Of all the comings-out we have to do as trans folks, telling our parents is one of the very hardest. What it even means to be trans has changed so much that it can be incredibly hard to even get them to understand what your gender is.
This week on #StainedGlassWoman, we've got "Oh, s#!t, my child just told me they're trans," a guide meant to be handed off to parents of trans teens and adult children, to help them get there.
This is another JUMBO SGW, weighing in at nearly 6500 words!
As a note, though, Substack's alt text feature is bugging out for some users, and I'm one of the ones affected. As a result, all alt text has to be done as captions for the time being.
Small update: @JoscelynTransient mentioned https://transfamilysos.org/, a nonprofit she works with, as a great resource for parents of trans kids, and so I added it as well as /r/cisparenttranskid as extra resources for parents!
I really want a better and more reliable enby equivalent of "girl" or "man." I know out here in Cali, people see "dude" as effectively neutral, and in some gay circles the gay "gurl" is effectively gender neutral, but that doesn't carry everywhere. I just love to be able to drop the distance and be like, "I hear you, gurl!"
Of course, it's a minor thing and I can always try to use other phrases that are a bit more bulky. I just keep finding more and more that I want us to develop more extensive terminology for us non-binary folks that doesn't just refer back to the binary (though playing with that can still be fun).
You've probably heard from transphobes about how "you can't change your DNA," so nothing you do in transition really matters. "Basic biology," they whinge. Well... what about intermediate biology?
This week on #StainedGlassWoman, come and see How HRT Rewrites Your DNA by just plain turning off the parts you don't need and turning on the ones you do! Now with more wedding photos, from another queer wedding.
But I had to stop to say - as a parent to identical twins I've known this for a while, but no idea on what it was.
Both myself and my partner fall under the trans umbrella (trans-girl and envy) and both of my kids have expressed identifying as agender - with one moreso than the other 😯
back to reading 😁
Edit: just finished - that was awesome, and if I didn't have to go to sleep I'd dive into learning more!
You all don’t know how much I panic struggle as a #nonbinary person about how to dress for formal occasions . It’s like a constant cycle of gender and body dysphoria mixed with societal expectations and second guessing. When I literally don’t want to be tied to expectations. It’s not just you, if you ever feel like this.
@hacks4pancakes
For me it's like... I don't want to change my appearance. I want people to see beyond it. But I always feel this expectation that I have to look androgynous or half and half to be valid. I am both scared people we judge me for looking more feminine and scared people with judge me as not "non binary enough".
So, I've found a new job. It's great, right? Yes and no.
I got hired to do various sysadmin tasks by a non profit organisation for the blind. The good news is that the one who hired me is also blind, and seems really cool and nice. She's also aware of the accessibility challenges, so that's one major plus for getting this job.
I'm glad I've got the job, despite the tons of issues that piled up so far, like the fact the server I'm trying to get is still not done and the provider seems to have super strange problems with their cloud-init handling.
But there's someone on this job, someone who I knew years ago and which I actively disliked and found mildly creepy. And I find him even more so now. #job#nonbinary#ranting#transgender
What happens after the end of the second year of hormonal transition, once all the doctors say you've seen everything you're going to see. Why is it that basically everyone sees... well, a heck of a lot more?
This week on #StainedGlassWoman, we're talking about Transition Timelines, and the science--and lack thereof--of later transition!
@Impossible_PhD@EmilyGB2023 My GP is skeptical about prog and doesn't recommend it. She says none of her patients that have tried it found any positive effect.
I think she would give me a script if I insisted. I'm just trying to work out at what point that would be a good idea...
I hear so many older people saying things like "If I were younger, I would be nonbinary", and listen: you can be nonbinary now! It sounds like you already are! #nonbinary#LGBT#LGBTQ#LGBTQIA#transgender#trans
I also sometimes hear people say things like "I want to be trans, but I'd rather use my cis privilege to help trans people." And listen. Sit down for me, my friend, and listen. You do not owe it to anyone to be cis. #LGBT#LGBTQ#LGBTQIA#transgender#trans
@BathysphereHat That's wild, cause I ABSOLUTELY had those guilty thoughts for a while! Like, this is selfish I should use my privilege to help others instead! Like I was any help to anybody while I was fundamentally broken. 🤷♀️
One of the scariest parts of coming out is coming out at work. Unlike your family--blood or chosen--work is just a bunch of people who get thrown together, mishmash, and have to make things work out.
This week on #StainedGlassWoman, it's a guide to give to your coworkers when they get that wide-eyed look and think "Oh, s#!t, my coworker just told me they're trans." At least, it should keep people from asking what's in your goddamned pants.
@Impossible_PhD The resources you provide to us are so valuable I can't express my thanks enough.
I forwarded this to my manager who while supportive, didn't really "get it". He just called me to talk about your article and what the company can be doing better ❤️
Hi everyone. I'm going to share a new #introduction.
I'm a #nonbinary (they/them) movement journalist in my 40s, currently based in Central #Texas. From 2022 until today's layoffs, I was Digital Editor at the @TexasObserver. I've been a writer, journalist and editor since at least 2011, when I got my start on the primordial political blog Firedoglake. My involvement with the Occupy Wall Street movement helped make me a journo and I've always worn my bias on my sleeve.
Healing from trauma can be almost indescribably painful--but as with anything to do with being trans, we are never our pain.
We are our incandescent joy.
