Tag: Non-binary

Second Trimester Part 2

GENDER

Not much has changed gender-wise since my last pregnancy update (see Second Trimester Part 1). Being more visibly pregnant leads to more female language and more dysphoria. I have been able to manage by finding clothes that are generally affirming (larger sports bras rather than maternity bras and larger and longer ‘men’s’ t-shirts rather than maternity tops) though I have had to switch to maternity pants with the fake button, tiny pockets, but comfortable belly band.

Most of the conversations I’m having about gender are related to the baby’s gender (though most people mean sex – see Gender vs Sex). I have been trying to correct people’s use of the terms gender and sex and trying to explain to people why it’s important that the baby’s sex doesn’t matter and encouraging them to challenge their own conditioning about automatically asking about it. Most of the time I don’t have the energy for these conversations or the context isn’t conducive to this kind of conversation ie a stranger asking about the baby’s ‘gender’ in passing (yes, this happens frequently). The longer conversations I have had with friends and co-workers, when my response is received well, often segue into a conversation about trans identities, identity vs presentation, and sometimes even my own identity as nonbinary. So, while the question ‘What are you having?’ is very frustrating and mildly triggering, it has helped me come out to more people in a round-about way.

PREGNANCY SYMPTOMS

I am still struggling with pain in my hips, pelvis, back, ribs, and occasional other joints. The worsening of this pain has slowed down with the sedentary duties at work and use of a walker or cane to get around. Other symptoms (heartburn, overheating, vivid dreams) are generally easy to manage.

The coolest thing is the baby movement. Hiccups are the cutest – a rhythmic little thump in one spot that someone else can feel from the outside. The kicks, elbows, knees, and punches range from interesting to surprising to painful. The squirming can be weird and nauseating but is also pretty cool how much it changes the shape of my belly and how visible it is from the outside. All these sensations remind me that I have a little human growing inside me. It is pretty amazing what my body can do.

THE MENTAL GAME

As I enter the third trimester of pregnancy, I have been doing a lot of thinking ahead to, and learning about labour, birth, and the postpartum experience. We have been taking prenatal classes (over Zoom of course) and I have been reading lots of books. The best one that I’ve found by far is called The Birth Partner by Penny Simkin. It’s on it’s fifth edition and is written using predominantly gender neutral language – birthing person/labouring person, partner/support person, breast/chest feeding. While it’s aimed at the support person rather than the birthing person, I have found it very straightforwardly informative and affirming.

Learning about and preparing for the big scary experiences and changes ahead is my way of making them feel more manageable and less scary. I’m not generally an anxious person so I’m unlikely to make myself more scared by learning more. However, thinking about the future definitely takes my focus away from experiencing the moment, experiencing pregnancy to the fullest as it happens. So I’m trying to find a balance between the two by enjoying as many aspects of pregnancy as I can while managing the rest and preparing for the future.

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My Body, My Identity, My Experiences

Lately, I have struggled to feel excited and comfortable with the idea and experience of being pregnant. I have felt like the more visibly pregnant I get, the more invisible my nonbinary identity becomes, both to myself and others.

Recently, someone in one of the online groups I am a part of stated something similar to what I have written below and it resonated a lot with me. I wanted to put these thoughts into words so I can remind myself of them as often as I need to in the upcoming months. Hopefully they will resonate with others as well.

I identify as nonbinary. Regardless of how society views me, I am the only one who gets to decide how I identify.

My body is my own. It is the body of a nonbinary person. Regardless of how society views my body, this means my body is a nonbinary body.

For me, the experience of being pregnant and gestating a child, something that my nonbinary body is able to do, is a nonbinary experience. I cannot separate these experiences from my own identity, nor should I have to.

For most people, being pregnant is a female experience because they are female. But for me, it is a nonbinary experience. For a trans man, it would be a male experience. Not all people who get pregnant are women and the ability to get pregnant is not required in order to be considered a woman.

If everything goes well, I will get to be a parent, a mother. For me, parenting will be a nonbinary experience. All the aspects of parenting that are typically associated with motherhood will be nonbinary experiences. Motherhood will be a nonbinary experience.

My ability to have these experiences does not diminish or negate my identity as a nonbinary person. Nor should my ability to have these experiences as a nonbinary person diminish anyone else’s identity as a woman.

No matter what society tells me, and even if all the people around me that relate to these experiences are women, my body is nonbinary because I am nonbinary, and therefore, my pregnancy is a nonbinary experience.

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Second Trimester Part 1

GENDER

I have stayed close to the middle of the gender spectrum over the past few months with some fluctuations towards the female side. This has made me feel balanced and stable within my gender, much more so than last time (see Pregnancy, Miscarriage, and Gender).

But as I predicted, dysphoria has definitely gotten worse since telling people I’m pregnant and starting to show. The belly is not really an issue though it is the thing that people use to identify me as pregnant and then start treating me more femininely. Referring to my belly or the fact that I’m pregnant with typically feminine terms definitely increases my social dysphoria and feelings of invisibility.

Worse than the belly is the bra shopping and maternity clothes. Nothing makes top dysphoria worse than your breasts out-growing your bras every couple months. Unfortunately, I have some swelling that could get significantly worse with taping and rib pain that makes binding impossible.

I’m sure both physical and social dysphoria will get worse as I get closer to my due date. Unfortunately, with this social distancing we are all living with at the moment (due to COVID-19), I have less access to the various forms of support I’ve be building for myself over the last nine months (various queer discussion and support groups in my area and a bi-monthly queer games group).

