality traits that I felt like I embodied when I was Ray. I drew lines between the ones that were the same which showed where they overlapped and decided that was who I was going to be from then on. In essence I found a way to make them work together.

YEARS LATER…

From then on I ignored it and lived my life as a slightly masculine presenting woman. At least until my husband Jake started transitioning. This exposed me to new labels and a community of trans people and nonbinary people, reminded me of that experience I had had back in Grade ten that I had completely forgotten about, and gave me space to think about my gender in a way that was positive and that it would be possible to live as my whole self and not just where the two parts overlapped.

Initially during his transition I was mostly in the support role so I didn’t feel like I had the energy or space to explore my self but a few years into his transition once everything had stabilized, I did have the energy and that space. Around the same time, with my husband presenting more masculine and being identified as a man in public by strangers, they would put me in the ‘female’ box and treat me more femininely than they had when we were identified as a lesbian couple. This got very uncomfortable and was one of the other reasons why I needed to explore my identity in terms of gender.

The first thing I did was track my gender on a scale and discovered I fluctuate from about 50% female to 25% male, around the middle. Six months into the self-discovery process I had more clearly defined what my triggers are for various types of dysphoria and developed strategies to manage it as best I could. I learned that social dysphoria is significantly harder to manage than physical dysphoria and for me, social dysphoria is actually the one I have more of. I had lots of fears most of which did not come true or were balanced out by benefits of knowing myself better and having better management strategies for dysphoria.

GENDER SPECTRUMS

During my self-discovery process I mostly thought of gender along a spectrum from male to female with neutral in the middle which, because of the nature of my own identity, works for me. But single line spectrums such as those shown on the original Genderbread Person graphic are problematic for a number of reasons.

The first one is that there is no zero option or absence of whatever is on the spectrum which alienates or doesn’t allow space for many nonbinary and other queer identities. Another reason that it is problematic is that it is still binary focused, this or that or somewhere in between but not something different. It also frames nonbinary experiences using binary terminology and concepts which limits our understanding of ourselves and our ability to explain our identities to others in ways that feel authentic and don’t just relate back to cis experiences.

So I’ve learned that the better option is breaking the spectrum apart to have zero at one end of the scale to gender (male, female, or third gender) at the other end of the scale and have each on their own scales as shown in the Gender Unicorn graphic. This allows for identities that are an absence of that thing such as agender, demi- identities such as demi-boy or demi-girl, and multi-identities such as bigender. It gives more variety, more nuance, it’s more descriptive, more inclusive, and ends up being more accurate to an individual’s experience.

Another way to conceptualize nonbinary identities is on a 2D x-y axis graph (as seen in this post). The X axis 0-6 female and the Y axis 0-6 male. Nonbinary genders can fall anywhere in this square. They can be stable (represented by a dot) or fluctuating (represented by a shaded or circled area). However, this does not allow for third genders and is still framed by the binary and therefore may not work for everyone.

Some people think of gender as an amorphous cloud of possible identities which is great if that works for you but, especially when explaining my gender to cis people, I find a little more structure is needed. I also found that when exploring my own gender, a little more structure was helpful, at least until I got a handle on where I fell on the spectrum and then I could expand a little on that.

LABELS

I view labels in general as communication tools, ways of expressing who you are and what your experiences might be to others. This relies on a mutual understanding of the label being used and can often lead to confusion if you don’t take the knowledge level or experiences of the person you are talking to into account.

I’ll explain what I mean by talking about the labels I use and why and how I use each one.

Genderqueer

This is the first label I used (before discovering the label nonbinary). It’s a positive term that states what I am rather than what I’m not. It’s vague and can encompass lots of different things. It has a lot of history and lots of people recognize it.

Nonbinary

I now use this more than genderqueer because it has become a lot more common, even in the cis world. I don’t like this term as much because it focuses on the binary and says I’m not that thing but doesn’t say what I am. My gender is both female and male which means I encompass the whole binary so saying I’m not binary feels a little awkward. But still works as a good catch-all.

Gender-neutral

This is more of a description term than a label. Still relates to the binary and is a good descriptor of how I feel, how I might express myself and how people might relate to me. Even if people haven’t heard the term before it’s pretty easy to understand.

