As the Dust Settles

I've had a difficult relationship with my mother most of my life. It took me some years to sort out that I was probably not the worse child ever, and had some legitimate grievances about our relationship. From my early teens until a few years ago, I semi-regularly asked my mum to see a family …

30 years later…

I was in grade 1 when my mum explained how terrified she was for her kids' future because of the sex we were assigned at birth. I already knew my body was a political battleground; the year before, she had spoken extensively about abortion in the lead up to its decriminalisation. The personal had always …

Engaged While Trans

My partner shares my lukewarm feelings about the institution of marriage. We had several chats before reaching consent to get engaged for pragmatic legal reasons. Neither of us factored in our medical history, it doesn't feel relevant in our day to day life. I legally changed my sex and name on my birth certificate well …

Appreciation Post

I am not sure will you get this, but I am very grateful I stumbled across your blog. Feeling someone actually been through what I am having is a huge comfort, which made me feel a little more belong in this world. Especially, the post about Post-op Depression and Being too okay with mediocrity. It …

Don’t Derail the Narrative of Violent Deaths

We don't usually learn through hate, or violence, and we shouldn't. We learn through dialogue, non-violent experience, self-reflection, and so on. We don't need transphobia around for cis people to learn about trans folks. The Holocaust didn't occur for us to learn not to be antisemitic. We don't need terrorist attacks to learn not to …

Self-Awareness: choice of where to live

Seemingly, I left the perfect living arrangement a few years ago. I lived on my own, in a place with a gest bedroom, enjoyed a quick walk to work, and my fabulous family physician, while living on a street where I cherished several lovely neighbours. I was a reasonable walking distance to several of my …

Gratefulness in a Time of Grief

I'm utterly devastated, and the worse is still ahead. It additionally feels like coming to the mostly bitter end of the last few years of my life, which have revolved around multiple cancer diagnosis of most of my nearest and dearest and chronic underemployment for me as I scrambled to provide them with care. There's …

Self-Awareness : personal trainers

I've had a few personal trainers, only one knew my medical history, a non-binary person who knew I was trans before becoming my PT. In terms of how to do exercises with good form, what sort of sets are better suited for adaptation, hypertrophy, max strength or toning, that stuff is universal. So it seemed irrelevant …

Intersex Trans Survivor Reflections

CN for overview of 2 sexual abuse events, please check in with your headspace before reading this, and stop at any time if need be--- I'm intersex, a relevant dimension to this space for me. I survived coerced medical treatment to modify the functioning of my reproductive organs and secondary sexual characteristics in my early …

Body Building Resources I Found Helpful

I'm not paid to or derive any benefit from referring any of the following. I'll further qualify that I don't know where any of these stand on LGBTIQ+ matters, so this isn't an endorsement of them on that front. Where gender is mentioned it is in a cisnormative way. So check these out with that …