PREGNANCY SYMPTOMS

I have considerably more energy than I did at the end of the first trimester. I have just started getting heartburn. So far I don’t have any swelling in my legs though I have been congested in the evenings and overnight for a few weeks.

Mostly, my joint pain has gotten considerably worse. For most pregnant people, this is a symptom that comes on later in pregnancy with the increased weight and change in posture. But for people with underlying inflammatory or connective tissue disorders/conditions, their symptoms can get considerably worse earlier on in pregnancy. This has been the case for me.

As of mid-March, I have been using a walker when out of the house. Most of the time I can walk around the house without a cane but sometimes I need it in the evenings. I have rib and neck pain, my knees ache, and my wrists, elbows, and shoulders are slowly getting worse the more I have to rely on them to support me when I’m walking.

Needless to say, my role at work has changed and my ability to contribute to household chores has decreased significantly in the last few weeks. I am trying to find creative ways to do things or shift roles to ones I can manage easier even if it’s not something I typically enjoy doing.

The lack of mobility is frustrating but feeling useless or like I’m just getting in the way is worse. I don’t mind having to use gait aids (it is part of my job to encourage people who would benefit from them to use them) but it is hard to deal with the reason I need the walker or cane – the constant but fluctuating pain. Looking ahead to another six months of this as it slowly gets worse is extremely difficult.

I am trying to stay positive and say ‘at least it’s for a good cause’ and ‘at least I know it will have an end point’ but I’d like to be able to enjoy the process of being pregnant, at least a little bit. Maybe once I am consistently feeling the baby move and able to share that with my husband I will feel more connected to the positive side of this process.

For now, I will keep taking it one day at a time, do the best I can, and take breaks when I need to.

How did your experience of your gender change as your body changed with pregnancy? What physical symptoms did you have to contend with?

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Gender Vs Sex

No, this is not a ‘gender’ reveal post.

First of all, what I would be revealing is the sex of my baby, not the gender. We can find out the sex of our babies before they are born based on seeing their genitalia on an ultrasound or having a genetic test done that tells us their chromosomal makeup. Both of these are markers of sex, not gender.

The whole concept of finding out the sex ignores the existence of intersex conditions and identities. The idea that we automatically know the baby’s gender based on their sex markers ignores the existence of trans and non-binary identities. So every time someone asks me what the gender of my baby is, it feels like an erasure of mine and my husband’s identities, even if the person asking doesn’t realize it or mean it that way.

We can assume that the baby will be cisgender (that their gender will match their sex) which is statistically more likely than the baby being trans, but we will not know their gender for sure until they are old enough to express it to us.

This is what goes through my mind when people ask me “What are you having?” or “Are you finding out?” or “Do you know the gender?” So of course, there is a long pause while I decide whether I want to educate, be snarky, or bite my tongue and play along with the social routine.

Is it worth the energy and vulnerability to educate people on why this question feels inappropriate to me? Am I in a safe environment to out myself or my husband in order to illustrate the point? Can I educate them well enough, with enough impact, without outing either of us? The mental and emotional gymnastics to figure out whether to challenge them on their assumptions behind the question are exhausting on their own.

Most of the time I answer the “What are you having?” question with “A baby” or if I’m feeling snarky, “Well, I’m not having a puppy…” If they ask if we’re finding out the gender, I usually say “Yes, we already have but we’re not telling anyone” even though it hurts me a bit to reaffirm their ignorance instead of contradicting it. Occasionally I’ll reply “You mean the sex?” or “Well, we found out the sex but the kid will have to tell us their gender when they figure it out for themself.” If you’re in a similar situation, hopefully these variations of answers give you some options when you don’t have the energy or safety to educate.

We decided to find out the sex of the baby before birth so that we would have time to process what it would mean to counteract societal influences, stereotypes, and our own preconceptions in order to raise them in as gender-expansive a way as possible. We decided not to tell anyone else the sex of the baby because we don’t trust everyone else to do the same work without our direct influence so the longer we can force those around us to think of the child as gender neutral the better.

As I have talked about in a previous post (Thinking Ahead to Parenting as a Non-Binary Person), we will be using the pronouns associated with their sex assigned at birth (or before birth in most cases nowadays). It would be too challenging for both of us to fight for neutral pronouns when the likelihood is that the child will be cis-gender. We will be giving our child every opportunity to explore and be exposed to all aspects of gender identity, presentation, and expression. We will be having open conversations about all aspects of gender and sex as they become relevant. We’ll see how this goes!

How do you respond to questions about finding out your child’s ‘gender’? Did you find out your child’s sex in advance of birth? Have you taken any specific steps to raise your child(ren) in a gender-expansive way? Please share in the comments! I’d love to hear your experiences.

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Let’s Talk Gender S1E8: Legal Transition

OVERVIEW

We start by talking about Meaghan Ray’s thoughts on top surgery because we didn’t have time in the previous episode. Then we talk about Jake’s process of changing his legal name and gender marker, Meaghan Ray’s role as his partner through that process, and Meaghan Ray’s thoughts on potentially changing their name and gender marker in the future.

This is the last episode in this series which has focused on the various stages of transition as we have experienced them so far. We will be taking a break and will return with a new series in the future.