Co-gender

This is the most accurate term for my gender identitiy, the most specific one, but also the one that the least number of people are familiar with so it’s the one I use the least. It means having two distinct gender identities that overlap or work together to balance each other out. This is exactly the description of my gender identity.

Other Nonbinary Labels

There are many many more than what I go over here so if none of these resonate with you or aren’t the one your nonbinary friend or loved one uses, definitely check out the Resources page for other lists.

Bi-gender: two distinct genders, often don’t overlap, often people switch back and forth spontaneously or depending on the situation they’re in.
Tri-gender: as with bi-gender but with three genders
Genderfluid: any gender that encompasses more than one spot on the spectrum, their gender shifts around on the spectrum a little bit or a lot and can shift slowly or suddenly.
Gender non-conforming: umbrella term that is easy to understand but again, states what you are not rather than what you are. Some people like the feel of rebelling inherent in this label and for them it works really well.
Gender expansive: gender identities that encompass a large range of gender at all times. May feel the most comfortable presenting with some aspects being hyper-masculine and some aspects being hyper-feminine at the same time.
Gender creative: often applied to kids who are not fitting what society expects of them based on their sex assigned at birth. Sounds very playful and works well for kids but if it works for you as an adult, feel free to use it!
Agender: a lack of gender, having no sense of gender, feeling neutral or null. There are lots of other terms that are similar so if this experience fits but the label agender doesn’t, look up some other similar labels.
Demi genders: genders that fall somewhere between agender and any of the other genders. For example demi-girl, demi-boy. I don’t personally like the use of girl and boy, it sounds very young, but if it works for you that’s great!
Third genders: many cultural groups have traditions that involved a third gender. I don’t have a lot of personal experience with these as I don’t belong to any of these groups but if you do and you have a connection to that culture this may be a good fit for you.
Nonbinary woman or nonbinary man: genders that are fairly close to one of the binary genders but still include a small component of something different.
Masculine/feminine-of-center: more related to presentation and experience than identity and used as a grouping term for people who would be ‘read’ in a similar way by strangers. Not necessarily a label in itself but can be a good descriptor to add to other labels.

Trans

The last label I want to talk about is Trans. Trans is an umbrella term that means that your gender identity does not match the gender you were assigned at birth. Nonbinary does fall under the trans umbrella and many nonbinary people consider themselves trans.

Personally, I am very careful about how I apply this term to myself. I find there is a general understanding of trans identities as based on a binary transition which can lead to confusion when using this label without medically or legally transitioning. I would appear as a woman to most people until I say no, I’m nonbinary. But if I start out with the label Trans, they might think I’m a trans woman, ie assigned male at birth and have transitioned, which is very different from my personal experience and could be confusing. However, when I am around people who understand the nuances of the trans community and this label, I have no problem including myself under that umbrella

Of course, personal experience with a label matters. Specifically for the label ‘trans’, most of my experience comes from my husband identifying as a trans man and our experiences with the binary transition process that he’s gone through. Since my experiences are quite different from his, I have a hard time feeling a personal connection with the label ‘trans’ other than through a community connection basis.

There’s a common experience throughout the trans community and especially in the nonbinary community of feeling ‘not trans enough’ to claim this label. This really sucks. I feels like you need to prove your transness or need to complete a certain milestone of transition, especially related to medical or legal changes. I mostly want to say that this experience sucks and is a very common experience and if you are having this struggle, I often share your struggle and you are not alone. You should feel free to claim whatever label feels right to you that is within your realm of cultural experience to claim.

WRAP-UP

That’s it for Episode 1 of Season 2 of Let’s Talk Gender. Next week I will be talking about nonbinary gender exploration. Or in other words, how you figure out what the hell your gender is when all you know is that it’s not female or male.

RELATED POSTS AND LINKS

CREDITS

All music for this podcast is written and performed by Jamie Price. You can find them at Must Be Tuesday or on iTunes.

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Third Trimester and Weird Pregnancy Symptoms

I’m so close to the end of pregnancy! And the very sudden transition to parenthood. That’s not terrifying at all.

THIRD TRIMESTER

Third trimester has been all about coping as best as I can and preparing for life ahead. I have continued to have pelvic and back pain what has slowly gotten worse. I have a lot of difficulty rolling over in bed, getting out of bed in the morning, and moving around first thing (including getting to the bathroom). On the plus side, all the stiffness and pain I had in my neck, upper back, and ribs has resolved due to the increase in relaxin. If I wake up with a stiff neck it is gone within a couple hours.

