Tag: Support

Reflections on Top Surgery, Part 3 : Post Surgery

Gender affirming chest masculinization “top surgery” is one of the major defining moments for trans men. But getting from your existing chest to the one you want to have can be overwhelming from both the information overload and emotional point of view. Having had surgery 3 years ago, I wanted to share my thoughts on surgery in case it may help someone else in the same position. I’ve created a 3 part series on surgery : Pre-surgery, surgery itself, and post- surgery.

This will be mainly from my personal experience as a mostly binary trans man, but could easily be applied to non-binary/GNC people.

If you haven’t read Part 1: Pre-surgery and Part 2: Surgery, start there. To recap: I had a phone consultation with a privately funded top surgeon in Ontario, who gave me a surgery date 6 weeks later. I had my surgery, had my bandages removed, but still had to wear a compressive binder for a couple more weeks.

Initial recovery

Right after the disaster of visiting the clinic for the last time, we went to a nearby mall for some fast food self care. I went into the food court bathroom which was the first public washroom since surgery and I automatically felt 100 times safer. I felt like I belonged. I didn’t feel like an imposter that everyone would automatically clock and tell me that I was in the wrong bathroom. This bathroom euphoria wouldn’t last (more on this in a future post and other bathroom shenanigans here) but for now it was an amazing experience and I couldn’t wait to use another public bathroom!

Our flight home was uneventful. I was nervously waiting for a security officer to ask why I was walking so stiffly, or wonder why I was covered in bandages but nothing happened.

Once home I had another week off before returning to work, but my energy levels did not bounce back as quickly as I had hoped. I ended up taking an additional week off.

In those couple of weeks after surgery I was mostly numb across my whole chest and down my sides. Showering was weird since I could feel the water near my neck and on my belly, but not in between. I was also getting weird prickly sensations across my chest and I would itch but it didn’t help at all. Meaghan Ray said it was my nerves starting to boot back up, so I rubbed a rough cloth across my chest to help my skin remember what sensation was all about and stop freaking out which seemed to help. This technique is called desensitization. Leave a comment or send us an email for more info.

I wore the binder all day and night, and applied polysporin to my incisions and nipples. Slowly they closed up and started healing with more normal skin tones. There was a point in healing where the scabs on my nipples started coming off in small pieces, and since the healed skin underneath was so much lighter, it looked like my nipples had fallen off entirely! It was terrifying until more of the scabs came off and I could see that my nipple was still intact.

Getting back to normal life

When I returned to work after being gone for 3 weeks, people were happy to see me, but for them not much had changed. It was like I had gone for a vacation and come back. It was very frustrating because I had spent a bunch of money to have body parts removed in order to “pass” and meet society’s expectations of what I should look like, but people still couldn’t use the proper pronouns. It felt like I had a big incision and T-rex arms for nothing. My euphoria and confidence slowly drained.

Once I stopped wearing the binder and started feeling the shirt directly against my skin, my confidence began to return. I didn’t care as much about being misgendered because I could feel how flat I was and it was awesome.

I wanted to minimize scarring so I massaged my scars with oil at least once a day for several months. I also didn’t raise my arms above shoulder height for 6+ months which made getting back to working out consistently a struggle. Everyone heals differently so it’s hard to tell if it made any difference but protecting my scars was the thing I had control over and it feels like I did the right thing for me.

Post op Depression

One experience specific to top surgery is having to keep your elbows at your sides for months which limits your use of your arms and therefore your independence. I was a bit angsty with how weak and dependent I was and I am prone to depression so the first couple weeks were a bit rough for me. But having the support of Meaghan Ray and seeing how excited they were for me helped me find that excitement for myself.

Many people experience post-op depression after top surgery. If you google “post op depression” the autofill option for “after top surgery” is only 4 options below. It happens after many surgeries due to some metabolic and physiological reasons as well as having time to yourself while you recover to ponder your life choices. It can especially happen after top surgery or other gender confirmation surgeries because there is usually a long buildup from when you are starting to wonder if you are trans, to finally getting a result in the mirror you are looking for, usually years later. You are looking forward to having the surgery completed, but then there is physical recovery, there is pain, maybe there are complications which feels like it robs you of the excitement you were expecting. And now that the surgery is completed, there is a sense of not having something to look forward to anymore.

Another aspect is that while your brain is telling you what you want, the actual experience of being unconscious for 2 hours and having something removed that you were carrying for 15+ years, makes part of your brain go haywire. Something is suddenly no longer there. And while you were mentally picturing what it would look and feel like, you didn’t know exactly what that would be like. So there is an adjustment period while your brain catches up. And having to wait while your brain straightens itself out makes you doubt that you have made the right decision.

While I definitely experienced all these types of thoughts, they didn’t cause a spiral into depression which I am grateful for.

Where I’m at now, 3 years later

I am still a little self conscious when taking off my shirt around others. 31 years of social training will take a little while to fight against. I have gone swimming in pools and the ocean with no shirt which was empowering. Looking down while showering is great. Doing skin to skin contact on my chest with my newborn kid was thrilling.

Once I did get back to working out and doing other activity, not having the wobble of my chest was amazing. One of the first things I noticed after that wobble was gone was the jiggle from my belly! It was a weird sensation but I quickly adjusted.

Every once in a while after I wake up in the morning my brain will remind me to grab a bra from my dresser, but then I laugh to myself when I go to open the drawer. T-shirts and button up shirts fit so much better now.

