Things left out of trans awareness training

I was interacting with people who need not know my medical history. Something banal for me. But I was there with a friend who's known me since prior to transition. She and I have hung out lots with other people who don’t know I'm trans, but evidently the conversation had never veered into topics she …

Advertisements

Ways to support someone recovering from lower surgery

It's time for your friend/loved one to get lower surgery! You're an amazing person who wants to help but doesn't have a frame of reference for what's next. The following are ideas of what you can do, pending your resources and your friend's circumstances. What may help before they leave: Putting together a "get well" …

Self-Awareness: gut feeling

Following a series of banal events, I wound up on a short trip with 2 pair of shorts. 1 is a favourite, and the other was bought after an airline lost my luggage, in a place where there were few stores and style options. That latter pair used to occasionally cause me some dysphoria and …

Awareness moment: warm weather with balls (TMI)

I had scrotoplasty (scrotal implants included) as part of my stage 1. I didn't have jock itch despite the weather was crushing heat at the peak of summer. Plus between the colpocleisis, scrotoplasty and other incisions healing nearby, there was plenty of moisture around, above and beyond sweat. I don't know what it was about …

5 Self-Care Tips For Answering Lower Surgery Inquiries

Answering queries about surgeries could easily be a full time volunteer gig for most of us. While many questions are fine, too many are redundant, posed by people expecting to be spoon fed the information already available before they arrived, if only they scrolled back through entries or searched the archives. Several will pose questions …

Self-Awareness: Donor Site

It’s like having a leather wrist band on at all times. It doesn’t hurt in the least, but you’re aware it’s there. You can feel when things press against it but it’s a dulled tactile sensation, there’s something in the way. What’s left of the past. There’s just a little too much between the world …

Being a Trans Old/Post-Transition Parent

I attended a trans conference organised and chiefly attended by cis people. I didn't know this would be the case before I went, and it was an awful experience. The worse parts don't merit being repeated. I wound up sitting next to the parent of a trans boy. In answering someone's question, I implicitly disclosed, …

Managing Dysphoria: Peeing

What manages the distress will vary on what it is about peeing that's triggering dysphoria for you/in a particular moment. Sometimes it's having to sit to pee, other times it's feeling wetness between the folds of one's external genitals. Sometimes it's having to wait for the 1 stall in public toilets while there are available …

8 Tips for Managing Dysphoria and Mental Health Stuff

1. Know your triggers – they might be certain activities, mirrors, words, and/or situations – and try to avoid those as much as possible. If you're not certain what they are, be alert to when your mood sours. If everything feels overwhelming, start by envisioning what you would need to do your morning routine without …

When surgeries become a hobby

This is one of my more vulnerable posts. There were a few years where my paid time off leave was spent recovering from lower surgeries. I did this in order to get full pay while paying for flights and out of hospital accommodations. Twice I qualified to go on medical leave, which only offered partial …