And stiff necks are common since I have to sleep on an incline in order to avoid heartburn. I have to eat smaller meals, drink lots of water, often have something creamy like milk or ice cream after a more acidic meal, and occasionally take tums in order to keep heartburn away. I know lots of people have worse cases of heartburn than this so in this regard I feel pretty lucky.

As it is currently mid August, I do struggle with overheating (which happens to make heartburn worse as well). Pain also increases my body temperature. And when I overheat, I get woozy, dehydrated, nauseous, and very fatigued. So staying cool is important. I have taken to wearing a damp headband hanging around my neck (like having a damp towel on the back of your neck but it doesn’t fall off) and hanging out in the basement or air conditioned spaces as much as I need to on hot days. As the area I was working in had no air conditioning and routinely got up to 26 degrees C, I ended up going off work a couple weeks earlier than planned.

Mostly, my body feels heavy and painful and every movement or activity takes twice as much effort. I’m still trying to enjoy the aspects of pregnancy that I can while I still get to experience them but more and more I am looking forward to the end of this phase (at which point I am able to start taking naproxen again!).

Other than the physical aspects of the third trimester, this part of my pregnancy has been characterized by looking ahead and preparing for what’s to come. This started with learning about labour and birth and moved on to learning about feeding, baby care, and postpartum experiences. I created a birth plan (descriptions of each stage of labour and reminders of what might be helpful to me during each phase) and a to-do list to prepare for labour and postpartum. My husband and I have used our planned time off in advance of baby to get as much of this list done as we can.

People call this ‘nesting’. I think of it more as responsible urgency. You never know when the baby will make their appearance so getting useful preparations done early makes sense. It’s not that I feel the need to clean the whole house and sterilize every surface. In fact, that was nowhere on the list and I likely won’t have time or energy for it. But I do want to have the nursery ready, some frozen meals prepared, and a hospital to-go bag packed in advance.

I will give you an update of how our postpartum experience compared to what I expect and whether these preparations were helpful once life with a little one feels manageable. And of course, whatever gendery things are going on during that phase as well.

WEIRD PREGNANCY SYMPTOMS

Most of these have nothing to do with gender but I wanted to share some of the more strange symptoms I have experienced that I hadn’t heard about until I asked if others had similar experiences.

I have way more freckles, moles, and other little dark spots than I did before. They are mostly on my chest, shoulders, upper back, and arms. I had lots of these before being pregnant but I have way more now. Will they go away afterwards? I guess we’ll find out!

In the last few weeks I have found my skin to be hypersensitive, especially with repeated stimuli like while having a shower. I can tolerate the water hitting me for 5-8 minutes but then it starts to feel like pins and needles. Stiffer clothes or anything with a label in it is extremely irritating. Even the waistband of my underwear can make my skin itch or sting.

The outside surface of my belly feels almost numb. I have lots of stretch marks which might be related but I figure if I started out with a certain number of nerve endings and then my surface area expanded, I likely have fewer nerves per area of skin. My husband can touch me on the belly and if I don’t see it I won’t even know. One of the more common symptoms is an itchy belly (which I also have sometimes). I wonder if this is due to stretching, muscles getting ready for labour, or my brain’s way of filling in the sensation that I’m missing from that area being mostly numb. Either way, it’s definitely weird.

And lastly, I have grown a thin layer of dark hair all over my belly, a little bit on my chest, and I have long thick peach fuzz below my ears and down my neck and jaw a bit. While most people who are pregnant are disappointed, embarrassed, or weirded out by this, I love it. Unless I take testosterone in the future, this is likely the only time I will have belly, chest, and (kind of) facial hair. Unfortunately, people have said it goes away soon after pregnancy is done. This is one pregnancy symptom I wouldn’t mind keeping.

Are there any other weird pregnancy symptoms you’ve heard of or experienced? Did they interact with your gender at all? Leave a comment below and share your experiences!

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Why Using AMAB and AFAB is Problematic

I have used AMAB (assigned male at birth) and AFAB (assigned female at birth) many times since I started this blog. But I recently heard an argument against using these terms that I think is worth sharing.