SHOW NOTES

Meaghan Ray’s Thoughts on Top Surgery

  • Some NB people will get top surgery without testosterone, take testosterone but not have top surgery, or do both.
    • I have a harder time relating to the NBs that do both because I am genderfluid and have a significant female component to my gender
  • I don’t feel the need to wear a binder all the time
    • When I have top dysphoria it isn’t debilitating, just irritating
  • Having top surgery to have a flat chest doesn’t feel right for me at the moment but I would consider having a breast reduction
    • Enough that I wouldn’t need to wear a bra if I didn’t want to and could get the appearance of a flat chest fairly easily but could also wear a bra to have the appearance of breasts
  • Got lots of good info from a talk at the Trans Philly Wellness Conference on top surgery
    • To get a more NB look you can look at various factors separately to mix and match more female-typical and male-typical markers
      • Contour
      • Overhang
      • Nipple placement
      • Nipple size
      • Shape of scars
      • Placement of scars
    • If you know what look you want with relation to all these things you just have to find a surgeon who knows how to do it!

Jake’s Legal Transition

  • Jake started to live ‘full time’ in May 2017 which is when he also started HRT
  • Saw gender psychiatrist in July
    • Received generic form to certify that he is transitioning and said it would make sense to amend his sex on any ID
    • Also can be used to explain why he might look male when his ID still says female
    • This document counts as the ‘medical letter’ that was required to change provincial ID
      • No longer required!
  • Went into registries in August
    • Found out he had to get fingerprinting done to get his legal name change and needed to apply for a legal name change before
  • Got fingerprints done
  • Applied for legal name change in August
    • If he was born in Alberta, could have gotten birth certificate and marriage certificate done all at once but he wasn’t so the process was even more convoluted
    • Received certificate in the mail in October
    • Got a new driver’s license!
  • Had to apply for marriage certificate from Nova Scotia
    • Took two tries for them to get it right
  • Tried to submit for a new SIN card which eventually was returned saying that he needed to change his birth certificate first
  • Hardest part was birth certificate
    • New Brunswick hadn’t changed their laws yet – still required proof of ‘sex reassignment surgery’
    • Need an updated birth certificate to get updated passport
  • Was stuck in limbo with a drivers license that didn’t match his passport and a passport that didn’t match how he presented
    • Made it too unsafe for us to travel to the states and had to cancel a trip we had planned
  • Getting banking info was also convoluted and for some reason he still can’t order cheques without the wrong name coming up
  • His workplace wouldn’t update his name in their system until his SIN card had been changed (which required the birth certificate again)
  • Wrote a letter to an MLA in New Brunswick about how frustrated he was and how many problems this archaic law was causing (December 2017)
    • Heard back at the beginning of February that it was already in the works
    • They ended up emailing and calling him to tell him that the forms were up and how to apply
    • Was very lucky in his timing because if he had started any earlier he still would have waited for this law to change and would have spent even more time stuck with mismatched documents and old work ID
    • Finally got it back in March 2018
    • Allowed him to update his passport and SIN card which he received in May 2018 – one year after coming out
  • In the meantime, he had found a way around the issues at work
    • Concerns with payroll’s info not matching his banking info and a T4 being issued in the wrong name
    • Got in contact with an HR Diversity and Equity person who had all his work stuff changed over in two months (done in December 2017)
      • As random things kept coming up he would contact her again and she would fix it super quick
      • Had been out since May and had lots of co-workers wondering why they couldn’t find him in the system to send him an email and he kept having to tell them to look under the old name
        • Very long 8 months
  • Found several resources for recently married people with lists of documents you need to get changed once you change your name
    • Land title, mortgage documents, credit score, etc
    • Super helpful but often ran into problems where the forms or procedure for changing the document did not include either change of first name or change of gender marker
    • Felt like he had to tell his life story and out himself as trans in order to get the document changed (over and over)
  • Situations keep coming up
    • Recent election – two voter cards showed up, one under each name, tried to get it changed, just caused confusion
    • Now that he passes as male people are even more confused because they can’t compute that he ‘used to be a woman’
    • Still can’t order cheques at the bank – has given up on that one after going in person and calling on the phone many times
    • Had to contact the city because he was getting his old name coming up during a job application and in emails despite applying under his current name
      • Had a fast, positive response and got it fixed quickly
  • In general was he was burnt out and apprehensive from having to go back to the same places over and over, never knowing what response he would get, if he would get different info from the previous time
    • He was super strategic about which locations he went to and at what time of day because he knew it would take a while and didn’t want there to be a long line of other people behind him listening to him explain his life story
  • No overt transphobic experiences (hurray for Canada!)

Partner Experience During Legal Transition

  • Provided support and encouragement
  • Gave permission for him to take some time away from working through the long list
  • Would have gone with him as a buddy to all the various offices if our schedules allowed
    • Moral support
    • Safety
  • For parents: call ahead to medical offices to ensure they have the proper name and pronouns in their system before your kid arrives
    • Old information can keep popping up depending on when the last time was that you interacted with that particular medical office/hospital
  • Had to change Jake’s information on my benefits plan
    • The form had a list of reasons that did not include transition so I had to write it in
    • Did not have a space to indicate a change of gender marker
    • Had to call them multiple times to correct it as they returned various iterations

Meaghan Ray’s Plans for Legal Transition

  • Could change provincial documents to ‘Meaghan Ray’ and X
    • May do this some day but it’s a lot of work and not necessary for now
  • Could change national documents to ‘Meaghan Ray’ and X
    • Would be more dangerous to travel internationally to places that don’t recognize that as a gender marker
  • Potential incentive was to get it changed before having a kid because we can’t change parent’s names on your kid’s birth certificate
    • However, it’s only first and last names that appear on the birth certificate, no gender marker, and we can choose the parental labels that we use (mother, father, or parent for either or both of us)
  • So for now, the emotional cost of changing anything out-ways the benefit for me

This brings our series on transition to a close. We will be back sometime in the future with a new series and hopefully some guests! Stay tuned!

