Let’s Talk About It!

WHY FRUSTRATION? It feels like frustration has become my default setting. Frustration is a result of having a goal but having minimal progress towards that goal. It’s a feeling of stagnation, of constantly coming up against immovable barriers and being powerless to make a difference. The more important the goal is to you or the bigger the effect that the goal will have on your life, the more urgently you want it and the less Read more

VISIBILITY I define visibility as feeling seen by those around you, consciously or unconsciously. This can be specific to a particular aspect of your identity or a recognition of the complexity and intersectionality of different parts of your identity. Visibility is also being recognized by a stranger as belonging to the same group giving a sense of solidarity and community. Being visible as a queer person can give unspoken support for someone in the closet Read more

Trans The root word trans typically means across or change. As a queer identity it has two main meanings. The binary version is that a trans person identifies with the opposite gender from what they were assigned at birth (still the way society interprets the label). The gender spectrum version is that they do not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth (this is the definition that I use). None of these definitions Read more

After my husband decided to transition I slowly started picturing him the way he pictured himself: with a flat chest and facial hair. Seeing him with a female chest became uncomfortable. But I couldn’t really picture exactly what he would look like with a flat chest. So instead, this area of my mental image of him kind of blurred out. In prep for his top surgery consult we had to take topless pictures for the Read more

I recently went on a vacation with my husband where I was attending a conference and was able to pick the name and pronouns that would appear on my ID badge. My husband asked if I wanted to use my male name, Ray, and they/them pronouns as an experiment to see how it felt. After some thought and a couple of conversations with trusted friends I decided to go for it. My gender identity includes a female Read more

Whether you’re the one trying to figure out your gender or you partner is questioning theirs, you need a support system. This can come in many forms. Below are a few of the types of support I have found useful. I think of support as a two way street. Ways that you are participating, communicating with others, where they know who you are. I think of resources as something you look at where the person Read more

If your partner just told you they are trans or wondering if they are trans it means they trusted you enough and value your place in their life to share this huge part of themselves with you. If you are not sure what to do next, how to be supportive, or what this means for you you’ve come to the right place. I hope this post will help answer some of those questions. new relationship Read more

I have always been an athletic person. I played baseball right from T-ball to high school, soccer in middle school, and was generally an outdoorsy kid climbing trees and exploring the woods around our cottage. I learned to swim, canoe, ski, and skate at our cottage, and learned how to sail, kayak, and ride horses at summer camp. This is where I first discovered archery which became my focus throughout high school and into university. Read more

What gap? People in the queer/trans communities are used to lots of different labels and have a common understanding of what it feels like to have to figure out who you are, be in the closet, and come out. If you hang out in the queer/trans communities enough it seems like this understanding is shared with everyone. But the general population outside of this community may never have been exposed to any of those labels, Read more

My physical sense of my gender and my social sense of my gender fluctuate separately but can line up at times (here is my post about how I figured this out and tools I used to explore it). Here, I will describe what I mean by physical and social gender, what it feels like when my physical and social sense of gender match or differ in various places on the spectrum, and what strategies I Read more