Though the terminology of ‘assigned at birth’ is better than ‘biological sex’ or simply ‘sex’, it doesn’t change the fact that these are still broad categories based on sex-at-birth characteristics. I often use these terms as a general reference to ‘people who grew up being read as female due to an estrogen-based puberty’ and ‘people who grew up being read as male due to a testosterone-based puberty’. But this still makes the assumption that someone’s sex assigned at birth will determine the type of puberty they have, the characteristics and functions of their body, how they are socialized, and how they are read by society. Boiling all of that down to someones’s sex assignment is limiting, unhelpfully broad, and extremely exclusionary to intersex people.

I am trying to replace my use of these terms with more specific references. Here are some examples.

People who were raised female/male
People who menstruate/don’t menstruate
People with uteruses and/or vaginas
People who produce sperm
People with penises
People who lactate
People with facial hair
People with dysphoria due to a rounded chest
People who are assumed to be female/male
People with a low voice (bass/baritone range)
People with a high voice (soprano range)
People who are trying to masculinize their appearance/presentation
People who are trying to feminize their appearance/presentation

In almost any instance where I would normally use the shorthand of AFAB or AMAB there is a better phrase that is more specific to the context that I am referring to and therefore the people who might share this experience. It may use more words to say it but it ends up being more inclusive, more specific, and much more easily understood by a wider range of people.

Using more descriptive phrases relates our gender to our experiences, not to our sex assignment at birth or the gender that society assigns to our body. You avoid the constant reminder that society got it wrong (and often continues to get it wrong). Many people who would be turned off by that reminder would have no problem engaging in discussion when they are referred to using one of the alternative phrases above.

These descriptive phrases are also more inclusive of nonbinary people who may not share all the same desires, types of dysphoria, and presentation preferences as binary trans folks. If referring to AMAB trans people with the assumption that they share the experience of attempting to feminize their appearance in various ways, this could be frustrating and exclusionary of intersex and nonbinary people.

So next time you go to use the acronym AMAB or AFAB, try replacing it with a more specific and descriptive phrase. I know I will. Since I started trying to do this, there haven’t been any instances where I felt like the acronyms worked better.

What is your experience with these acronyms? Do they rub you the wrong way or not bother you at all? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts!

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Staying Positive

The last few weeks of pregnancy are hard no matter what your experience is. You want it to be over but you’re nervous about the birthing process and having to care for the little being on the outside. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by frustration, discomfort, and anxiety, especially when dysphoria is thrown into the mix. So I’ve been asking myself a couple questions to keep myself focused on the positive and excited for the future. The answers to these questions will be different for everyone. Here are a few of my responses.

What am I going to miss about being pregnant (that I want to be fully present for while it’s still happening)?

Feeling the baby move
Feeling baby hiccups
Having a strong, visceral, automatic bond with this being
Being able to keep the baby fed, clean, and protected with my body
The extra fuzz around my face and hair on my belly and chest
The tenting effect of a shirt stretched out over my belly that hides my chest
- Also my chest feeling smaller in comparison to my much larger belly

What am I looking forward to once I’m not pregnant (not related to the baby because who knows what that will be like, just for myself)?

Wearing my wedding ring
Sleeping in any position
Less pain, allowing me to walk without a cane or walker
- Especially going for walks in nature with my husband and dog
Wearing my favourite clothes, especially underwear
Wearing a binder (eventually)
No more heartburn!

The other way to stay positive that works well for me is having a few key phrases that help me stay engaged and motivated despite constantly feeling uncomfortable. Again, these are very individual. What is helpful to me may not be to someone else but here are a few of the ones I’ve been using.

I am nonbinary, therefore my body is nonbinary, therefore my experience of pregnancy, birthing, and parenting is a nonbinary experience.
Stay cool and hydrated.
Rest when you need to but don’t give up on getting things done. Try again later or find a different way to do it.
Give the pets lots of attention and enjoy their cuddles.
Take it one day, one week at a time.
Every move the baby makes, no matter how uncomfortable, heavy, or nauseating, is a sign that they’re doing well.
Your body is capable of amazing things. Listen to what it’s telling you and believe in the wisdom it holds.

I hope this focus on positivity, excitement, and empowerment helps you find ways to strengthen those emotions for yourself as well. Hang in there. The world is a crazy place whether there are big changes in your near future or not.