This Christmas on #StainedGlassWoman, we are, appropriately, going to be celebrating A Million Twinkling Shards of Light: post-traumatic growth, where healing trauma can transform who you are and shape the course of the rest of your life.
@Impossible_PhD Just when I think you've written the hardest hard hitting piece, you go ahead and make an even harder segment. I'm glad you wrote this Zoe.
The Federal Republic joins 20 countries which have passed laws allowing people to declare their own legal gender. I hope someday this will apply across the whole EU.
On a more personal level, this means I can finally change my own legal gender to #nonbinary 🎉🏳️⚧️
@MadeyeTheCarnaptious I was following the whole thing, it's absolutely shameful. I do hope Scotland can come and rejoin the rest of the EU at some point.
Non-binary people: Important question, do you prefer "good girl," "good boy," "good enby," some combo, or none of the above? I need to work on my Daddy game so I can make the lesbian-leaning enbies melt too 😈
I thought the main first two were Gaia, meaning the Earth, female. The heavens and sky were Uranus, male. Mother earth and father sky. Together, they created the Titans.... but I probably have something not right... maybe Chaos was first because he was genderless eternal void.
@ucu the person arguing all these points argued blind with me that #Bisexual acceptance of Queer identities was a 'recent' thing. I pointed out that I was invited to join the Bi group in Glasgow back nearly 20 years ago.
They also argued that #Queer was 'not a stable identity.' Well, mate, we Queers have been using it since the 90s and the generation before me used it in the 80s. Indeed it crops up in Ginsberg's poem 'America' from 1956 in it's modern usage.
Two of the three things that do the most to gender a person most consistently are skills. A person's voice can be trained. Their body language habits can be adjusted. But their hair? So much rests on those little scalp hair follicles, and so much--seemingly--outside our control.
Or is it?
Join us this week on #StainedGlassWoman as we look at some Hairy Situations--and how to get the most out of them!
@Impossible_PhD mmm, actually… I think a fair number of transmascs WOULD be concerned about the erectile dysfunction, since thats critical for bottom growth
Plus tagging @Terra to let her see what she missed out on with the before-times, dude-Wren. 😆
I don't know who needs to hear this today, but if you wanna be a girl, but also don't think you are a girl, you can still do this. It's allowed. #nonbinary#TransTimelines#selfie
For so many of us, coming out isn't just about ourselves--it's about the people we love most, and especially our partners.
But we do come out to them, and then the person we love the most is faced with the reality that, "Oh, s#!t, my partner just told me they're trans." What the fuck do I do?!
They deserve support in those tender first moments, and this week, I'm going to try and give them a little with a jumbo edition of #StainedGlassWoman!
@kitoconnell I'm a woman on the Ace spectrum who spends a lot of time on nature walks, beach cleanups and volunteering in parks--that is, wearing jeans, hiking boots & plaid flannel--and often shops in the men's department for my casual wear.
I think that according to this diagram I am a "Near Miss."
I hit the local all you can eat pizza place with @quester, they have this every 10th meal for free pass we collect together.
Quester walks away after giving the pass and the cashier offers it to me saying "give this to your .... umm ... uh ... friend....", visibly confused. I assume it was their first meeting with a non-binary person.
The confusion was just so priceless. I can only assume the historians will say "They were very good roommates" about us....
Imagine that you’ve worn an itchy sweater, all day and every day of your life. The sweater fits well and it’s comfortably warm, but it itches like hell. Because you’ve worn the sweater your entire life, you don’t know any better. You’ve learned to live with the constant discomfort. You’ve learned to ignore it as much as possible, to push the itch away. Everybody wears that same sweater and nobody’s complaining about it, so the itch must just be a part of it, right? Don’t complain, just carry on, like everybody else. But then you meet people who say that they’re also bothered by their itchy sweaters, and you find out that the sweaters actually don’t itch for most people, just for some. That you can also just take off the sweater if it does cause you a constant itch. Imagine that after over 40 years of constant itching, you finally work up the courage to take off that sweater. Ahhhhh, finally liberated from the eternal itch! That’s what it felt like for me when I “cast off” my masculinity. A liberation, a feeling of euphoria, a feeling of finally being myself and not having to pretend any longer to be something that I’m not.
Hi! I’m Alba. I’m 45 years old and I’m not a man, nor am I a woman: I’m non-binary. I only found out about this a few years ago. My entire life up to that point, I had played my role as a man because society clearly expected me to play that role. I looked like a man, so I should behave like a man, right? When my then 15 year old child came out to me as non-binary, I went looking for everything I could find about what it means to be non-binary, and I realized that I myself am non-binary too. The first person who I came out to as non-binary, was my child. It was the start of a joint quest into the vast and wondrous territories beyond the gender binary. My child lives with their mother in a far foreign place, but despite that physical separation, the bond between us has grown much stronger these past few years. We can share everything with each other, even our deepest desires and insecurities.
But a new generation is knocking on our door. Among the Babyboom generation, 0.5-1% identify as transgender and/or non-binary. Among Gen X, which I belong to, it’s 1-2% and among Millennials it’s 3-5%. But the Zoomers are here. The first half of Gen Z, including my kiddo, has reached adulthood. Among their generation, 5-10% identify as transgender and/or non-binary, a true explosion of gender diversity. The future is not just looking bright; it’s lit up in all the colors of the rainbow. I, for one, am sorely looking forward to a future in which I can finally and definitively throw away that itchy sweater and nobody can force the damn thing on me anymore.