There was a point where I was wondering if I wanted a revision for what we affectionately call “the crinkle” in the middle of my chest between my scars. It would be free and the clinic was more than willing to set it up, but when it came time to booking the appointment I never followed through. I had started accepting what my chest looked like, and then grew to love it. It will never be a cis male chest since I am not a cis male, and that is ok.

Having a flat chest has greatly increased my general gender euphoria, and decreased my chest dysphoria down to nearly zero. My social dysphoria was also decreasing as my voice deepened and I grew a scraggly mustache. About 3 months after top surgery when I was healed a decent amount and not struggling with day to day activities I did notice a shift in dysphoria. The very blatant dysphoria of “you have breasts, everyone thinks you’re a girl” was pretty much gone, but my discomfort with my lower area (which I didn’t have much of before surgery) started ramping up to noticeable levels. This is also very common in trans guys – once the seemingly obvious problem gets dealt with, the focus moves to a more personal but just as glaring difference between what you were born with and what you should have.

As trans or GNC people, our dysphoria will likely never go completely away. There will be sudden surprising moments of “I wish my hands were a better size, they completely give me away as trans” or having to explain a different name on a credit application. But hopefully as time goes on, our gender euphoria and comfort with our bodies (surgically altered or not) will increase and those moments of dysphoria will be so much less devastating than they were at the beginning of transition. Having top surgery was life changing for me and provides so much gender euphoria armour against dysphoria frustrations, and I am grateful that I had the opportunity to pursue it.

I hope you found this 3 part series on top surgery helpful! If you are contemplating top surgery and have questions leave them in the comments below, or send an email to letstalkgenderpodcast@gmail.com.

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Postpartum Update: 5 Months

We’ve all seen the representations of postpartum people in media who are frustrated with not being able to lose ‘those last five pounds’ when they’re five weeks postpartum. Let me tell you now, this is not reality. At least not for me.

My body did a whole lot more during pregnancy and birth than just put on a few pounds. Therefore, my body finding it’s way to a new, stable normal is not all about losing weight. Maybe I’ll get back to my pre-pregnancy weight, maybe I won’t. But more importantly, what is my body capable of doing and how does it feel?

PHYSICAL ENDURANCE AND MOBILITY

If you followed along with my pregnancy journey, you’ll know that I had severe pelvic and back pain that meant I was using a walker for mobility by week 14. Immediately postpartum I was able to start taking my regular medication and the pain improved quickly. But the impact of six months of limited mobility doesn’t go away over night.

I had a lot of joint stiffness and residual associated pain. I had significant muscle weakness in certain muscle groups (and still do to some extent). And I had extremely limited cardiovascular and muscular endurance.

I have been working on all of these as much as I can (giving the limited extra energy when caring for a baby). Initially I was mostly doing slow easy stretching and gentle movement and short walks. More recently I have done cardio exercise in the form of climbing the stairs while wearing the baby, using my rowing machine, and going for fast paced walks, strengthening exercise while playing with the baby on the floor or using the baby as a weight, and endurance exercise in the form of longer walks at normal pace. I even went skating for the first time today!

Each time I try another activity or try to push myself I come up against a very sudden limit in strength or endurance. I’m going along enjoying the feel of my body moving when suddenly I have no power. My muscles turn to water and my joints cease. I slow down or take a break to stretch, and try to continue. Often I can get a bit more out of my body but at much lower intensity or poorer quality. And that’s ok. That’s just where I’m at. Every bit counts.

Even if I wasn’t trying to improve my strength and endurance, just the act of moving my body and expending positive energy makes me feel less antsy, more patient, happier, and more connected with myself in a positive way.

HORMONE FLUCTUATIONS

At around two and half months postpartum I started having similar symptoms to when I was taking fertility drugs and when I was immediately postpartum. Wooziness, light headed, foggy, weepy, laughter easily becoming hysterics. Yes, apparently this is normal.

There is a hormone shift at 2.5-3.5 months postpartum and again somewhere between 6 and 9 months postpartum. My hormones were taking the next step in leveling out. Ugh. Not looking forward to going through that again but hopefully the next wave of this will be the last.

OTHER SYMPTOMS

  • All birthing trauma has healed (I had nothing severe and no C-section).
  • Despite having low milk supply initially and now decreasing lactation, my period has not yet returned (yay!).
  • I had some increase in hair loss around the time of the hormone shift but nothing extreme and it seems to have leveled out.
  • My belly is still round in a more pregnancy like shape than my typical body shape but is down to about my early second trimester size.
  • I had many many stretch marks that have somewhat faded into a soft, saggy, pouch of excess skin below my belly.

EMOTIONAL EFFECTS

As I am now trying to figure out what being a parent means and often exhausted from caring for my baby, I am definitely not in the same place emotionally as I was pre-pregnancy and never will be and that’s fine. Becoming a parent changes you and I am embracing and navigating that change.

But there are emotional effects from the experience of being pregnant and giving birth that stuck with me for a while. A few weeks postpartum, when the extreme fatigue had worn off a bit, I started having mild panic attacks when I was lying in my bed trying to go to sleep because I would be transported to the moments when I was waiting for another contraction to happen. That lasted for a few nights but, with the help of my husband talking me through it, wore off and hasn’t returned.

Looking back on being pregnant, remembering how it felt, is extremely surreal. Even when I see pictures of myself when I was pregnant. I know that it happened to me, I can remember that it happened, but I have a very hard time actually feeling what it felt like at the time. My body just felt so different than it ever had before and than it does now.

I can remember little things, like what it felt like when my baby had hiccups, what different stages of contractions felt like, and what my baby helping along my contractions felt like. But the overall experience of being pregnant? What it felt like to move around? It is very vague and very surreal. And maybe that’s ok.

