Trans Parental

Last week, in writing about my reaction to an ABC news article about my family, I shared a link about two well-meaning platitudes that get under my skin. Much to my surprise, the bulk of comments on that entry have read like very uncomfortable, defensive-sounding responses to my criticism of nonspecific usage of the words "Brave" and "Strong."

Please take a moment and read the link. It's not terribly complex or long, and I find that it's very clear. http://www.trinimex.ca/disabilityinmedia/lesson6.htm

What I hear when people tell me that the mere act of having a family or being trans or what have you is brave and strong: that my life is so far outside the range of comprehension that the mere act of living is above and beyond.

Greg Walloch, a comedian with cerebral palsy, says:

You know a lot of people come up to me and they say "I think you're really brave, I think you are really courageous just for being who you are. But they're not saying that about who I am or what I've accomplished in my life. They just say that based on how I look when they walk by."

I don't have a disability, but my body is definitely clearly marked as "other." I get reminders of it all the time - when doctors don't know how to treat me, when I can't figure out which one is the right bathroom or locker room, when I can't find a bicycle seat that's comfortable for more than a couple miles. Those things are more than enough to make me feel somewhat inferior and beyond the pale, all by itself.

How would I like to hear compliments about doing things like this article, or offering workshops on transgender parenting? I don't have a set of canned responses. But I can tell you that choosing to do those things doesn't have much to do with bravery or strength. It might help to know what it does involve, so, here are some things that go through my head when I make a choice to engage with activism or not.

- Frustration at not seeing mainstream (or even LGBT) media images that are anything like me or my family
-Irritation about hearing/knowing that change is incremental and glacial and wanting to hurry it along as much as I can
-Baseless optimism that this time will be the first time someone accurately represents a story like mine, instead of using their perceptions and words to make my experience fit in their preconceived box
-Assessing whether I want to watch my daughter's pained and horrified face when people ask her - AGAIN - about my genitals
-Whether I have the patience to answer the same damn easily-googleable questions for the Nth time
- If I'm in a place where I have the time and energy to process the reactions that come from more or less being an educational freakshow. I signed up for this more or less willingly when I made a decision to transition. My kids did not. They are not used to being viewed and talked about like a three-headed puppy and it takes them a long time to recover when they get a whiff of how BIZARRE the general public finds them.

These are very specific things related mostly to feelings of invisibility, Otherness, and consciously assessing my boundaries and my family's. I don't think I'm alone in having these thoughts, at all. If you want to offer some words of encouragement or support around this incident, or any other, take those things into account and choose words that fit my reactions and the situation. You know, the same you would do with any friend who's having a hard time.

That having been said: if I ever wade into a swarm of angry bees to save a basket of kittens, then you can call me brave. When I rip up some carpet or cut down a bunch of bushes in my yard - both of which are things I've done in the past couple weeks - then I would love to be called strong. If I lift a truck off a family of ducklings that's trying to cross the street, then you have blanket permission to call me both.

ABC News

The Daily Mail

As I type, there are 25 sourdough English muffins cooking away merrily: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/3241/sourdough-english-muffins I played live culture roulette and put buttermilk in with the sourdough culture last night, and it appears to have done no harm whatsoever. They're delicious.

Simone approves - she's devouring one with jam right now.

The September once-a-month menu doesn't appeal to me too much, so I plan to develop my own while I'm in Maine using the forms available on the site: http://onceamonthmom.com/category/resources/create-your-own-menu/

In addition to a happy, burbling little sourdough, I also maintain a buttermilk culture. I started with 8 ounces buttermillk in a very clean quart glass jar and added 24 ounces of milk. I shook well and let it sit at room temperature overnight. Buttermilk ensued. WHOLE MILK BUTTERMILK. Imagine the decadence.

I use it in a whole lot of things: scrambled eggs, biscuits, muffins, any number of cooked things that call for milk. Adjust the chemical leaveners for extra acidity if the original recipe calls for milk*, and if you're using it in sourdough recipes, scald it first so the culture doesn't overtake your wild yeast. Anything milk can do, buttermilk can do better! Well, except cereal or coffee. Ew.

Today, my sourdough needed another feeding before it could bake something nice. I wanted bread anyway, so I decided to try something new. I found a recipe for whole wheat buttermilk bread: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/2644/claytons-buttermilk-whole-wheat-bread It's not in the oven yet, but the texture, smell, and taste of the unbaked dough are pretty spectacular.

*To achieve the desired result when using buttermilk instead of milk, substitute baking soda for some or all for of the baking powder. For each cup of buttermilk used in place of sweet milk, reduce the amount of baking powder by 2 teaspoons, and replace with 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda.

Makes about six pints.

1 1/2 Tbsp celery seeds
2 tsp whole cloves
1 4-inch-long cinnamon stick, broken into pieces
3/4 tsp whole allspice
1 1/2 cups cider vinegar
12 lbs tomatoes, cored and quartered
1 1/2 cups chopped onions
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 Tbsp sauce from canned chipotles in adobo
3/4 cups granulated sugar
2 Tbsp canning or pickling salt

1. Tie celery seeds, cloves, cinnamon, and allspice in a square of cheesecloth, creating a spice bag.

2. In a stainless steel saucepan, combine vinegar and spice bag. Bring to a boil over high heat. Remove from heat and steep for 25 minutes. Remove the spice bag.

3. Meanwhile, in a large stainless steel pot, combine tomatoes, onions, cayenne, and adobo sauce. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently. Reduce heat and boil gently for 20 minutes. Add infused vinegar and boil gently until vegetables are softened and mixture begins to thicken, about 30 minutes.