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Thinking Ahead to Parenting as a Non-binary Person

If you have read any of the other posts in the Pregnancy and Parenting category, you’ll know that Jake and I have been trying to get pregnant for a while now. So naturally, we think ahead to what it will be like to parent as a trans man and a non-binary person.

Below are some of the things we’ve discussed in relation to my identity as a non-binary person. Note: other non-binary parents may have different responses to these situations and my responses may very well change in the future. And that is totally fine! Think of this as a time capsule of what we’re thinking at the moment.

WHAT WILL THE KID CALL ME?

For the most part, I am comfortable with mom or mother. Mommy is a bit less comfy. I have seen various terms that other non-binary parents use such as Baba, Mapa, Maddy, Mappy, etc. None of these feel like they really fit for me but maybe I will just have to pick one that feels the closest and I’ll get used to it.

Another common one is Ren or Renny from parent. I quite like this one but it would not be as intuitive to others what it meant so it would take more explanation on our part or our child’s part. Maybe this is ok and wouldn’t be as difficult or frustrating as I’m picturing.

The other one I’ve thought of is Mur which is a sounded-out version of M.R. for Meaghan Ray. It also sounds like a shortened or slurred form of mother. So maybe I’ll use that.

I’m sure the kid will have their own opinions about what fits so I guess we’ll see what happens.

EXPLAINING MY IDENTITY TO MY KID

Initially, I won’t be telling my kid anything specific about my own gender identity because they won’t necessarily understand and they definitely won’t understand the safety concerns of who to tell and who not to tell. But we will have lots of kids stories about gender diversity and have lots of conversations about gender and gender presentation and preferences geared towards whatever stage they’re at.

When my kid is more preteen age I will likely tell them about my own gender identity. If my kid ever asks outright what my gender is I will be open and honest and deal with whatever personal consequences come from that.

NAVIGATING SYSTEMS

Whether it’s school systems or pediatric medical care, I will likely be identified as the mother on all the paperwork and to all the professionals. I will likely take that one situation at a time and if I come across an inclusive professional or an inclusive form, I will likely be open about my identity (as long as my kid was also aware of it at that time).

We will look for spaces where our kid, and us as parents, can hang out with other queer families so we don’t feel isolated in these various experiences.

PREPARING THE KID TO FIELD QUESTIONS

Depending on what we have told our kid about my identity and how they are referring to me, this may generate questions from other kids or teachers and other parents. We will not be able to control how our child responds but we can have conversations both before and after these questions come up about what they might say, how they felt about being asked the question, and if they feel like they want to ask any questions of us.

All we can do is instill an open minded and positive view of gender in our child and hope that that is what they represent in their answers to others. If they encounter a negative response as a result of my identity, we will debrief with our child and address it with the most responsible adult directly. This is probably the thing I am the most apprehensive about so we’ll see how it goes.

WILL WE RAISE OUR CHILD GENDER NEUTRAL?

Socially, emotionally, and physically – yes, as much as possible. This means playing sports and rough housing with them while teaching them how to be gentle. Modeling and teaching them emotional intelligence and emotional coping skills. Giving them access to a variety of toys, clothing, and accessory options.

However, we will not be using they/them pronouns for our child. We will be using the pronouns that align with their sex. Though neither of us are cisgender, statistically speaking, our child will be. As someone who prefers they/them pronouns, I understand how difficult it is to get people to use them and understand why I am asking them to. It can be quite upsetting for me when I have explicitly asked them to and they don’t. So having to fight for the same thing for my child would be way too much of a struggle and way too emotionally taxing for me when they are likely to be cisgendered.

As I said above, we will frequently be asking our child about their gender using whatever terms they understand. If they ever display a preference for other pronouns, we will adjust accordingly and immediately. For me, being flexible and open is more important than being strictly neutral from the start.

Do you have a child or are you planning on it in the future? What terms do you use? How have you discussed gender with your child? Leave me a message below!

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Let’s Talk Gender S1E5: Social Transition: Coming Out At Work

OVERVIEW

Jake has now been out at work for nearly two years. We discuss his process for coming out at work from the preparation, through coming out, and all the frustrations that happened afterwards including HR struggles, bathrooms, mysogeny, and misgendering.

Meaghan Ray talks about what it was like to be in the role of the partner during this part of the transition process including having to come out to their co-workers about Jake’s transition.

We discuss Meaghan Ray’s process for coming out at work as non-binary so far and Jake’s experience of having a non-binary spouse when he’s talking to co-workers.

SHOW NOTES

Jake’s process for coming out at work

Preparation

  • Talking to community, online friends to learn from other people’s experiences
  • Talking to team lead and other coworkers in a hypothetical context
    • They didn’t really apply the conversation to real life or think about it practically
  • Should have gone to HR in advance though he wouldn’t have necessarily known what to bring up as a potential concern until he encountered them

Tipping Point

  • Eventually dysphoria was bad enough that he could not do his job so it was either come out or quit
  • Told team lead in advance
  • Had written an email
  • Pulled aside immediate co-workers to tell individually
    • Generally supportive
  • Sent email to whole department
    • Much more generic than discussion with immediate co-workers
  • Told other higher-ups
    • One person in particular had immediately helpful comments such as “Which bathroom are you going to be using” and “How do we get your name changed in the computer system” ie considering the practical aspects
    • Some were confused as to why Jake’s transition would be affecting anyone and why he needed to tell everyone when it’s a personal/private issue (ie thinking of it as the same thing as coming out as gay)