So have I ‘recovered’ from being pregnant? No. I don’t even know what that means. Pregnancy doesn’t feel like something I need to recover from. I’m not trying to re-create my pre-pregnancy body. And as debilitating as my pregnancy was, it wasn’t a negative experience.

I am five months postpartum and very happy with what my body is capable of doing these days. I will continue to be curious and fascinated by all the changes just as I was during pregnancy. It is a continuation of the process that began with pregnancy. It did not end at my baby’s birth and will not have reached a conclusion for many months yet. So here’s to the journey.

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When Caring for your Child Triggers Dysphoria

When we picture having a child we think of sleepy cuddles, bonding while feeding, and being an expert at diaper changes. The reality is not always so rosy. Maybe our baby has health struggles, we struggle with mental health postpartum, or, in my case, dysphoria gets in the way.

There are multitude of ways dysphoria can be triggered when caring for your child, depending on how you experience the most dysphoria and what your child care roles are. Personally, I found nursing to cause the most dysphoria, then later, pumping was causing less but was still building up over time, as well as all the sensations in my chest associated with lactation.

I noticed it was getting in the way of being able to bond with my baby the way I wanted to and stopping me from being present in order to notice the small daily changes my baby was making. I couldn’t pay attention to my baby while nursing. I had a spike in dysphoria when holding my baby against my chest. And I was dreading the time I had to spend pumping which made me irritable and easily frustrated.

So I developed a number of strategies to use depending on the situation to decrease the interference of dysphoria. Even if the trigger for your dysphoria is different, I hope these strategies will help you navigate caring for your child in a way that minimizes your dysphoria and maximizes your ability to bond.

BE HONEST

Be honest with yourself, your social supports (partner, doulas, close family or friends), and your medical supports (midwife, doctors, mental health professionals, lactation consultants). As much as we are taught that it is, it is not shameful to feel dysphoria, even when it is triggered by something like caring for your baby or child. The only way to make the situation better for everyone is to be open and honest about it.

This will also help narrow down the trigger. Often, I would be feeling irritable, fatigued, or burnt out and not recognize it as dysphoria related. Then, once my husband and I realized it was likely dysphoria, it still took a bit of conscious awareness to figure out the trigger which for me was nursing. Upon further discussion, observation, and testing, we figured out what would need to be modified to decrease or eliminate the dysphoria. There is no way I would have been able to do all this on my own.

ASK FOR HELP

Sometimes you need someone to take over the dysphoria-triggering task, even if temporarily, to give you a break and build up some reserve. But this isn’t always an option. My husband couldn’t take over lactation for me. So instead of taking over that specific task, even having them offload other tasks can give you more energy to deal with the dysphoria and still have enough left over to bond with your child.

For example, my husband does as many feedings as he can each day as they typically coincide with pumping times. This allows me to pump without the stress of wondering when the baby will wake up and scream for food or delay pumping in order to feed the baby resulting in increased chest discomfort.

FIND OTHER BONDING TIME

If dysphoria gets in the way of bonding with your baby during typical bonding tasks, prioritize bonding at other times. Carve out some play time or snuggle time when it is less likely to trigger dysphoria. Find a snuggle strategy or style of play that is more comfortable for you. I look for the times when the baby is alert and playful and drop what I’m doing to play on the floor, read a book, sing and dance, or go for a walk. This takes time away from other things but getting extra housework or personal stuff done doesn’t make up for the lack of bonding time at the end of the day.

I also found I was missing little changes and new behaviours my baby was doing because I was too busy trying to ignore or deal with the dysphoria. So, on days when I felt particularly dysphoric and disconnected, I would use my journal to write down my own personal challenges and triumphs for that day (to disconnect it from the baby) and some of the new things the baby was doing or a fun moment we shared that day. Just taking the time to think back on the day in order to write it down helped bring those moments into focus through the haze of dysphoria.

ADJUST YOUR CHILD CARE STRATEGY

Sometimes, despite all your efforts to manage it, the dysphoria is too strong or is getting progressively worse. As much as you would like to care for your baby/child in the ‘optimal’ way, that is not always what’s best for you and therefore best for your child. Sometimes we have to compromise on our preferred style of care in order to take care of ourselves and minimize dysphoria.

This could mean using disposable diapers instead of cloth to make diaper changes faster. Or switching to bottle feeding instead of nursing. Or switching to formula and stopping lactation altogether. Or having the baby in the stroller for walks instead of the carrier. Or doing ‘skin-to-skin’ time with the baby lying on your lap instead of your chest. There are always other options.

For us, this meant switching from nursing to pumping and bottle feeding after two weeks. I had the goal of feeding my baby my milk for the first six months but once my supply increased to >75% of my baby’s intake, the amount of sensation from my chest started increasing my dysphoria much faster. So we decided to decrease lactation earlier and slowly switch to formula. This may increase my baby’s gas. This may not be my preferred method of feeding my baby, or what society tells me is best. But it’s what’s best for us.

What I’ve found is that, even though it’s not my preferred method of care, the next-best option that results in less dysphoria feels significantly better and allows me to engage in the care a lot more, resulting in a much better experience for my baby as well. There is no harm in trying different things. You should never rule out options based on preconceived ideas from society. If it’s the best option for you (and still meets your baby’s basic needs), it’s the best option for your baby as well.

What baby/child care tasks trigger your dysphoria? What strategies do you use to deal with it so it doesn’t interfere with bonding with your child? Leave me a comment below or send me an email! The more strategies we share with each other the better!

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Goal Setting 2021

If the year 2020 taught us anything, it was that anything can happen and we need to be flexible in order to survive. One of the ways I failed in this was when I set my goals for 2020.