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Let’s Talk Gender Season 2 Coming Soon!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Hey everyone,

I’m Meaghan Ray, a nonbinary person, and the host of Let’s Talk Gender.

Coming up in September 2020 is season 2!

This season will be another eight episodes, this time around the topic of nonbinary identities and experiences. If you listened to Season 1 you got to hear from my husband about his experiences with transitioning. This season will be more of a radio host monologue style with just me as the host.

Here’s a brief look at what this season will include:

Episode 1: Nonbinary identities and labels
Episode 2: Exploring your gender as a nonbinary person
Episode 3: Nonbinary gender presentation and expression
Episode 4: Navigating names, pronouns, and other language
Episode 5: Coming out as nonbinary
Episode 6: Complexities of nonbinary identities such as how they interact with sexual orientation and a deeper look at gender fluid identities
Episode 7: Living in the world as nonbinary including using bathrooms, going to the gym, and what passing means as a nonbinary person
Episode 8: Pregnancy and parenting as a nonbinary person

You can find the podcast on any itunes populated platform or stream it from this website. You will also find the show notes for each episode on this website and if you subscribe, new episodes and blog posts will be sent to your inbox so you don’t have to remember to keep checking back!

You can always get in touch with me at letstalkgenderpodcast@gmail.com or leave a comment on this website. I’d love to hear your thoughts, topic requests, or be a sounding board if I can.

I’m really looking forward to this season. I hope you are too.

Talk to you soon!

CREDITS

All music for this podcast is written and performed by Jamie Price. You can find them at Must Be Tuesday or on iTunes.

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Contextual Voice Dysphoria

Note: I refer to gender based vocal pitch ranges throughout this post. All ranges are based on cis averages used in vocal pitch analyzer apps and choral voice ranges. This is not my preferred way to talk about it and I wish I had better language to use that was not cis-normative but for ease of communication I have stuck with this phrasing.

Most of the time, I like my voice. It generally sits in a mid to low female range but I can easily push it to an androgynous range on days that I feel more male. The natural speaking range of my voice has lowered since my husband transitioned. As his voice dropped from Testosterone, mine sounded higher in comparison and I had more and more days where I consciously lowered the range I was using. Now it’s fairly natural in that range and doesn’t bother me very often.

However, there are certain situations where I raise the pitch of my voice intentionally or unintentionally. Some of these situations that I’ve noticed are:

To be heard in a loud, echoing environment
To be heard through a quiet microphone or speaker like at a drive through or over zoom
When speaking fast and trying to articulate clearly at the same time
To sound as non-threatening as possible
When talking to pets, babies, or kids

The recent context of my job has involved many of these situations and I have noticed an increase in dysphoria and voice awareness as a result. I also had a sick pet recently and noticed that my voice was higher when I was talking to him in a calming sympathetic way and it really started to irritate me.

So I’ve been wondering: Why do we do this? Do we have to or is it just a habit? Do higher voices actually put people, pets, and kids more at ease? Or is it just playing into stereotypes associated with femininity and masculinity via female vs male vocal range (which is a cis-based average to begin with)? Can’t I come across as calming and sympathetic while speaking in a lower range?

Regardless of why or whether I have to or not, I’m trying to listen to my dysphoria and train myself out of the automatic increased-pitch reaction to certain situations. I’m worried that once I have a baby (only six weeks to go now!), if I’m constantly talking to them with a higher voice and triggering my dysphoria, I will begin to associate the dysphoria with those interactions and it will negatively affect my relationship with my kid and my overall mental health. Hopefully it will just take practice to train myself that it’s fine to talk to the baby in my lower vocal range and be just as soothing.

Have you had this experience? Do you raise or lower the pitch of your voice based on context? Does it trigger any internal discomfort (dysphoria or otherwise) for you? Are you trying to train yourself out of this habit or does the versatility work for you?

Leave me a comment below and let me know your thoughts and experiences!

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Passing vs Presenting vs Assumed

PASSING

The concept of ‘passing’ is talked about often in the trans community. It refers to the ability to go about your life without being identified as trans. Passing as binary cis. It can come with a lot of judgement when someone ‘isn’t passing well enough’, even from within the community. But more importantly, not being able to ‘pass’ can be a big safety risk in a lot of areas. Because of this, many trans people are trying to pass as cis or live their life in ‘stealth’ mode. But many can’t for a variety of reasons, including having a nonbinary identity (see my post Passing as Nonbinary).