Challenges

  • Old name on emails and inter-office messaging until his name change document came in
  • Then was told he had to get his birth certificate changed first as well as a new SIN card (even though others who are changing their name due to marriage etc do not require all of this extra documentation and there was no good explanation as to why he did)
  • Eventually discovered that HR had a diversity and inclusion rep that helped a lot
    • Met with her in person and discussed all the concerns with things that had been happening and unnecessary hoops that he was being forced to jump through
    • She was super feisty and got things changed really fast which was amazing

Bathrooms

  • Started out by going to the farther away women’s washroom
  • Then used the men’s washroom in the same farther away area but was terrifying, especially prior to top surgery
  • Found a single use bathroom a couple floors up in an abandoned area that was under renovation
    • Felt safe but isolating and cumbersome
  • Found out later that some of the management had been talking behind his back about what bathroom he should be using in order to decrease the discomfort of others
  • Decided he wasn’t going to hide anymore and went back to using the men’s washroom closer to the work area
  • Had emailed facilities management to ask about bathrooms and they connected him to the diversity rep at HR

Looking Back

  • Felt like it took forever, in reality was about a year
  • Fighting on all fronts
  • Exhausting and circular and convoluted

Did People Adapt?

  • Took a really long time, no trigger event like we had with the family (see Episode 4)
  • An ally helped by correcting others on Jake’s behalf
  • Still getting misgendered 5-10 times per shift by immediate co-workers one year later
    • Now, another year later, still getting misgendered 1-2 times per shift
  • People now know him longer as Jake than anything else and he still has a hard time correcting people
  • Newer co-workers don’t know he’s trans and never knew him prior to transition
    • Others who misgender him get a completely confused reaction rather than people realizing he’s trans – people just don’t think of that
    • Now that he passes, being misgendered doesn’t bother him as much because they end up looking like idiots

Other Interesting Situations

  • Suddenly being included in mysogenistic ‘bro’ language and conversation in an attempt to show acceptance
    • Difficult to counteract the mysogeny without losing the acceptance
  • People tried to teach him how to be a guy as though he had never been exposed to masculinity

Partner Experience

  • Could only be a cheerleader
  • Wasn’t able to help with any of it in the ways I was able to help during other phases
  • Having to come out to MY coworkers for Jake so I could talk about my husband instead of my wife
    • Made a little presentation which my immediate team responded to really well
    • Hoped that it would get around via gossip but it really didn’t so I had to tell everyone separately, often more than once
    • Lots of disjointed conversations where I had to stop mid conversation to explain why I was referring to my husband
    • Most common question was “Does that make you straight?”
  • Had a hard time getting support from co-workers because no one had enough context for how the process was affecting me, what type of support to give me, and why I was getting burned out
    • Tried to explain but ended up spending more energy than I got back in support
    • More recently I have had more co-workers who have trans experiences
  • Educating co-workers was still important to me because I work in a health care setting and I want as many people who work with patients to understand how to be respectful towards trans people
  • Once I was no longer talking about my wife, I lost my ability to come out as queer off-handedly in a conversation
    • Made my own identity feel a lot more invisible
  • Had a few difficult situations in my workplace where I witnessed transphobia or had co-workers misgender trans patients which were very triggering for me (and still are though I deal with them slightly better now)

Meaghan Ray’s experience of coming out at work

  • Most dysphoria at work, mostly social dysphoria
  • Half the people I interact with are strangers
  • Rather than a goal of not getting misgendered (not feasible), set the goal of minimizing discomfort
    • Most uncomfortable with other female language (ma’am, ladies, girl)
  • Instead of “I’m non-binary, use they/them pronouns, call me Meaghan Ray,” I’ve chosen to instead say “I’m non-binary, this is what that feels like, please avoid these types of gendered terms and instead use these neutral ones”
  • Very choosy with who I have these conversations with
  • I still have a hard time correcting people when they use female terms but I tend to groan, squint, flinch, go silent, or say “Nope!” and they eventually get the idea and self-correct

Jake’s experience as a partner

  • Couple of co-workers that know about Meaghan Ray’s non-binary identity and are generally good at using they/them pronouns
  • Refers to Meaghan Ray as his partner or spouse
  • Generally less gossipy/social work environment so it comes up less

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Let’s Talk Gender S1E4: Social Transition: Coming Out To Family

OVERVIEW

Coming out to friends and family is a long process that involves lots of uncertainty, strategy, and a bit of luck. We discuss Jake’s process of coming out as a trans man and Meaghan Ray’s experience of that process as his partner, including how this process went for us, what methods we used to come out to people, what emotions we experienced, and what responses we got.

We also discuss Meaghan Ray’s experiences of coming out as non-binary so far (still early on in the process), Jake’s experience of being their partner, and how their two experiences are similar or different.

You can find the audio for the episode at the bottom of the page or subscribe to Let’s Talk Gender in your favourite podcast app.

SHOW NOTES

The following is Jake’s coming out process and Meaghan Ray’s experience as his partner.

Who to come out to first?

  • Friends, then close family, then work, then extended /more questionable family, then strangers
  • Everyone’s process will be different
    • Start with the people that will be most likely to be supportive and work your way up to the least supportive people

Partner Experience during closeted and early coming out phase

  • Various pronouns depending on the situation and who was present – female, male, neutral, avoiding pronouns altogether
  • Still trying to get used to his new identity so using female pronouns made that harder
  • Lasted about 4 months
  • Didn’t realize the toll that this took until about 8 months later (caused fairly severe burnout)
  • Got used to doing a quick check in before each social situation of who’s going to be there, who are you out to, is it worth going out, which name and pronouns are we using?