Every year in December I set up my bullet journal for the next year. This includes writing down my goals and deciding how I’m going to track them. Having goals that work for me helps me keep my sense of progress and growth. The act of goal setting forces me to decide what I feel is most important to focus on. And having a way to track my goals and a timeline for when I’ll check back keeps me accountable and shows me concretely how I’m doing.

Last year I picked five goals for the year and broke them down into four parts, one for each quarter of the year. I planned to update the tracker at each quarter to see how I’m doing but life got in the way in a big way. Three out of five of my goals were no longer feasible after the first quarter and another by the end of the second quarter.

So this year I’m picking three goals and only writing them out for the first quarter. At the end of the quarter I’ll revisit my goals and if they’re still accurate, I’ll write them out again for the next quarter which will reinforce my commitment. If not, I have space to adjust the intensity of the goal or pick an entirely new goal.

I’ve tried a number of different goal setting strategies and found one that I like the best. It includes five sections: topic, goal, why, how, and tracking. Here’s what goes into each section:

Topic

This the area of your life that the goal relates to. Ideally, each goal should relate to a different area of your life so that if one area is greatly affected or changed, you won’t lose all your goals; the goals from the other areas of your life sill hopefully still work for you. Examples: Health, Creativity, Work, House, Money, School, Fitness, Sport, Relationship.

Goal

What exactly do you want to accomplish? Is it a finite goal (finish something, achieve a certain level or score) or habitual (complete an activity a certain number of times each day, week, or month)? State the goal and the target. Chose things that you have control over. Examples of finite goals: Finish my novel, run 5K without stopping, save $12,000. Examples of habitual goals: Exercise 3 times/week, write in my journal every day, vacuum the house every week.

Why

Why is the goal important to you? What will you gain by having it as your focus? What benefit will you notice from completing it regularly? Write a list of the top 3-5 benefits that are most important or the strongest motivators for you. Examples: More energy, less stress, clearer mind, financial stability.

How

How will you accomplish this goal? How will you keep up your motivation or find the time you need? Who will you need to coordinate with? If you respond well to rewards, how will you reward yourself? What other habits will support this goal? Examples: Get dressed in running clothes before breakfast, write for 30 minutes before work, plan housework into weekly schedule.

Tracking

How will you measure your ongoing progress? Will you keep track on a calendar, a spreadsheet, or right next to where you’re writing out your goals? Will you use stickers, check marks, or colouring something in? Is the completion of each milestone a yes/no or are there levels in between? For finite goals, I like to break them down into weekly targets but if biweekly or monthly works better for you, use that. Habitual goals are easier – if it’s daily, track daily, if its weekly, track weekly, etc.

I can’t stress how important it is to track your progress towards a goal on a regular basis. Seeing good progress can be motivating. Being aware of poor progress quickly allows you to adjust your strategy, build in new habits, or redouble your commitment to your goal. There’s nothing worse than getting to the end of the goal period and having to do a bunch of work to find out if you have accomplished your goal only to realize you didn’t keep track of some key information.

I hope this helps you set motivating goals that are important to you and help you maintain a sense of progress and growth in your life. Share your goals in the comments below! Or if you have a completely different goal setting strategy that works for you, I’d love to hear it. Send me an email or share it in the comments!

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When Your Name or Pronouns Fluctuate

Many people that have a fluid gender identity use different names and/or pronouns at different times. Figuring out how to make this work for you can be a challenge, and then following through and making it happen is even harder.

I’m still learning how to do this but I thought I’d share what I’ve learned so far.

KNOW YOURSELF

The first step to knowing what pronouns or name you prefer at a given time or in a given context is to figure out how your gender fluctuates. I did this by tracking my gender daily on a scale of 5 female to 0 neutral to 5 male for the span of a month and a half. You can make up whatever scale works for you.

I also made note of my other activities, habits, emotional state, and menstrual cycle. Correlating the shifts in my gender with these other factors gave me a much better sense of what influenced my gender and how the shifts in my gender influenced my mood and behaviour.

Tracking my gender daily forced me to check in with myself. I learned what to pay attention to within myself to indicate where my gender was sitting and what strategies would be useful to minimize dysphoria and maximize euphoria. This is a hugely important skill for anyone who’s gender fluctuates. Even now, a couple years after the gender tracking that I did, I am much more in tune with where my gender is sitting, when dysphoria is affecting me, and what I can do about it.

Once you know how much your gender fluctuates and what influences it, you can have a better idea of when you’d be more comfortable with one name or pronoun over another. This still takes real world testing to be sure. So finding an online community who will refer to you however you wish on a given day (or a platform that allows you to change your username at each log in) or an in person group of at least two friends who will help you trial names and pronouns.

Now you know how your gender fluctuates and what name and pronoun you want people to use with each state of your gender. Next you have to decide how to find a balance between the different states of your gender and how to go about asking other to refer to you.

STRUCTURED APPROACH

My gender doesn’t fluctuate a whole lot and usually sits close to an equal balance between my male and female components. So I’m almost always most comfortable with they/them pronouns. But in my case, I don’t have a single name that is gender neutral, I have one name for my female side and a different name for my male side.

My job is such that it doesn’t feel feasible to have people refer to me by anything other than my female name and she/her pronouns. So in order to find an overall balance, I decided to use my male name and they/them pronouns almost exclusively in queer spaces.

Maybe you have a supportive work environment but you’re not out to your family yet. You may chose to use your ‘trans’ identity at work because you are always referred to by the name and pronouns you were assigned at birth when you’re at home.