4. Working in batches, transfer mixture to a sieve placed over a glass or stainless steel bowl and press with the back of a spoon to extract all the liquid. (You can also do this in a food mill.) Discard solids.

5. Meanwhile, prepare canner, jars, and lids.

6. Ladle hot ketchip into hot jars, leaving 1/2 inch (1 cm) headspace. Remove bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot ketchup. Wipe rim. Center lid on jar. Screw band down tight until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.

8. Place jars in canner, ensuring that they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 15 minutes. Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool and store.

About once a week, we go to the library and check out an enormous stack of books. The past few weeks have seen an increase in the amount of material checked out, since we're traveling almost every weekend, and a pile of books* is about the only thing that makes a happy Simone.

So far, so good, but we're not done yet. There are a couple more trips yet to go this summer, and I'm looking for some audiobooks for the ride. Are there any that you guys particularly like? Some that have worked well for us recently are: The Tale of Desperaux, The Penderwicks, Coraline, and pretty much anything by E. B. White.

*Evidence of ridiculousness attached below.

About a week ago, my family went to Philadelphia for the 10th Philadelphia Trans-Health Conference. I've thought hard about going since I first heard of the conference in 2009, but this year was the first year that I actually attended.

There were a lot of things I loved about the conference. I know this is sort of a goofy thing to be delighted about, and actually, the more I think about it, the more angry I get that it should even be an issue - I loved the unisex bathrooms. I love them on general principle whether I'm with kids or not, but the best part was being able to go into a bathroom with Simone without experiencing any hostility.

One of the things that made the whole conference possible for me was the kids' camp. Many queer events don't make a concerted effort to be family-friendly, which makes it difficult for me - and other parents - to participate. Providing free, excellent childcare as part of the conference definitely went a long way toward making me feel welcome.

The workshops in the past couple years have left me sort of lukewarm, but this year, there was obviously an enormous effort to diversify the schedule. There were a lot more workshops dealing with femme, POC, and family topics. The main reason that I attended this year, in fact, was that a marvelous friend had an idea for a facilitated discussion and kindly let us co-facilitate. The discussion was titled "Buliding Our Families - Parenting Through a Trans Lens." Here's the description:

This workshop will consist of a facilitated discussion centering on building families in relationships where one or more of the parents identify as transgender. People who are thinking of having or adopting children may also attend.

Trans folk and their partners have been having and raising children for decades, yet there is rarely a space where the unique circumstances of parenting as a trans person or a partner of a trans person can be discussed with people who have shared experience.

During this conversation, we will explore ways that participants have become parents, how identifying as transgender impacts their parenting, and ways that we can support one another in raising healthy families.

It was all that and more. The room was filled with queer families and people interested in parenting, and the discussions were wonderful. We broke into three small groups, loosely affiliated with methods of building families, parenting as a transperson, and what it's like to have a transgender parent. We didn't have nearly enough time to discuss all of the magnificent topics that people suggested, but here's hoping that we can do it again sometime soon.

Parents, prospective parents, kids of transfolk: what do YOU want to talk to other families about? Please let me know in comments.

My younger daughter has always been a poor sleeper. We spent a few years (!!) wrapping her in a sling and bouncing on a yoga ball to get her to sleep, but by the time she was 2, that became very unwieldy. I decided to try a weighted blanket, and it was an instantaneous and miraculous improvement.

Here's how I make them.

Materials needed:

-2 pieces of fabric, each 3 yards long. I used fabric that was 45" wide. One piece is for the top of the blanket, one is for the bottom. I use cotton for the top and have used both fleece and flannel for the bottom, each with good results.
-Poly Pellets You'll need enough pellets to supply 10% of the wearer's weight, plus one pound. For example: if you weigh 200 pounds, then your blanket will need to be about 21 pounds. Some people might need more weight, some people might need less.
-Postage/kitchen scale
-Sewing machine
-Pins
-Tailor's chalk/washable marker for marking the fabric
-Yardstick/measuring tape

You will want to eyeball your fabric and see how many pockets you want to put in. With a 45" X 86" blanket, I put in 32 pockets: 8 vertical pockets and 4 horizontal pockets. Mark the vertical and horizontal lines on one side of the fabric.

Figure out how many ounces of beads to put in each pocket. I made a 6 pound blanket. I figured out the amount of ounces in 6 pounds (96), then divided that by the number of pockets (32) to find out how many ounces of beads to put in each pocket (3).

Pin the fabric together with the right sides facing each other and sew around three sides, leaving the top edge unsewn.

Turn the blanket right side out and topstitch around the three sides twice. Reinforce the seam by topstitching over it again.

Sew along the vertical lines, making long channels. Reinforce the seams by sewing back over them.

Using the scale, measure out the proper amount of beads. Pour into each channel. Shake them down to the bottom, and pin the squares shut. Sew acrosss horizontally. Reinforce by sewing across a second time. Repeat filling/pinning/sewing/reinforcing until you get to the top row.

When the last row is filled and pinned, sew it shut. Be sure to pick a sturdy method of finishing. I sewed about half an inch from the raw edge, folded it over twice sort of like rolling a paper bag, and then sewed that down. When I was finished, it looked very much like the hem on a pair of jeans.

The blanket can be machine washed and dried on gentle.

Because of hundreds upon hundreds of spam comments and user registrations (how flattering!), I've just installed a spam protection module and deleted several hundred users. If you were a legit user and you find that I deleted your account, I apologize very sincerely. Please, create your user just one more time.

By way of the always-excellent Helen Boyd, here's a very nice video about tomboys. It sparked an enormously interesting conversation with Simone and she's asked several times since to watch it again.

Tomboy from Barb Taylor on Vimeo.