Search Results for: transnatural

I guess it is no surprise, being immersed in a heterosexist culture like we are, that lots of people think that genital configuration is the key to everything, even people who should know better. For “Women Born Transsexual” and their ilk, they just read this a bit different than most heterosexists; they believe that it’s … Continue reading TransNatural Requiem

My body betrayed me. The arc of a human life is usually to start by being embodied, sensing the world around you and feeling your responses to it, then to gain wisdom & perspective as you age, learning to keep sensations in a more thoughtful context, growing your mind and your story. For me, though, … Continue reading Body Break

Babies are awash in sensation.   It is a time in our lives when we experience through our senses of touch, taste, warmth and cold.   We know when we feel bad and when we feel good, know how to surrender to being taken care of nicely, know how to cry out when something distresses us. With … Continue reading SensationFail

While I have supported any changes transpeople choose to make to their bodies, when I first came out I looked into the mirror and decided that I would never be able to female my own body to my liking, to anything that would make my passage though male puberty less than visible. Bones don’t lie.   … Continue reading Present Callan

It makes me crazy when people act from faith, act from belief, rather than from being centred in rationality and doubt.   When they do that, they are usually wrong, closed, dilettante, defended, resisting the mystery rather than entering into it. Rationality saved me.  It was using my sharp mind that let me sort out the … Continue reading Having Relations

I knew what I needed to hear. I needed permission, needed someone else to say out loud that what I wanted, what I needed, was not sick or crackpot or disgusting, but was a legitimate, authentic and even beautiful expression of how some people are in the world. When I ended up at Southern Comfort … Continue reading Vital Permission

Jeremy Clarkson recently took a hit on Twitter because he wrote, in his usual blokey way, that transgender issues are driving him nuts.   He defended himself, though, because he ended the column by saying that the experience of being trans must be awful and offering a solution that he could get behind. His suggestion is … Continue reading Fighting Over Other

“Now is the time for you,” the chiropractor said.   “It’s time for you to take care of yourself.” His answer, of course, was that I should take care of myself the same way he takes care of himself, by taking care of my body.   Follow the guidelines for proper eating, exercise, take supplements and have … Continue reading Embodied

There is much about femininity that is in the experience of sensuality. Men have skin, but women have flesh– flesh that takes and gives light. — Natalie Barney Heck, there is much about humanity that is in the experience of sensuality. I can’t remember the last time someone touched me with any form of sensuality.  … Continue reading Vinyl Skin

Appearances never meant anything much in my family.    We really didn’t care about showing off, about keeping up with or impressing anyone with something new, trendy or shiny. Engineering set the values, functionality mixed with a bit of elegance.   Add to that my mother’s penchant for a bargain, some cheap thing she found in her … Continue reading Appearances

You need to believe you have agency and control in your life. We all know that you can’t control other people. They grow and heal in their own way and in their own time. If you want to have power in your life, you have to have power over something that you own, something that … Continue reading Take Control

Once you get good at no, it’s hard to change. I learned early that to survive and be even halfway comfortable in the world, I had to say no. No to my trans heart, no to expectations of safety, no to my body, no to indulgence, no to so many things. Once I got good … Continue reading No Habit

Your body may be a vessel for your spirit in this world, but it is hard to argue that it is just a vessel. For most humans, the experience of being embodied defines their life.   Their gendered training and the expectations placed on them are based on their body.   Their experience of desire and being … Continue reading Disembodied

There is nothing wrong with having a feminine heart in a male identified body, having a masculine heart in a female identified body or having a different than conventional combination of reproductive biology and soul nature. In this culture, though, having that mix makes you be identified as transgender.   Being thus identified is just a … Continue reading Beyond Binary

Change or die. That is the imperative of all life on this planet.   The world changes around us, and we either lead, follow or get out of the way. To engage change, though, you have to have hope, have the vision of the new  possibilities and then have support in manifesting them in the world. … Continue reading Change Beyond

There are many times I wish I was more bloody minded. That’s a British phrase meaning obstinate or determined.  “That bloody minded fool just won’t let it go!” I’m at the conference, and I have had some thought about who I want to be there, what performance I need to explore.   I know what I … Continue reading Bloody Minded

I see the crowd of lesbians, all happily catching up with each other at the bar. There must be over 50 of them there. I see the crowd of lesbians, here in the nice resturant with the hors d’oevure buffet set out. And I can’t think of anything I want to say to them that … Continue reading Crowd

I’m fascinated by the issue of hormones in transland. Many transpeople locate great power in hormone, believing that the changes they go through are all due to hormones, that hormones are what make the difference between the sexes. There is some truth to this, of course. We can see the physical differences.  But as part … Continue reading Induced