Whatever the case, if there is one area of your life where you feel restricted in your ability to come out or advocate for yourself, this approach may be the best option to still allow you a sense of balance and a chance to experience all aspects of your identity.

GO WITH THE FLOW APPROACH

For some people, their gender fluctuates too often or on too wide a spectrum for the structured approach to feel comfortable. So the other option, if your life circumstances allow, is to go with the flow. This means that however you feel at a given moment, you indicate or request to be referred to by the corresponding name and pronouns.

This approach give you a lot more flexibility and perhaps a stronger sense of authenticity but it requires more clear signaling and more frequent self-advocacy.

GLOBAL APPROACH

Another option is to find a middle ground of where the different components of your gender overlap and use that as your default with the option to request a different name or pronoun if needed.

Or perhaps your gender is in one state the majority of the time and only occasionally fluctuates to a different state. You could use the most common state as your default and only specify when it differs.

Or, like me, perhaps you have a way to refer to yourself that encompasses your entire identity. I am 100% of the time comfortable with they/them pronouns and prefer to be referred to by both my names as though they are hyphenated. I can still specify differently if I need to but this gives me a lot of safety and authenticity.

Whichever system works for you, or if you come up with a completely different one, you will need a way to indicate or express to others how you wish to be referred to.

SIGNALING

One way to indicate to others which name and pronoun to use is via non-verbal indicators or signals. This can be anything from clothing to jewelry to behaviours to pins or name tags.

If you feel most comfortable presenting in a distinct way with each different state of your gender, you can use your general presentation to indicate to others how they should refer to you. This will still take a bit of explanation initially and maybe a few reminders but, in general, would be pretty straighforward.

If you present fairly similarly regardless of your gender or your presentation doesn’t relate to your gender in that way at all, you can use other means to signal your gender. I have a necklace that has Meaghan on one side and Ray on the other. Most of the time I wear it inside my shirt but if I’m in an environment where it is safe to do so, I will wear it outside my shirt with the Ray side facing out as a reminder to others of how to refer to me. You can do something similar with a bracelet, name tag, pronoun or name pin, or more subtle means such as a certain piece of jewelry indicating a certain name/pronoun combo.

Keep in mind that the more subtle the signal is, the more explanation and reminders it will take for people around you to pick up on it and get it right. But if you’re in a potentially unsafe environment, subtle might be necessary for safety.

ADVOCATING

No matter what signals (if any) you choose to use, you will always have to have some sort of conversation with those around you to explain that your gender fluctuates and you wish to be referred to by a different name and/or pronoun depending on the situation or the day and how they will know which one to use. This initial coming out conversation is difficult for any trans person but especially for those with a fluid gender that doesn’t fit binary notions of gender. See Related Posts at the bottom of the page for ideas on how to have this conversation.

As with any trans person, you will also have to correct people when they get your name and/or pronouns wrong. When your gender fluctuates and the name/pronoun you use changes, it takes even longer for those around you to get used to it and inevitably causes even more slip-ups. So decide how often you want to correct people and how best to do it. This will likely depend on your relationship with that person and the context you’re in at the time.

One good practice to get into the habit of is introducing yourself using your name and pronouns every time you meet someone. Not just someone new, even people who know you and already understand your gender. Something like ‘Hi [friend], I’m Ray and using they/them pronouns today’ works well.

Also let the friends and family you interact with regularly and who you’re out to that if you forget to inform them of your name and pronoun at the beginning of an interaction, it is helpful for them to ask about it or cue you to indicate if it isn’t clear from your signaling. How they ask is up to you and again, will likely depend on your relationship with them and the context.

Sometimes, all it takes is having one ally in the room who you have informed ahead of time what name and pronoun to use. Their role is to find an opportunity to refer to you using that name and pronoun within the first minute of you arriving and as often as necessary throughout the event.

IMPORTANCE OF GLOBAL IDENTITY

When you have a fluid gender identity with multiple components it can be easy to get caught up in the parts and forget about the whole. For me, it important to take a step back to make sure I am achieving an overall balance that works for me, even if I can’t get people to refer to me the way I’d prefer in every situation.

The goal of all this work and advocacy is to be able to experience and be comfortable with all parts or aspects of your gender. To get to express yourself in the most authentic way no matter what your gender is. So try not to get caught up too much in the details of every interaction and instead aim for an overall more authentic and gender-filled existence.

I hope this helps give you some ideas of how to navigate the world when your gender and therefore name and/or pronouns fluctuate. Comment with your own experiences, send me an email, or reach out on social media. You can find me on instagram @meaghan.ray.peters.

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How to Ask About Someone’s Gender

We always say that if you don’t know someone’s gender or pronouns, just ask. But how do you do that in a respectful way? As a stranger, we can use they/them pronouns and avoid gendered language for everyone we meet until they specify. But what if this is a new colleague or a friend of a friend? Or what if your partner or child just told you they are questioning their gender?

The closer you are to someone, the more impact your questions are going to have. You can ask questions to find out the basic information such as how they identify and what pronouns and name to use. Or you can ask deeper questions to get a better understanding of what their identity means to them, how they picture themself, and what their experience of gender is day to day. These deeper questions can help you form a more accurate mental image of the person as they see themself so that you are more likely to gender them correctly. They can also help the other person sort out some of their confusion around their gender (if need be).

THE BASICS

When asking questions about gender (or any other sensitive topic), I follow the principle of not asking any question I wouldn’t also be willing to answer. I also use the caveat that they never have to answer a question I ask, though I do appreciate knowing why they don’t want to answer so I avoid asking other questions that they don’t want to answer.

