When I decided to move across the country on a quest for “a dog, a car, and a boyfriend,” I was actually searching for someone to like me the best. Not me the only and not me above themselves…. But to be someone’s favorite.
Read More
I started the “energy” thing as a way to avoid punishing him for doing perfectly normal four-year-old things that drive me up the wall, like running away when it’s time to leave or refusing to brush his teeth at bedtime.
Read More
I sat there on the bathroom floor wondering how many times I’ve used punitive tactics to “teach these kids a lesson.” How many times I’ve been petty and small as a parent. Probably more than I can count!
Read More
As the more emotive person in our relationship— the one who always says “I love you” first, who gives in when there’s a disagreement, who showers Biff with praise— I’ve always assumed that I loved him more than he loved me (if love is indeed a quantifiable thing, which I’m not sure it is).
I’ve always assumed that the depth of my love for Biff was simply more than his for me, and I’ve mostly been okay with that. After this many years... I’ve made peace with it.
Read More
Sometimes, when you’ve been with someone for a long time, big questions can build up between you. One person might not even know it’s happening while the other is actively tormented by it.
And that’s been happening to me and Biff because I’ve been worried for months about whether he’s still attracted to me.
Read More
Every time I stand in front of a class full of high schoolers, I ask them to think of a time when they have been policed around their gender.
Each time, I find myself hoping that no one in the classroom will raise their hand. That maybe this will be the group where none of them have been told to “man up” or to “act like a lady.” Yet every time, their hands shoot up, almost automatically.
Read More
I first heard about the Five Love Languages at a “Healthy Relationships” workshop at a trans leadership training in Los Angeles—and my mind was blown. It was 2013, Biff and I had been dating for two years, and I didn’t feel like he really cared about me because he never held my hand or kissed me in public. He never really told me he loved me in a way that felt specific or certain. Whenever I brought this up, he would always respond that he kept our house clean, cooked food for us every night, and let me sleep in on the weekends. Wasn’t that proof enough of his love?
Read More
I train hundreds of people every year, covering many aspects of competency around transgender issues. I teach people how to use gender-neutral pronouns, how to make it right when they’ve made a mistake, how to create bias-free classrooms… and more. But one of the most common and hard to answer questions I get is this: How do I say the right thing all the time?
Read More
I try hard not to label myself as being “not into something.” But let’s face it… there are just some things I am not into. I am not into sports. I am not into car racing. And I am not into trucks. But when we decided to go to Oregon’s premier sacred music festival, Beloved, I imagined how nice it would be to have a truck.
Read More
If you plan to take any public stance on social justice issues, trolls WILL find you. Their racist, homophobic, transphobic, sexist diatribes will leak out all over your page. And when you leave them up, you are making the internet a more toxic place for people like me (and people like you!) who have to read it. I implore you— use a service to help clear your channels of these toxic messages.
Read More
Riley has always had to work hard to focus on what was happening in front of him, and has often struggled to stay in a positive mindset. When he was seven, we had him assessed so we would have a better sense of what he might need from us in terms of supports. I thought I was ready for whatever might come up during those assessments, but when the pediatric psychologist gently told us that Riley met all the criteria for ADHD, I was shocked. How had I missed this? Was he going to need medication? Do we really know the long-term effects of that medication on tiny bodies? Weren’t there other options for treating it?
Read More
When you’re pregnant (and even after you give birth), everyone has opinions for you. And for some reason, most of these advice-givers don’t seem able to simply share what worked for them... instead, they all seem convinced that their way is The Right Way and all other ways will inevitably lead to Doom and Gloom for you, your partner (if you have one), and your baby.
This turns out to be true whether you’re transgender or not, so I thought I’d share my tips for surviving Nagging Nancies during pregnancy and early parenthood.
Read More
This National Reading Month, we are partnering with Amazon to make sure you’re providing your family with books that will help prepare them to be proud allies and friends to LGBTQ+ families!
Read More
Ah, the dreaded/dreamed-about family road trip. Biff and I have taken dozens of trips with the kids, and boy have we had some mega successes and some horrific failures. Here are some tips we’ve developed over the years to help us cope with family road trips!
Read More
“Why did you decide to gender your baby at birth?”
Every once in awhile, a stranger (usually online) will ask us this question.
In most cases, it’s intended as a “gotcha.” People who don’t want the best for us will ask it in jest, attempting to poke holes in our argument that perhaps gender is less rigid and fixed than we’ve been led to believe. Other times it’s asked by a trans or non-binary person who imagines that we are upholding the gender binary by assuming what gender our baby is.
It is rarely asked with good intention, but for the sake of this blog post… let’s assume it IS being asked that way (and then I’ll discuss why the first two ways of asking it are harmful).
I guess I have to explain my beliefs on gender to begin with.
Read More
We put a lot of time and energy into thinking about ways to moderate our kids’ digital intake. They would do screentime all day every day if we let them, and we would rather they have literally NO screentime. How do we compromise? By finding educational and fun ways to engage them in tablet play. The Fire HD 8 Kids Edition tablet and FreeTime parental controls help us do just that!!!
Read More
As a transgender person, I’ve had many strange conversations about gender. But none are as strange as the ones I have with and about my kids. Here’s part one in my series on gender and parenting, in which I discuss my resistance to dressing Hailey in feminine attire. Check it out!
Read More
From Hotel Ranga to volcanoes to geysers to nature baths… Iceland was the dream vacation to end all dream vacations!!!
Read More
We made a video recently in which Hailey answered questions posed by our Instagram followers. One of them asked about her relationship with her biological parents, and Hailey wanted to tackle it. Check out the video to see her answer!
Read More