Let’s Talk About It!

Being pregnant is a huge undertaking for your body. It makes permanent changes to lots of areas, includes lots of discomfort and unpleasant experiences, and involves a decent amount of risk. It changes how you are viewed by society and how strangers interact with you. And it is (or can be) the first step in one of the biggest changes anyone can make in life – becoming a parent. So of course I have all Read more

IT WORKED! We were pregnant! If you missed the story of how we got here, check out Getting Pregnant is Hard to do Without Sperm. The first thing we felt was excitement. The second was anxiety. Not because suddenly such a big thing was happening, but because we had spent so long stopping ourselves from being excited in order to avoid the pain of disappointment that any excitement we felt triggered anxiety. This reaction slowly Read more

When Jake and I first met we were unsure if we wanted kids. Once our lives stabilized it seemed a lot more feasible. Around the same time we spent some time with a couple small babies and had our parental instincts kick into high gear. Since both of us had a uterus and ovaries we had a choice of who would carry. Jake was more worried about being able to bond with the kid and Read more

Having a menstrual cycle is treated as a very female experience. It is seen as the transition from being a girl to being a woman. It is treated as a symbol of fertility and future motherhood. So it is understandable that people who menstruate but who do not identify as women would struggle a lot with this time of the month. Menstruation is a huge trigger for dysphoria in a lot of people. For people Read more

The period of time between wondering if you might not be cis and figuring out what your gender actually is can be confusing, frustrating, scary, and isolating. There are many different ways to explore your gender. Don’t be afraid to try more than one. You might use all of these strategies at different times or only a couple of them. I hope this helps you find the most authentic and comfortable version of yourself. Practical Read more

For many gender non-conforming and trans people, names are super important. Just like pronouns, names often have a specific gender attached to them. There are female names, male names, and gender neutral names. Often one of the first things that a trans person will do, after coming out to themselves and before coming out to their broader community, is to pick a new name. This name is considered their chosen name. Their previous name is Read more

I have often heard complaints about why people (usually queer people) feel the need to label themselves, or why there are so many different labels, or how labels are so restrictive, and how its unnecessary to put yourself in a box. Usually, the people making these statements are cisgendered and straight. They have never struggled with having to figure out a part of their identity, find a way to explain it to others, and find Read more

When Jake and I got married, we both identified as women (this was pre gender exploration for both of us). We made some adjustments to the ceremony so it didn’t feel so heternonormative. Since then, I have participated in, and seen pictures and descriptions of, many different gay, queer, and gender non-conforming (GNC) weddings. Here are a few of the ideas I’ve collected: Switch Sides. If there is a more masculine presenting person and a Read more

Sometimes for folks who experience dysphoria it feels like the only ways they experience their body are negative. This can easily lead to negative self-talk and the tendency to ignore the ways that our bodies help us navigate the world every day. Dysphoria is not always predictable or manageable. It springs up at the worst times and can be extremely persistent. It can lead to a feeling of fighting with our bodies or feeling out Read more

The first definition of gender that I came across that differed from the binary definition was the idea of gender as a spectrum from male to female with neutral in the middle. For a long time this made sense to me. As someone who identifies as a mix of male and female, I could conceptualize and communicate my gender to others using this model. Original Genderbread Person graphic showing sex, gender, presentation, and sexual orientation Read more