If you are ever uncomfortable about asking something, it’s a good bet the other person will have some discomfort in answering as well. Be honest about your discomfort but don’t let that stop you. Be aware of your surroundings and choose a place where both of you feel the most safe (likely a private space).

If you’re not sure how to phrase a question or what language to use, be honest about that too. Try to avoid saying ‘I don’t mean any disrespect, but…’. Instead, use a phrase like ‘I’m not sure how to word this question. Is it okay if I ask it anyway and you can tell me how I’m supposed to say it?’ Usually, there is a reason why a certain question is inappropriate. Either the word you chose is seen as offensive, how you used it was incorrect, or the subject matter isn’t appropriate to ask about. It is helpful if you can find out why the question was wrong so you avoid making the same mistake with other questions or in other circumstances.

Asking about basic information such as gender identity, pronouns, or name is pretty straightforward. Offer yours first, then ask. ‘Hi, I’m Wendy. I’m a cis woman and I use she/her pronouns. How do you identify and what pronouns do you use?’ Keep in mind that knowing how someone identifies isn’t usually necessary. Pronouns and name are enough to interact with them respectfully.

Always question yourself about why you want to know the information and what purpose it will serve for you. If you’re just curious, generally you should refrain from asking unless you have a close relationship with that person and you’re in a private space. But, if you feel that you do need to know more information, you’re going to need to know what questions to ask.

DEEPER QUESTIONS

As I said above, you can ask these more intense, specific, personal, and invasive questions to learn more about someone’s gender for your own understanding or to help them figure out their own gender. I have grouped these questions into categories to make it easier to follow. These are just examples – feel free to pick and choose from each list as needed rather than using every question. This list is by no means exhaustive.

Gender Identity

  • How do you identify with regards to gender at the moment?
  • Has your gender identity changed over time?
  • What labels do you use for your gender and how do you define them?
  • Does your gender always feel the same or does it fluctuate?
  • Does your gender influence your sexual orientation in any way?
  • Are you comfortable with your gender identity or is it a source of frustration?
  • Are you confident in your gender identity or do you still have some confusion?

Language

  • What pronouns feel best for you?
  • Do you always prefer those pronouns?
  • What name do you want me to use?
  • What other language feels best for you (guys, ladies, girl, ma’am, sir, bro, dude, etc)?
  • What familial terms feel best for you (sister/brother/sibling, son/daughter/child/offspring etc)?
  • Is there any way I can help you test out various names/pronouns/language?

Body Dysphoria and Euphoria

  • Are there parts of your body that feel wrong or bring discomfort?
  • Are there parts of your body that feel good?
  • How do you picture your body should look?
  • Do you do anything to make your body feel more authentic for yourself?
  • Do you do anything to modify how your body appears to others?
  • Are there specific ways you would like me to refer to or interact with certain parts of your body?
  • Is there any way I can help you test out various presentations?

Medical Transition

  • Are you planning to/have you already started hormones?
  • How do you feel about the idea of/changes from taking hormones?
  • Are there any challenges you are facing with accessing hormones?
  • Are you planning to/have you already have any gender affirming procedures/surgeries?
  • How do you feel about the idea of/changes from [procedure/surgery]?
  • Are there any challenges you are facing with getting [procedure/surgery] done?
  • Have you ever encountered transphobia in a medical setting?
  • Is there anything I can do to support you with accessing basic or trans-specific medical care?

Legal Transition

  • Are you planning to/have you already changed your legal name?
  • Are you planning to/have you already changed your gender marker?
  • What documents have you changed so far?
  • What institutions have you informed of this change?
  • What documents/institutions do you still need to change/inform?
  • Is there any way I can help you with making these changes or support you during this process?
  • If we are in a situation where I need to disclose your legal name/gender, what would you like me to say? (hospital, banking, insurance, police, etc)

Practical Concerns

  • Who are you out to?
  • How would you like me to refer to you around people you are out to?
  • How would you like me to refer to you around people you are not out to but who know you and who you also interact with?
  • How would you like me to refer to you around people you are not out to but who you have no interaction with?
  • Have you encountered any transphobia?
  • Is there anything I can do to provide support?
  • Is there anything I have been doing or saying that is uncomfortable? What would you like me to do/say instead?

I hope this list of suggested questions helps guide your discussions of gender with anyone you interact with. Remember to think about how you would answer these questions before asking them of someone else. These questions are designed to guide a discussion that would be a follow up to the basic learning I talked about in How to Be a Trans Ally so don’t forget to start there.

Let me know how your discussions about gender are going! Or, let me know if you have other questions that you have found helpful in your discussions and I will add them to the list above. Leave a comment on this post or send me an email! Looking forward to hearing from you.

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How to be a Trans Ally

ALLYSHIP 101

Being an ally for any minority takes more than being accepting of a friend or acquaintance from that identity. Not being a biggot is not the same thing as being an ally. Being an ally isn’t a perspective, a state of mind, or even a level of understanding. It requires ongoing action that at first can be a challenge but eventually becomes automatic.

As someone who is part of a majority group, it is not for you to say that you are an ally. If you take actions that show to members of the minority group that you are safe to be around, understanding, supportive, affirming, and uplifting, they will label you as an ally.

Being an ally takes work, requires an open mind, and most of all, a willingness to feel uncomfortable. At some point, someone from a minority group will tell you that what you’re doing isn’t helping or may actually be causing more harm than good. Being an ally means listening to this perspective, asking questions to understand it further and what you can do differently, then acting on what you’ve learned.