The idea of passing has been construed as trans people trying to hide, trying to be cis because that is the ideal, or trying to trick cis people into thinking they’re cis. I definitely don’t agree with the second two and if the first one is true, it would be because to not hide would be unsafe or make life significantly harder.

PRESENTING

For the majority of trans people, especially nonbinary people, passing is not necessarily a goal. We just want to live our lives, be who we are, and not get harassed for it. So the term ‘presenting’ seems more accurate. We choose to present masculine, feminine, androgynous, or a combination of these. Presenting implies that it is still our choice but it is a purposeful one, to be seen authentically rather than to hide. It has less comparison to cis ‘ideals’ and more options than the two binary ones.

ASSUMED

When we talk about passing we often refer to ‘passing privilege’ or the safety and ease that comes with being ‘read’ as a binary cis person. Swapping out ‘presenting’ for ‘passing’ doesn’t really work in this context. But using ‘passing’ implies that the trans person has control over this privilege when really it is society and the people around them that are providing or taking away that privilege, sometimes without warning (thus the safety risk). For this reason, I think the term ‘assumed’ is more accurate.

For the most part, people around me assume I am female because of my body, voice, name, and ID. They are ‘assuming’ I’m a cis female. I present fairly androgynous with short hair, masculine clothing, occasionally a binder on but usually a sports bra, no facial hair, an androgynous range voice, and a fairly small soft face. They are taking all these clues and categorizing me as either male or female. Most often, it’s female. Very occasionally, its male. It is never as nonbinary.

I am not trying to ‘pass’ as female. Nor am I trying to present as female. But I am most definitely ‘assumed female’. This does give me a certain amount of privilege but also adds significantly to my discomfort, mainly in the form of social dysphoria. So when we talk about this type of privilege, I think we should say ‘assumed privilege’ rather than ‘passing privilege’. I am not the one seeking out or achieving this type of privilege. It is being given to me (or not) in an uncomfortable way by those around me.

Really, if I could be ‘assumed nonbinary’, I would consider that to be a much bigger privilege and a sign that society was heading in the right direction.

CAVEAT

The terminology of ‘passing’ is also used in the context of ‘white-passing privilege’. As a white person, it is not my place to speak to whether the shift to ‘assumed’ instead of ‘passing’ also applies in this context. Please leave a comment if you are BIPOC and can speak to this as a possible paradigm shift!

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What Makes a Family?

Lots of people talk about having a kid as ‘starting a family’. This rubs me the wrong way. For me, choosing to commit to a long term relationship with my husband was when we started our family. We got married as a symbol of that commitment but our family was started even before marriage. Having a child is an expansion of that family, not the start of it.

I think my definition or experience of family is particularly common in the queer community. One of the queer community slogans that I grew up hearing is ‘Love makes a family’. I think this partly is to say that it doesn’t take a man and a woman to make a family, but simply two (or more) people who are in love. It also relates to being rejected by biological family due to being queer and finding new family within the queer community who love and support you – your chosen family.

So why is having a baby referred to as ‘starting a family’? Is this a cisgender, heteronormative concept? Do people feel like their lives aren’t full enough as simply a couple and therefore their family isn’t complete or even formed until they have kids? I think this distinction matters and can have a big influence on how we view our relationships with our partners and the impact of having kids.

If you see having a kid as being the start of your family, the kid takes the position of being the glue that holds the family together. Without the kid, there is no family. I think this really devalues your relationship with your partner (who’s love, ideally, is what made you want to have a kid in the first place). This also devalues family units that don’t include children in society at large, increasing the stigma and shame for people who struggle with infertility, do not have the resources to access medical or social systems that would allow them to have kids, or simply chose not to have kids.

If you see your family as starting from when you make a commitment to your partner, it follows that you will need to cherish and nurture that relationship as being at the core of the family. You will value the time you had together before having a baby as well as the times you spend together away from the kid after they’re born as quality family time.

Am I missing something? Is there a positive spin to the concept of having a kid as ‘starting a family’? If you have a different perspective, I’d love to hear it. Leave a comment below or send me an email!

For now, I’m going to stick with Jake and I being a family unit that is soon to be expanding with the addition of a kid.

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