Coming out to family

  • Thought it would be similar to coming out as gay but it really wasn’t
    • Being trans is about who you are and requires them to do a lot more work – change how they think of you and how they refer to you
  • Started with the first few people who were most likely to have a positive to neutral response and who had less direct impact
    • Didn’t judge all of those correctly but overall it went ok
    • Be open to any response they have
    • Keep safety in mind
  • First part felt like it went really slow
    • Few people know and if they’re hanging out with people who don’t know it gets very stressful
    • Asking people to hold back on gendering you correctly which slows down their process of coming to terms with it
  • Eventually there is a tipping point where it’s easier just to have everyone know

Coming out to partner’s family/long distance family

  • Multiple conversations
  • Expecting close family to come out to other members of the family for you does not work – you end up having to do it yourself
  • Mostly done through email with generally positive, supportive responses
  • Follow up conversations at face-to-face gatherings
  • Took them longer to adjust but generally had less impact on us
  • Partner can do more of the work, especially with the follow up conversations

Methods for coming out

  • Face-to-face is the hardest, tended to avoid that if possible
  • Sent lots of emails in the early stages
  • Wrote a letter and read it out face-to-face
  • Sent lots of shorter emails to the more extended family
  • Facebook/social media for general public, past friends, far extended family

Responses to coming out conversations

  • Told close family early on that he was thinking about it/working on it as a warning that transition might be coming
  • Told them a while later that he for sure was trans but they didn’t seem to understand that there was much difference from the first convo
  • No change in pronouns or name
  • Had a family wedding coming up that necessitated telling Jake’s brother
    • First person to appropriately change pronouns, name, and referents (brother) and introduced him that way at the wedding
  • His family realized that they were the only ones referring to him with female name and pronouns and suddenly was making it more unsafe for him
    • Kick started their use of proper name and pronouns in an unexpected way
    • Positive effect of strangers getting name/pronouns correct around family that is getting it incorrect
  • Was a high risk, high reward situation
  • Realized afterwards that family had been reluctant to change likely out of fear for his safety (when he wasn’t passing yet)
    • What they didn’t realize (and what we didn’t understand early enough to explain to them) was that the toll on his psychological safety was worse than the physical safety risk that they perceived

Partner experience during early stages of being out to family

  • At the beginning, tried to hang out with them and refer to Jake in third person as much as possible to set a good example
    • Complete opposite from previous stage where we tried to use second person or no pronouns as much as possible
  • Really enjoyed being able to refer to Jake correctly, felt good about setting a good example and trying to help
  • When they were not getting it at all, it got very difficult to hang out with them
    • Jake wanted them to figure it out at their own pace and didn’t want to correct them
    • Started getting angry with them too easily and had to not hang out with them as much (until they suddenly figured it out at the wedding)
  • Once they figured it out, it was much easier to hang out with them again
    • Started correcting themselves, correcting each other

Correcting others when you get misgendered

  • Often happens in larger groups or in the middle of a conversation
  • Don’t want to derail a conversation or become the center of attention
  • Will remind them via text message later if they do it repeatedly without correcting themselves
  • Much better if someone else corrects them for you because you automatically have an ally and don’t have to make yourself vulnerable in order to stand up for yourself
  • Always takes emotional energy so it’s a balance of how much pain it’s causing you vs how much energy you have to spend to correct them

Emotions during coming out to family

  • Transition from questioning stage to coming out stage was the hardest
  • Fear, nervousness, what if someone becomes vengeful, actively negative
  • Questions about which family would chose to never talk to me again
  • Can’t base people’s reactions to you being trans on how they reacted to you being gay
  • Eventually reached a tipping point of it is more difficult to live in the closet than the fear of how people would react
  • Realization of how many people you actually have in your family
    • Exhaustion, frustration, unending
  • False urgency to tell everyone as soon as he started hormones because changes would be happening and people would notice
    • Didn’t happen nearly as fast as he felt like it would
    • Wanted changes to happen faster to help people have an external reference for changing name and pronouns

Mental vs physical image and adjusting to new identity

  • Lots of detailed conversations between us where Jake explained how he saw himself and would feel most comfortable which helped Meaghan Ray change their mental image of him earlier than anyone else would be able to
    • Made it easy for me to use correct pronouns well before any physical changes
  • Other people don’t get to have those detailed conversations and therefore can’t change their mental image because they don’t know what to change it to
    • Often do much better after physical changes start happening
  • Family have known you longest and will have the strongest mental image of you pre-transition
  • 5% rule: people will take up to 5% of the time they have known you to get used to new name and pronouns

Partner emotions during coming out to family

  • Fear, mostly for psychological well-being as he was having lots of difficult conversations
    • Kept my phone on me at all times
  • Tried to provide lots of validation and support so he had at least one positive influence
  • Offered to go with him when he would be having those conversations
  • Still didn’t really understand how hard those conversations were and how things were going
    • Had to ask really specific questions in order to find out because he didn’t want to make it harder for me and did not have any more energy to spend on another gender based conversation

Burnout lasts a long time

  • Still nervous about talking about gender and transition because there is a conditioned response that those conversations will lead to something huge and exhausting
  • Reviewing past experiences is much easier than talking about current ones
  • If you are the second person to transition in your immediate family or even within your relationship, those around you might have a hard time as a result of the residual burnout from past experiences with it

