![ID: Arielle, a white trans woman with purple hair, lies in a hospital bed hooked up to several machines.]](https://transandcaffeinated.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/IMG_1412-1-1024x576.jpg)
This post chronicles every thought I’ve shared about bottom surgery on Instagram, beginning 2 years prior to surgery with my consultation all the way to today.
Relevant information, tips, and tricks that I’ve learned by navigating medical transition as a trans feminine non-binary person. Some of this information is also relevant to trans masculine and/or other non-binary experiences (in many of the examples I list, trans masculine folks experience a near inverse of what I describe), while some is far too specific to be applicable.
This post is a candid, raw, and vulnerable account of my doubts and fears surrounding bottom surgery. Potential triggers include gaslighting, genital mention, bottom surgery/vaginoplasty, cissexism, and dismissal of trans identity.
Last summer, a close friend introduced me to the clothing-optional, veritable queer and trans safe haven that is Jacob Riis Park.
By failing to unlearn the gender binary, our peers preclude our ability to imagine any identity or form of expression outside of this restrictive conception of existence.
I am a non-binary, pansexual human, and I love Jesus. It took me a long time to come to the notion that it is okay to feel both so in love with God, but not comfortable in one binary gender or the other.
The Trump administration has reversed an Obama-era ACA guidance that extended healthcare nondiscrimination protections to transgender and LGBQ+ individuals.
The TransFormations Marketplace highlights the work of trans and gender non-conforming artists, celebrating their incredible ability to transform our culture.
I will never be a cisgender woman, and that’s okay. My womanhood is no less valid than any cisgender woman’s just because I’m trans. My lack of a uterus or vagina, my facial hair growth, my Y chromosome – none of these make me any less woman. Some women have penises, and frankly, it’s time that people get over it.
Your Co-Morbidity Is My Normative Reality: Transgender in the Early Era of SARS-COV-2
“That is the dream; that through our continued visibility, through our adamant refusal to be erased, ignored, swept aside or forgotten, society will be forced to reckon with their feelings about TGNC folx.”
Go to bat with insurance companies and demand trans-inclusive healthcare. Make clear to these companies that you will no longer pay into their plans if they decline to offer comprehensive coverage for gender-affirming care. Once you’ve developed a fully accessible, comprehensive benefits package for transgender employees, distribute this information company-wide.
Believe us, support us, and help us grow. That is what the trans community needs from you. Our community is asking for your help. The question is — are you listening?
Increased understanding and acceptance of marginalized folx may begin with the work of activists, but it most certainly ends with the work of allies — in order for transgender acceptance to advance, allies must listen to and learn about the transgender commmunity.
I could not be where I am today — personally, professionally, any of it — without the endless support and guidance of my incredible community.
“People will become educated if they want to be educated. People will become better allies if they want to become better allies. People openly making discriminatory comments or asking me invasive questions are not asking to be educated, nor have they earned my labor.”
“And why aren’t we doing more to protect our trans siblings while they’re alive in hopes that there comes a November 20th when there are no names left to read?”
“I’ve had people ask me how I “dealt with it,” but I can honestly say that it has never been something I’ve had to “deal with.” It was a process through which I had to support my sister – period.”
“Slowly, I began to weave advocacy for my community into my work as a barista, first through offering resources and information to those who needed these and more recently by hosting trans literacy trainings.”
“Many people have congratulated me on handling this so well. They say, ‘I don’t know if I could have done it.’ Emphatically, I respond, ‘Yes, you would! If you love your child and want to keep them in your life, you would. It’s that simple, though admittedly not easy.'”
“Though most adults will acknowledge that dating is frustrating and a bit exhausting, there is an additional level of complexity for transgender people that stems from our identity.”
“I dream of a world in which ‘passing’ is a dead concept and people everywhere are simply allowed to be and to live and feel amazing and beautiful and wonderful just the way that they are. Unfortunately, achieving that on a global scale is a long fight away. But on a much smaller scale, each of us has some amount of power in empowering and validating all of our trans siblings.”
“Years of powerful, inspiring, authentic queer people rising up against an oppressive cishetero patriarchy and coming out in spite of overwhelming hatred has brought us here. Let’s do them justice and fight for a better future for the queer folks of tomorrow by continuing to tell our stories.”
“When other people witness us facing these aggressions in a single fleeting instance, they may interpret our reactions as overreactions. But micro-aggressions rarely occur as isolated incidents. Instead, they occur as frequent and ongoing frustrations and triggers that wear us down over time as we battle to live our everyday lives.”
“Yet, in a powerful testament to the strength and resilience of our community, we still exist. We persist. And in supportive environments, we thrive.”
“Transgender people have to fight like hell, every single day, simply for the right to exist and to be who we are. And if this doesn’t make transgender people just about the most badass people in the world, I don’t know what does.”
The validity of a transgender person’s identity is rooted solely in their telling you that they are transgender.
