Being Me

Today is the 3rd anniversary of my sharing my true self with the world around me. I feel like that means that it's not a bad time to reflect.

As I posted about recently, I just had a full physical and exam a short while ago and I thought I would share some helpful stuff again.

I was in a great discussion today, with some trans friends at work, when I started describing the moment where I went from "I am transitioning" to "I have transitioned" in my mind and it's not when you would think!

Thinking about the term "cis" or "cisgender" this week and that leads to some discussion topics.

I'm just going to get into the habit of posting about this stuff as it comes to me. So, content warning ahead: talking vajayjay stuff!

I guess it's not totally  post-GCS, I'm going to be doing the rehab work for a lot of months yet, but in the meanwhile, some things that I think should be obvious have become more clear. Warning, possible TMI in here.

I have reached a breaking point on the toxicity of that site and I had to leave.

So, I've posted more than a few times on Facebook about a particular author and the harm she is causing the trans community. More than a few people have made the argument that they can condemn the artist and love the art. Can they?

I recently read an article on The Mary Sue on transfeminine pleasure  and I think about how little we really talk about this concept, as though we're not really entitled to it or something.

I've talked about voice issues before, for many of us in the trans community it remains a major source of frustration and irritation. This is especially true on the phone.

Nothing worse than seeing casual transphobia on supposedly trans blogs and sites.

So, I recently decided that I would dip my toe back into a Q&A site, Stack Exchange's Photography site, where I was once a moderator... turns out, the stove was hot and I got burned by it. Content warning: transphobic slurs in an image.

A truism of the trans experience is that, every time you turn around, there appears to be a gate that one must pass. Inevitably that gate has a keeper and I have yet to encounter one in which the keeper isn't cis. 

I've been blogging about changing your name and gender marker here and there, so now that is basically done for me, I thought I would share some tips I learned along the way,

While I fully came out in January of this year, the real start of my journey was on July 6th, 2020. That evening, shortly after dinner, I took my first dose of Estradiol and started walking the path that has set me free. It makes me smile, in hindsight, to recall that I took that first dose with all of the gravitas and ceremony of a morning vitamin, I have a knack for sailing past the big moment. I think, as I took the pills out of the bottle, I was just telling myself to get on with it and so I did. Nevertheless, a year has passed and, wow, what a year it has been. Physically, a lot of change has happened, some subtle, some not quite so much. My skin is softer and less oily. I get cold in a sauna. I have acquired a surprisingly deep love of 95% dark chocolate. More noticeable is that I am also reshaping in response to one of nature's most powerful biological chemicals. Each of these, and more, are an incredible source of affirmation for me. It is difficult to convey to cis people ...

It seems whenever trans issues are discussed, inevitably bathrooms come into the discussion. However, seldom is this discussed based on the trans perspective... 

We've seen this many times, somebody says or does something that is racist, homophobic, transphobic, or anti-semetic in some way and the truth of that gets pointed out to them. However, rather than apologizing and learning from it, they double down in defense with "I have a ... friend" defense.

My company hosts an annual Women in Tech Experience, a multi-day event with talks, teaching, and other learning opportunities from all regions of the company. As part of that experience, I was asked to do a lightning talk on my experience where people helped with my dreams. Now, obviously, I did not talk about this in the context of career dreams, but much more personally and from the lens of an environment of inclusion. Now that the event is past, I wanted to share the text of my speech, with the names of the guilty redacted. 😊 I was born a little less than a year before the Stonewall Riots, a watershed moment in the development of LGBTQ+ rights. But that was just the beginning of what is still a significant battle for equality almost 52 years later. As I speak here today, across 33 States there are more than 100 pieces of legislation aimed at curtailing trans rights or suppressing our very existence. I live in a world where my right to personal dignity, to be treated with respect, t...

I was very deeply honoured and, I will admit, not a little frightened to be asked to share my story for #IWD2021. This was a work event, and so I can't share the video replay on here, but I can share the text of what I had to say today.

I'm sure there's a fairly decent chance that you've seen that meme, the one with Archie Bunker and George Jefferson laughing it up and lamenting the fact that we can't make jokes like we used to. Well, keep lamenting as I, for one, have no desire to return to those times.