Being an ally for one minority does not mean you are an ally for all minorities or even all the identities encompassed by that minority. Being an ally at one time does not guarantee you are an ally forever or in all circumstances.

But don’t let this discourage you! We need more allies!! Below are a number of ideas for what it means to be an ally to trans people. Please leave a comment below or get in touch with me if you have questions or other things to add to this list!

PRONOUNS

Put your pronouns in your email signature, your social media profiles, your video chat name, and on name tags. As a cis person, you likely have never had your pronouns questioned, never felt uncomfortable with the pronoun people assume you use, and never had to justify your use of that pronoun. Trans people have to do this every day or deal with the discomfort of being misgendered. So please, normalize the expression of pronouns by including yours.

Along the same lines, when you are introducing yourself to someone (anyone, not just someone you guess or know to be trans), introduce yourself with your pronouns. “Hi, my name is _____ and I use ______ pronouns.” You may get some funny looks or confusion from cis people who are not trans aware and you may feel awkward the first few times but just like anything else, it gets easier with practice. If you give up the first time it is uncomfortable, you really aren’t understanding how uncomfortable, scary, and often painful it is for trans people to be in a similar situation. And they don’t have the choice to just walk away, pretend it doesn’t exist, or avoid the discomfort.

Learn how to use a variety of pronouns. No, she/her and he/him are not the only singular pronouns out there. They/them is fairly common. There are also neopronouns such as per, xir or zir, and aer. Learn how these pronouns sound, how to use them in a sentence, how to switch between different pronouns, how to use pronouns that seem counter to your perception of someone’s gender, and how to avoid using pronouns altogether. Often, in English anyway, it is easy enough to rearrange a sentence to remove pronouns or substitute the person’s name.

KNOWLEDGE

Understand what it means to be trans. Understand the difference between sex, gender, sexual orientation, and gender presentation. Learn about some of the various identities that fall under the trans umbrella. Learn about the different steps someone might take to transition. You don’t need to know all the ins and outs of all the medical procedures or medication options (unless you are a healthcare worker and this is relevant to your field) but a general understanding is required.

Understand some of the challenges faced by the trans community in your area. This may be systemic barriers such as access to medications and medical procedures, cost of changing ID, wait times for medical procedures and documentation changes, lack of inclusive forms at medical clinics, banks, and workplaces, and difficulty accessing employment and housing. Or it could be interpersonal barriers due to transphobia that increase the risk of physical and emotional harm. Or personal challenges such as dysphoria, lack of social support, or struggles with mental health or addictions.

Some of this knowledge can be gained through online resources (such as this blog) but you will also have to engage with your local trans support networks and advocacy organizations. You may be tempted to simply ask your trans friend a slew of questions to learn about all these things. DO NOT do this. Trans people have to educate almost everyone they come in contact with. As an ally, you do not want to be another one of those people. If you have looked up everything you can online and joined the mail lists of your local organizations to learn more and still have some specific or personal questions to clarify a couple things, ask your friend if it’s okay with them if you ask them and when a good time would be. They are not obligated to answer. If you see this refusal as a lack of their friendship you really don’t understand what it means to be trans.

CHECK YOUR ASSUMPTIONS

Avoid making assumptions about someone’s gender based on their sex, presentation, physical characteristics, or mannerisms. Keep your language neutral by referring to everyone using they/them pronouns and neutral language until they have disclosed their gender to you. Yes, everyone. Not just people who fall outside the ‘norm’ of gender presentation or someone you think might be trans. You can’t tell someone’s gender from the outside. Being an ally means creating a safe place for trans people that you haven’t met yet. The only way to do that is to consider that anyone could be trans and act accordingly.

Once you learn someone’s gender, don’t make an assumption about what pronouns they use, what steps they have taken or plan to take in terms of transitioning, or what their experiences are with dysphoria. Every trans person’s identity, journey, and experience is different. You don’t have to understand all the different possible experiences to be an ally but you do have to keep an open mind and understand that there is no one way to be trans.

KNOW HOW TO ASK QUESTIONS

You may not be able to learn everything you want to without asking a trans person some questions. And if you’re not supposed to make assumptions about anyone’s gender, you may have to ask someone questions to learn more about their experiences. Knowing what questions to ask, how to ask them, and when/where it is appropriate to ask them is part of being an ally. This, too, takes practice.

The knowledge you have gained about terminology will help you with appropriate wording. Knowing what challenges trans people face will help you be aware of the context and choose an appropriate time and place. Beyond that, honesty is the best policy. If you’re not sure if the question is appropriate, or you’re not sure how to word it, make sure you’re in a safe and private environment before asking and then be honest about your lack of knowledge. Ask for feedback and be open to it when it’s given, solicited or not.

Keep in mind that just because one trans person was comfortable answering a particular question does not mean every trans person will be. Some people are open, some people are private. This is true for trans people as well.

ADVOCATE AND AUGMENT!

As an ally, your main roles are to set a good example for other cis people and to create a safe environment for trans people. This means correcting yourself when you make a mistake with pronouns or other gender references and correcting those around you if they misgender someone (regardless of whether the person is present or not). If you’re not sure whether the trans person wants you to correct other people on their behalf, ask them!

If someone asks you to speak about trans experiences and issues or asks you to review a policy or resource to ensure it is trans inclusive, defer to a trans person, especially if it is a paying opportunity. It is not your job to speak for trans people but to give trans people the support, space, and opportunity they need to speak for themselves. You can also share social media posts from trans accounts and spread news stories that talk about trans people in positive ways.