Meaghan Ray’s experience of coming out as non-binary

  • Even harder than coming out as binary trans
    • The person you are coming out to already has an idea of what you mean by ‘male’ or ‘female’
    • Most people do not have that reference for ‘nonbinary’
    • Requires a lot more sex and gender 101 education to work up to getting them to understand which puts them in information overload
  • Really, all I’d be asking is for them to use they/them pronouns and maybe a different name and even that seems to be extremely hard for people to do
    • We use they/them automatically all the time but when people are asked to do it consciously, apparently it messes with their brain and they can’t do it
  • Takes so much energy that I haven’t done a lot of coming out to family yet
    • Something else always seems more important to talk about when visiting with family
    • Sent an email with an explanation but haven’t talked about it since
    • Good sibling support, will likely help my family come around but want to have those conversations with my parents first
  • Will likely have those conversations with close family once I’m pregnant/having a kid and have more extended visits with them and potentially more gender-based discomfort

Jake’s experience as Meaghan Ray’s partner

  • Trying to avoid pronouns at all costs
    • Awkward pauses, reorganizing sentences
  • Being supportive while Meaghan Ray is slowly working up to coming out
    • Spending a long time in limbo
  • Can’t be fully invested because limbo causes burnout and limbo will last much longer

The coming out equation

  • Deciding when you’re ready to come out will be different for everyone
  • How uncomfortable it is to be misgendered vs how hard it will be to come out and how much benefit you will get
    • Very different answers to this equation for each of us

Every coming out process is different and personal but inevitably affects and involves the people around you.

Join us next week when we talk about coming out at work.

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Let’s Talk Gender S1E3: Personal Transition: Gender Exploration

OVERVIEW

The first stage of transition is the personal exploration of your gender. We discuss what the process of exploring your gender feels like, how each of us figured it out in different ways, and what it’s like to be the partner of someone going through the gender exploration process.

Sorry for the variable sound quality. We are still trying out different set ups to find something that works for us.

SHOW NOTES

  • Exposure to a concept or identity that resonated with us
    • Looking up other people’s experiences on YouTube
    • Being fascinated by people’s experiences without knowing why until later
  • Finding language to express ourselves and define our identities
    • Other people’s labels don’t necessary feel right for you
    • The labels that feel right shift throughout the exploration process
    • The trans label comes with a lot of weight
    • Takes a while to find your own meanings for labels that fit
  • Exploration is often driven by the feeling of not fitting with the gender you were assigned at birth and how people relate to you as a result (dysphoria)
    • Trying to minimize it guides us in a direction towards our actual gender
    • Often have been experiencing dysphoria for a while but didn’t know what it was called and once we have the word for it it feels huge and way more painful than it did before
    • Physical dysphoria, social dysphoria, mental dysphoria
    • Fairly easy to tell what you are dyphoric about
  • Sometimes we encounter gender euphoria and exploration is driven by finding that experience again
    • Trying on different clothes when playing dress-up or secretly raiding a family member’s closet

Jake’s Experience

  • Minimal physical dysphoria, mostly social dysphoria
  • Voice causing people to gender him as female
  • Explorations
    • Cutting hair short
    • Wearing a binder
    • Trying a packer
    • More masculine style
  • Very nervous that people would notice immediately
  • Very scared of what the implications were of this feeling good, progressed very slowly
  • Looking for a new name
    • Flipping through baby books
    • Making a short list
    • Ordering different things online with a different name each time
    • Kept coming back to Jake and eventually it stuck
  • Eventually decided that he definitely did not feel comfortable being female
    • Even if he didn’t do any medical transition, he still felt more male than anything else
  • Exploration doesn’t end
    • Now that he is more comfortable in his maleness he is exploring some of the female things that he would never have done before
      • Longer hair
      • Nail polish
      • Earings back in

Meaghan Ray’s Experience

  • Exploration was a lot easier because they already new their identity but needed strategies to manage dysphoria, especially at work
    • Similar strategies as Jake
  • Had a very clear gender related experience in Grade 10 where they were a boy named Ray for a few days, then back to Meaghan, then back to Ray
    • Kept up for 2-3 months
    • Was very confusing and frustrating and destabilizing
    • Ended up making a list of personality traits for Meaghan and a list of personality traits for Ray, drew lines between the ones that matched, and from then on lived as that person
    • Buried the whole experience very deep until Jake started talking about gender and they found language and space to explore it in a positive way
  • Needed something more concrete to follow for exploration than Jake
    • You and Your Gender Identity: A Guide to Discovery by Dara Hoffman-Fox
    • Created a gender tracker to see how much their gender fluctuated between male and female for both physical and social sense of gender
    • Learned that their period affects their gender and that their physical and social sense of gender can shift separately which they will use different strategies to manage
  • Trying on a dress privately
    • Thought it would feel wrong but it felt like a non-binary person wearing a dress
    • It did not erase their sense of identity which was encouraging
  • At the end of exploration, they now have many more strategies that help and a much better understanding of who they are and how to express it to people

Partner Experience

  • Seeing Jake with a flat chest in a binder helped change Meaghan Ray’s mental image of him
  • If the partner is cis it can be very difficult to understand what’s happening
    • Some trans people are not willing to include the partner in their exploration process and just show up as their new self which is very threatening and sudden for the partner
    • Instead, Jake included Meaghan Ray in the process and they helped look stuff up, break things down into smaller steps so it was less scary, tested things out during a camping trip, provide encouragement and support
  • Your experience is your own
  • Need to find your own sources of support as a partner
  • Don’t know how to talk about it yet because everyone is still just figuring it out
  • The more open we are with each other the easier it is to keep our relationship strong
  • We happen to both be AFAB and heading in the male direction
    • Some strategies worked very well for both of us
    • Some things worked very differently for each of us
    • Some things worked for one of us but not at all for the other

