Ask Mama Brin

Hey friends. I’m working from home today and stuck in front of my computer. I’m gonna turn on my stream while I do some stuff and I’d love to answer any questions you might have. 

No, love, of course you don't need to put a label on your gender or lack of one.

A label is just a name we put on largely arbitrary categories. It's a shorthand way of communicating some idea. It also relies on both parties sharing the same understanding and/or definition of the label.

We both know what a table is, but the exact features of the table that pops into your mind are vastly different than the one that pops into my mind when we each hear the word table, but most people would recognize each of those thought-constructs as tables were they to see them side-by-side.

Likewise, with gender labels. What attributes, features, stereotypes and behaviors we each assign to a gender label can vary, but within a given cultural context, there's probably enough similarity or overlap that other people within that cultural context would recognize them as belonging to the same label.

If you don't see yourself within any of those categories, as belonging to any of the social classifications that your cultural context has assigned particular labels to, then that's ok. The most important label you have is your name, your self, your "me"-ness. If you feel you must have a gender label, then you're you-gendered.

Maybe agender doesn't feel right to you. That's ok. You can still recognize a lack of gender or gender identity within yourself without adopting that label. You can be non-gendered without being agender. There's no rules, here, kiddo.

All of that being said, we still live in a highly gendered society which is very uncomfortable with people who reject categorization or reject the limitations of the categories maintained in that society (see also: asexuality and aromanticism). People within this society will try to assign or assume a gender label for you anyway. That's their fucking problem and not yours. You know where you are situated relative to this system of gender we are awash in. You can explain it to people and what they do with it is their problem. All that matters is that they treat you the way you wish to be treated and call you what you wish to be called. They can think or feel whatever they want - all that matters in this case is what you think and feel about yourself.

But that won't stop people from trying to slot you into their personal gender system. I say this not to dissuade you from charting your own course, but to warn you that you will have to make space and reserve energy to deal with that as you interact with the culture you live in. It's exhausting, but knowing your authentic self is a worthwhile endeavor and warrants expending that energy.

I believe in you and I trust you to know yourself. Please let me know if I've answered your question or if you have more questions. Or if I'm just full of shit :p

Long response ahead, as per usual. And it looks like I’m getting it in under the wire, too. Sorry it took so long. 

So, ok. I hear this. Now … I don’t know the relationship between you and your dad, and I don’t know if you have siblings, or if it’s just you and him … now, I know it’s not super fun, but …. have you considered asking your dad to come with you to Pride? I don’t know what your particular pride plans are (ie, the queer stuff), but it’s possible that you both might benefit from you taking him to his first pride - he’s your dad, it might be nice for him to see into your world, to see people like you who are happy, proud of themselves, surrounded by other people like them. It might be good for him to see that you have a future and that being queer doesn’t mean you’re going to come to some bad outcome, or that whatever concerns he has for you aren’t the only possible outcomes.

He might even be able to see PFLAG parents and learn a bit more about how to support you. I think as queer folk we don’t always see how little our parents understand us and our lives, and we also don’t see just how much terrible messaging they get from the rest of the world.

I’m a father, as I’m sure you know and I do get hurt a little when my daughters plan other things on Father’s Day, or worse, aren’t with me at all. It really sucks. And while I understand that as they get older, they develop lives of their own, or having two houses sometimes scheduling conflicts arise, it still sucks. Dads, for a lot of reasons - often self-inflicted, get a bad rap, or don’t get as much credit as parents most of the time, and Father’s Day is supposed to be the day that’s all about celebrating us as fathers, instead of, like, birthdays which celebrate you as a person, you know? 

Maybe this could be an opportunity for you to let him see this window into your life, to share your life with him and spend time together. It’s another way to celebrate Father’s Day - maybe instead of doing the same old thing, or set of things you normally do on Father’s Day, you can give him the gift of sharing your life with him. You can assure him that no one’s likely to think he’s gay - we’re pretty good at spotting the straights at Pride :P And if they do, then be flattered if someone finds him attractive - it’s a pretty good feeling when someone finds you attractive, right? But you can assure him that no one is going to expect anything from him or expect him to do anything, if that’s a concern of his.I know it might crimp your style and drain your mojo to be out at Pride with your dad, but it might be kind of cool and interesting too. That’s the trade off you’d be making. “Listen dad, I’m not getting laid tonight because I’m choosing to share this with you, Happy Father’s Day” isn’t exaclty a Hallmark card, or the best way to phrase it, but I’m sure you can get the sentiment across.And yeah, telling him that you wanted to skip out on spending time with him so you could go do queer stuff probably hurt him more than he’s willing to say - and not because of queer stuff, or even you calling it queer stuff, but because you’re choosing queer stuff over him on what’s supposed to be “his” day. And asking if you “have” to stay home, instead of asking if it was alright if you left to go to pride, was not the softest, kindest way to ask him for permission to leave. It makes it sound like you think spending time with him is a chore. Even if it were true, it’s not really a kind, loving thing to say, you know? Dads have feelings too, even if we’re not always the best about sharing them with our kids. Whatever you do next, I would consider offering your dad a sincere apology for hurting his feelings.

