Everything I’m linking to below was created by smart, wonderful humans who are part of the LGBT+ community. When you buy a candle, a book, or cute socks from one of these companies you’re voting with your dollars in a real, tangible way.

There aren’t just a list of signs and symptoms that make someone trans.  It’s not one or two defining moments or signs of outward struggle for trans folks.  For some it’s the tell tale, “I don’t want to wear that” or “I don’t want to play with the boys” or anxiety over gendered sports, clothes, celebrations.  

For me there were a hundred moments. A thousand moments. So many moments, some big, but mostly tiny cries for help.

Every time I think of little boy me, seeing Crunchy and Smoothie, celebrating who I am over, while reading along with his after school snack, I  can’t quite believe that I made it here. That we made it here.  

Kraft Peanut Butter is one of the simple joys in life that we all have access to.  Regardless of what schools we went to, what neighbourhood we grew up in,  what type of cars we drive, or what our beliefs, most of us have that classic  green, or red lid somewhere in our kitchen. Even little boy me.  

I introduce to you my favourite little #enby, Mx.Wilde. Wilde uses they/them pronouns and we are all very comfy correcting others and ourselves when we misspeak, so don’t worry if you mess up at first, we’ll help you find your way.

Do I have to cancel Netflix in light of their support behind The Closer, by Dave Chappell, a transphobic piece of content, hidden behind the label of comedy currently leading the Netflix Originals charts?
That’s the question I’m wrestling with, which feels really unfair because I really love Chef's Table.

Top surgery was the moment in my life that I looked forward to more than any other. I was not prepared for my top surgery. I had only seen what social media allowed me to see as I watched from the outside looking in. I went into surgery not really knowing what to expect, feeling unequipped to care for myself.

When parents ask me about their kid exploring their gender identity I tell them that I like to think of gender as one of the puzzle pieces that make up the whole of who we are.
For most people their gender puzzle piece is already in place. It’s the freebie - anchored securely in the perfectly fitting pieces around it. This is probably how you felt growing up.

HOW ARE YOU CELEBRATING PRIDE?

If you don’t feel like shouting and screaming and dancing and resisting you are not alone. I personally have run out of words.

It’s June and this is when I should be ramping up! Instead I’m turning inwards.

To our kids, our very queer family is typical.

I love it! And yet, I also want them to know that we are Queer! That we’ve got a little extra rainbow magic in us. Sometimes that is amazing. And sometimes that can put us in dangerous positions.

I want them to know how to talk about their family when they encounter people who don’t love and live with freedom like we do.

And so started our kids’ queer education by way of books!

Have you ever sat up late at night googling, “What to say when someone comes out to you?”, or “when someone you love comes out” or even, “what to say when kid comes out?”

DO YOU MAKE A “DID IT” LIST?

I don’t know about you, but I always enter the end of the year with a fair amount of angst, especially as a parent it’s easy to end the year feeling at least a little bit like a failure, and 2020 was no different. Until I stop and list all the actual shit I did this year in my annual “DID IT LIST!”

YOUR BEST OR YOUR WORST?

Do you think about what you’re passing on to your kids? We spend a lot of time talking about all the things we pass down to our children. We don’t talk much about the parts of ourselves that we work so hard to keep to ourselves, terrified to pass it on to our sweet babies. For me there is more from my childhood I keep tucked away from them than traditions and memories I share.

TRANS AWARENESS WEEK.

The life expectancy of a transgender person is 35. Statistically speaking this is my last year, but I’m all about defying the odds. I’m here. I’m alive. I’m loved. I am a lucky one.

IT’S ONLY BEEN ONE WEEK.

When your BIPOC, queer, or disabled friends haven’t quite bounced back, remember they just lived through an election cycle where their worth, rights, dignity and frankly their lives were debated on a 24 hour loop. Then they watched 70 million people vote against their human rights.

HERE WE ARE.

Standing in a room full of awkward, lanky, super rad middle schoolers. It brings me right back to my own middle school experience. Grade 7 and 8 were two of the best years of my entire life. I think I liked middle school so much mostly because EVERYONE felt shitty in their own skin for this one window of time.

I pondered life. And realized that if someone forced me back into my life before all of this. Back into the closet.  This, this feeling of utter freedom and anonymity mixed with the foot loose and fancy freeness of not being worried about my safety late in the night is the privilege I would miss most. 

Not the being listened to in a brand new way, not the no longer having to justify my every choice or thought because I was a woman, not the being respected as the default, nope, it’s the safety that comes with being a man.

TELLING KATHERINE THAT I WAS TRANS WAS THE EASIEST PART

The truth is that without her, the steadiness and fierceness of her love, I don’t know that I would have found myself. I was way more afraid to admit my transgender identity to myself.

Who would I become. How would I change? Who would I lose?

Everyone, I was sure.

It turns out that life just got better.

It’s the worst feeling isn’t it.

You love someone, you see their true self, you respect them and want to show them just how much you’ve got their back and then you drop the bomb. You’ve been so concerned with getting it right and loving them that you actually screw up huge and use the wrong pronoun. It’s all you can hear, it’s all the beautiful transgender person you’re talking to can hear, it echoes like you’re trapped alone in a cave and every whisper is heard.

I felt grateful that my big, beautiful, queer family gets to show all sorts of people a different way to live, and love, and thrive in the world. We get to show all sorts of people that they can be whoever they are and find love.

It shows trans kids, folks, their partners, their parents and their friends that they aren’t alone, they aren’t broken, they can and will be loved, and not just crappy settling for someone kind of love, but the BIG WONDERFUL BADASS KIND OF LOVE!

LAST YEAR I PUNCHED A HOLE IN THE WALL

The reason isn’t important, I know because I truly can’t remember why I did it. I do know that never once did I punch anything before transitioning from female to male in my 30’s. For me, the thing I noticed was that all the places in life that used to make me sad didn’t anymore. Instead they filled me with rage.