On a smaller scale, you can offer to be a buddy for a trans person in your life, especially if they have limited social supports. Whether it’s going to the public washroom with them for safety, going with them to medical appointments or registry offices for document changes, or being a caregiver after surgery, there are lots of ways you can help support a trans friend when other people who aren’t allies wouldn’t realize they would need extra support or when the trans person wouldn’t feel comfortable asking for support from non-allies.

I hope this helps give you some ideas of how to be a trans ally. If you are a trans person, feel free to share this with people in your life. We need more allies! Please leave a comment below if you have any questions or if you have suggestions for other ways to be a good ally.

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How Being Trans Prepared Us for Parenting a Newborn

On August 27, 2020, a new member of the family was born. Our little one has a full head of hair and is doing well, as are we. But parenting a newborn, especially your first child, is not easy. There are many fears, frustrations, and sleepless nights. Of course, there are also the successes, excitement, and pleasant surprises.

The first three months are said to be the hardest. The baby is the most dependent and only able to communicate via crying. Initially, they only go three hours between needing to eat which leads to very little time for anything beyond basic baby care – feed, change the diaper, rock them to sleep, then two hours later, repeat. Their digestive system is predominantly inactive when they are born and has a steep curve which causes lots of gas pains and therefore screaming. During these gassy periods there is almost nothing you can do as a parent to help beyond be a calming, reassuring presence.

Needless to say, the first three months, and most especially the first six weeks, are extremely difficult. I can’t imagine how single parents or those with minimal support network do it. Even with two of us, and support from our parents on both sides, it felt extremely challenging at times.

Now that we are at week 9, things have settled into a routine and life is more predictable. Looking back, a lot of the skills and strategies we used to help us through the first part of our little one’s life were honed throughout my husband’s transition. It feels like that experience, though it was a huge trial in itself, taught us how to navigate new parenthood. No, we didn’t learn how to feed a baby or change a diaper during his transition, but those more concrete things are easier to pick up. It’s the squishy stuff that is much more challenging.

As I mentioned above, having a new baby can be exhausting and frustrating. You don’t always know what to do or have the emotional reserve to repeat the same actions every three hours. The repetition is exhausting to the point that when you do have a free moment, you no longer have the energy to do any of the things you have be wishing you had the time to do. You are in a constant state of boredom, restlessness, and exhaustion all while feeling like you’re supposed to be enjoying every moment.

Transition is also exhausting and frustrating. You have to repeat your personal story and defend yourself to acquaintances, service providers, friends, and family multiple times a day. You feel worn down but still have to deal with the next interaction that comes along. There are systemic barriers and long wait times that are overwhelmingly frustrating. And the whole time, you just want to be happy and excited that you are slowly becoming the person you want to be.

Learning how to deal with this long, slow burn type of frustration and function despite emotional exhaustion prepared us for new parenthood. The strategy we use is to recognize the emotion of frustration for what it is – a reaction to a situation that you feel you have no control over – and find ways to regain control either within that situation or by completing other tasks.

Another part of the strategy is to focus on the little things that are positive, small signs of progress, and keep the long term picture in mind. With a little baby who can only communicate by crying and who has minimal vision and no control over their limbs, it can be exhausting to sink all your positive emotions into this being and receive only fussing and crying in return. Sure, there are also the times when they are sleeping like an angel and are so sweet you just want to cuddle them and squish them but you don’t dare touch them for fear of waking them. But at the beginning, it can feel like the frustration outweighs the positive feedback. So any sign of development, that they will eventually grow out of this stage, is cause for celebration.

My husband’s transition taught us something similar. Transition is a long, slow process and at times can feel like despite all the fighting, frustration, and effort, you haven’t made any progress. But then you look at your pre-transition photos or compare a voice recording and you realize you have made progress. Keeping up with his transition as his partner required me to recognize and celebrate the little things with him – each crack of his voice as it dropped, each new whisker in his beard, each piece of ID that came back with his correct name and gender marker. We learned how important it was to pay attention to and celebrate the little things and applied the same strategy with our newborn.

Through both gender transition and new parenthood, being aware of your own mental health and being able to communicate how you’re doing with your support network (be it your partner, parent, or medical professional) is extremely important. Through his transition we each learned how to track our own emotional state, how to recognize the signs of depression, burnout, fatigue, or distress in each other, and how to express our own needs as well as raise the issue if we had a concern about the other person.

During his transition, this tracking of our mental and emotional states was up to us. There was no professional checking in, no tracking app with mental health questionnaires and resource articles, and minimal community going through something similar. Since becoming parents, we have had way more support in this area, though we found that both of us have been doing quite well. And when we have a bad day, or a few days of minimal sleep in a row which puts us in a state of burnout, we recognize it quickly and work together to figure out how to regain our positive, stable outlook and look for ways to avoid the same thing in the future.

My husbands transition and my experience supporting him through it didn’t teach us how to be parents. But it did give us the mental health and relationship skills to weather a stressful, exhausting, frustrating, and overwhelming time and turn it into something amazing, fulfilling, enjoyable, and a means of strengthening our bond.

Maybe you haven’t been through a gender transition yourself, or with someone you are close to. But maybe you have been through other trying experiences. If you can look back on those experiences and see what skills you developed or what your learned about yourself that helped you through, maybe you’ll be better prepared for whatever life throws at you. Or maybe you or someone you love is going through a gender transition now. If you are a parent and can remember back to the first six weeks of your child’s life, the skills you developed to get through those six weeks will serve you well over the next 3+ years of navigating transition.

If you are trans and have been told that this means you will never be a good parent, I would argue that the opposite is true. We have felt like, by being trans and navigating transition together, we have superpowers that have already served us well on this new, crazy, and exciting chapter of our lives.

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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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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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