Resources

  • FTM
    • YouTube Channels: Chase Ross at uppercasechase1, Ty Turner, Jammiedodger
    • Books: This One Looks Like a Boy
  • NB
    • Podcasts: Gender Rebels, They/Them/Theirs
    • YouTube Channels: Ashley Wilde, Ash Hardell
    • Instagram hashtags to create a community for yourself

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Let’s Talk Gender S1E2: Transition Timelines

OVERVIEW

Transitioning is a slow, often frustrating, ongoing process. It can roughly be broken down into four phases: personal, social, medical, and legal. We discuss the general timeline of each phase and how they overlapped for Jake’s transition from female to male. At the end, Meaghan Ray shares what their transition has included so far.

SHOW NOTES

General Thoughts on Transitioning

  • Typical FTM trans narrative
    • Binary transition from one to the other
    • Medical system sees it as a treatment to change from one to the other
  • In reality, it’s a slow frustrating process
    • No sudden tipping point or specific end point
  • Non-binary transition is even more vague
    • Often have to fake a binary identity to get the medical care you need
    • Wide variety of social, medical, and legal changes
  • Generally made up of four stages
    • Personal transition: an exploration of your own identity
    • Social transition: the coming out process
    • Medical transition: any medical interventions that help ease dysphoria or increase gender euphoria (HRT, surgery, electrolysis, voice therapy)
    • Legal transition: changing name and gender marker on legal documents and with various institutions
  • Stages can overlap or blend into each other
  • Trans people do not need to go through all of these stages in order to transition or be considered trans.

Jake’s transition process:

Personal Transition

  • Longest stage
  • Began in 2015 until late 2016
  • Self-questioning, self-doubt, internal conflict
  • Talking to friends, looking things up on youtube
  • Found a therapist that was trans friendly that was familiar with the referral process
    • Referral to gender psychiatrist
  • Felt like the therapist and Meaghan Ray were much more convinced that it made sense and he would be going through with it than he was
  • Finally determined that he would be more comfortable living as a man
  • Personal exploration continues throughout transition
    • Getting used to body changes
    • Learning how to communicate your identity
    • Learning how to navigate new social status and changes in privilege

Social Transition

  • Came out to parents with a message of ‘I’ve been thinking about this, I’m exploring this’
  • Different approaches to coming out
    • Emails, letters, face to face
  • You realize how many people you have in your life
    • Very overwhelming and exhausting
  • Started with the people who would be most likely to be supportive
    • Didn’t always work out as planned but generally helped build support
  • We were hoping that some people we told would pass on the information to others but it never actually worked out
    • Ended up having to tell them ourselves
  • Reactions
    • Some people changed name and pronouns right away
    • Some people needed to be told multiple times and are still misgendering Jake (in late 2019)

Medical Transition

  • Lots of gatekeepers
  • Gender psychologist – referral to gender psychiatrist in summer 2016
  • Gender psychiatrist in summer 2017 on a cancellation
    • Referrals for endocrine and surgery consult
  • Family doctor who was willing to write prescriptions for HRT – started Testosterone in May 2017
    • Turned out to be an easy process once he built up the courage to ask the affirming doctor
  • Top surgery consult in fall 2017, didn’t feel good about the two year wait or the type of surgery offered
  • Had top surgery done at a private clinic (paying out of pocket) in April 2018
  • Hysterectomy in October 2018
  • Potential for bottom surgery in future – would require another visit to gender psychiatrist to get referrals to surgery and separate referral for funding
  • Got most of the information about who is allowed to make referrals, who is willing to make referrals, who is accepting referrals, and what the wait times are through the trans community
    • Connections to community are very important

Legal Transition

  • Different process in each province or local area
  • First item was a piece of paper stating that [previous legal name] is transitioning from F to M that officially explains why you don’t look like the picture on your ID
    • Important during the stage when you’re already on hormones and presenting differently but haven’t yet changed any ID
  • Name and gender marker change document that requires fingerprinting
    • Submitted in Aug 2017, received it in October 2017
  • Immediately got driver’s license changed
    • Felt safer in general but now had conflicting documentation with national documents
  • So many different documents that needed changing
    • SIN card
    • Banking information, loans, mortgages, credit score
    • Marriage certificate
    • School records, work ID, email addresses
  • National documents were the hardest
    • Birth certificate took the longest due to waiting for laws to change – finally done in summer 2018
  • Took over a year
    • No international travel
    • Lots of stress, confusion, frustration

Transition is never completely finished

  • Will always be people to come out to or correct, medical history to explain, and documents that pop up that don’t match

Meaghan Ray’s Process:

  • No medical or legal transition yet
  • Personal transition started with a genderqueer experience back in grade 10
    • Ignored it, put it away until Jake’s transition provided more language, strategies, and community to give myself space to explore it
  • Tracked my gender and explored it for a bit
  • Have just started coming out to friends and family and coworkers one at a time, very carefully
    • Limited understanding of what non-binary means so coming out requires a lot of educating
  • Will be an even longer, slower, more careful process than Jake’s
  • May be interested in some form of top surgery or legal gender marker or name change in the future

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