I can’t speak to your relationship with your dad. My dad and I had a complicated but close relationship and we had our misunderstandings, too. Honestly, this will be the second Father’s Day I have to celebrate without my dad and it really fucking sucks. I’d give just about anything to be able to visit with him on Sunday but I will never get to do that again. 

If you have any kind of decent or better relationship with your dad, do what you can to appreciate it while you have it. I wish like hell I could have taken my dad to some kind of Trans Pride event so he could see that while being who I am comes with danger he didn’t face, it also comes with joy I’d have to deny myself in order to avoid it.

Otherwise, if you can’t get him to come out to Pride with you and celebrate your relationship that way, then I recommend finding some kind of compromise. Maybe skip the parade and head to the gayborhood after dinner and presents to other celebrations. Or go to the parade and come back for dinner and presents and a movie night with Dad or something. 

Well, heck. This might be the coolest thing I’ve seen all year. 

I’m glad to provide the trans formerly-living as much assistance in afterlife transition as I provide to trans living folks in their live’s transition. 

I would totally watch this weekly series, just as an FYI, and I have a friend @ihasabutter who writes stories and this particular premise seems right in her bailiwick. I just want her to know that this exists! 

NOOOOO!!!!! MY LOVE!!! NO! It is NEVER ever ever too late to learn about yourself. It is NEVER EVER too late to transition. 

You learn the things you learn at the pace you learn them! When I was 20, I thought I was a cross-dresser. I told that to my then-fiance. When I was 25, I realized that my story and experience did not match the story and experience shared by the people in the CD support groups I was in. Nor did my experience align with the reported experiences of the spouses in the Significant Other of Cross-Dressers groups my then-wife belonged too. (BTW, all of those groups, CD and SO alike were SUUUUPER toxic to both me and her). 

So I came up with “bigender” as a word to describe my experience - it turns out that the word had existed for a few years, but it wasn’t well-known, so I thought I coined it, and I started using it to describe myself and my gender identity. 

When my wife left me, I was 30. I created the forums on bigender.net and started posting videos on youtube, becoming one of the few faces of bigender, if anyone could be said to be. I even got invited to speak on it because of those videos. 

So, here I am, 31, or so, I’ve started taking HRT which I would have sworn five years earlier that I would never do, and I fall in serious crush with a (tragically gay) man and another with a non-binary person. I’d never acknowledged or admitted to myself any sexual attraction to anyone other than women. I had an existential crisis, my dear, let me tell you. 

As it turns out, nothing came of either of those situations, and I started dating my current girlfriend shortly thereafter. Over the years since then, I’ve found it more and more disingenuous to use bigender as a descriptor and now generally call myself a trans woman, and I’ll be 39 this summer. 

In fact, at the risk of oversharing, I’ve been really wrestling with the notion of figuring out how to go about seeking (and paying for) SRS which, ten years ago, even though I could have called myself trans, I would have sworn I’d never do.

It is never too late to learn something new about yourself. You are a living person. You are a work-in-progress, beloved, and the work is never finished, only improved in fits and starts.  You get to be a whole person, containing contradictions and multitudes. 

It takes years and work and effort to shake off the shame, fear and guilt that other people’s expectations have placed on you. And you figure it out when you figure it out. You are a gift, and gifts aren’t unwrapped all at once. That fear, shame and guilt is the ugliest wrapping paper, but damn if it isn’t tough to tear. So, basically, I guess I’m saying forgive yourself for not knowing things before you learned them. 

One of my favorite posts out here in trans tumblr world is this one. It’s just trans woman after trans woman sharing their photos and talking about beginning transition in their 30s and 40s. There’s a bunch more in the notes, too, I think. Beloved, it is never too late. (I don’t know of one of these that predominantly features trans men, so if anyone knows, please let me know and I’ll update this post).

You’re never going to be younger than you are at this moment, so it sounds like the perfect age to wrestle with these questions and figure out what to do with the answers.  But even if it takes you a while to really figure it out enough to do something different from what you’re doing now, don’t panic. There is no expiration date on transition.

I am sorry that your relationship with your parents is not good, or non-existent, but I’m here, and so is @becausedragonage and I recommend reading @trans-mom and @vaspider to find more support. They are good moms. I suspect by 25, too, that you’ve learned that found family is just as, if not more, important and supportive than birth family.