thegenderdoula - Tumblr blog

thegenderdoula · 1 year

Text

Messages from Your Trancestors

Almost every day for the past two weeks, I’ve been waking up with messages. At first I thought that this was anxiety, because all the messages I’ve been waking up with were about trans people - supporting trans people, loving trans people, surviving this current crisis, etc. I figured it was because this is what I do for a living. I figured that this was waking me up early because this is the water I swim in all day, every day.

But the more I sat with it, the more I realized that the emotional core of these early mornings is not anxiety, and the messages are not ones of fear. What was coming through was trancestral knowledge, messages from trancestors who have faced all that we are facing now, who have wisdom, strength, and support for us. So I started taking notes, listening to the messages, and sharing them with you.

This morning I woke up with just….a deluge of these messages. Insistent with love, urgent with care. There’s more than I can fit on a cute Instagram slide show, so while I do intend to release these messages through that medium, I want to write them in their entirety here. For you, dear reader. Consider bookmarking this page. Consider printing this off, or writing it down somewhere. Consider returning to it again and again.

Also, these messages are for you. When I say “trans” I mean that in the broadest sense. This is not about a label or fitting into a category. It’s not about being “out” or visible or taking social steps or medical ones. Its for you if it resonates with you. Its for you if you’ve questioned your gender, if you’ve explored your gender, if you’ve transitioned, if you’re out, if you’re stealth, if you are mother to hundreds of trans kids or if you’ve never met another trans person in your life. These messages are for you.

Transcestor Message 1

You have thousands and thousands of trancestors and they are all available to you. You have trancestors who were adored, revered, considered to be sacred by their communities. These ancestors hold divinity medicine. You have trancestors who have been through incredible hardship. These ancestors hold survival medicine. You have trancestors who were never able to change their bodies in the way they wanted, who were never able to fully express their truth. These ancestors hold persistence medicine. You have trancestors who hold the sweet medicine of community, and others who hold the deep introspection of isolation. They are all here for you, they can hold you through this time. They can offer you strength, support, and love, as well as their unique and vital medicines. Reach out to them, because they are already with you.

Transcestor Message 2

Your trancestors want you to know that you are not alone. You are not the first to feel the way you feel, you won’t be the last. Your transcestors want you to know that there are no setbacks that we can not come back from, as a group, and that no attempt at eradicating us will succeed. We have always been, we will always be. We can be born at any time, in any place, to any family. No one can change that.

Transcestor Message 3

Your trancestors invite you to sit with weeds, like dandelion, and know that we, too, will always spring up through the cracks, regardless of how others perceive us. We, too, hold deep medicine in our bodies, if one takes the time to look. We, too, can survive nearly anything, because we have the advantage of deep roots, persistence, and unpredictability.

Transcestor Message 4

Your transcestors want you to know that when we work together, we are stronger. They want you to know that they know it’s scary, and they want you to know that they are still here and so are you. Community is as terrifying as it is beautiful, because it holds deep potential for pain as well as profound joy. This is a truth of human relationship. Turn toward one another with love. Allow yourself and your trans siblings to be human. Soak in compassion. Make space for messiness. Support accountability. There are so many people trying to eradicate us right now. Let us not make their job easy. Let us learn to link our arms together and fight as a group. Let us refuse to devour our own. Let us recognize our oneness, and commit to it.

Transcestor Message 5

Your trancestors want you to know that the hate you’ve internalized for yourselves and one another is understandable, because it is the air you’ve breathed for all the years you’ve been alive. And also, it’s gotta go. You must tend to the parts of you that hold all that hatred, all that oppression, you must pull them into the light of your love and see them for what they are - the misguided protectors of a little one who was forced to conform to a transphobic world, to a world that couldn’t hold the fullness of their brilliance. You don’t have to live in that paradigm anymore. Those protectors can become the fierce advocates of that little one, and of your present self. So you must open yourself to the idea that your transness and all the things that this world have told you were too much, too big, too frightening….that these are your magic. That these parts of you must be loved, too. That when you learn to love them, and to love your community, you are unstoppable.

Transcestor Message 6

Your transcestors want to remind you that you do not have to fix everything for everyone today, and that you are not alone. Many transcestors have burned bright for a short time while they took on the whole world at once, where they were unsupported and left to fight alone. Their sacrifices changed the world, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Alone we will struggle deeply. The fights will be more than any one of us can handle. But together we are unstoppable.

Transcestor Message 7

Your transcestors want you to feel the truth of liberation in your bones. It is available to you now. Learn to feel it, to sense it, and then learn to feel it in community

Transcestor Message 8

For every few names and faces of transcestors that we know, there are thousands upon thousands that we don’t. You have the support of millennia.

#trans #transgender #trancestor #transcestors

1 note · View note

thegenderdoula · 1 year

Text

29K notes · View notes

thegenderdoula · 1 year

Text

New Workshop Offering!

Self-love…what a concept! Its been a rough time for a long time and who among us doesn't need a little (or a lot) more self-love in their life? And/but also, the quest for self-love is a tough one. Positive affirmations can help, and they can also feel like a lie on the tongue. For trans, nonbinary, and other gender expansive people, self-love can seem impossible in the face of hyper visibility, transphobia, and the current political climate.

If any of this resonates, LOVE YOUR TRANS SELF is for you. This workshop is a straightforward, action-oriented primer on self-love as a verb. The goal is that you will leave with strategies that you can implement right away, and with some thought given to how you can work one or more of these strategies into your day to day life.

We will meet for two hours. I will cover some of my thoughts and experiences with self-love, then teach you some of the strategies that have helped me develop a practice of self-love. These strategies were forged through my experiences of fatness, transness, queerness, trauma, and perhaps most of all through living with intense chronic illness. This is not a "love and light" workshop. The self-love I've cultivated is ferocious and fallible - it’s a devotional practice and I'm ready to share it with you.

Participants will receive a 2 hour workshop, the zoom recording for download, and worksheets for the exercises we cover.

Sliding Scale Ticket Guide (scholarships available):

$33 Community Rate

$66 Actual Cost

$88 Abundance Rate

PLEASE NOTE: The actual cost of this workshop is $66. The $33 community price point is for folks who would not be able to pay the actual cost, but would still like to attend. The $88 abundance rate is for folks who have expendable income and wish to offset the community rate. If you are stressed about the sliding scale, this graphic by Alexis J. Cunningfolk can help you understand where you fall on the scale!

If you are Black, Indigenous, another person of color, or a person financially impacted by disability, you can send me an email: [email protected]. You do not need to tell me anything about your financial situation - simply request a scholarship and they will be distributed on a first come, first served basis. I am funding 5 scholarships, but will add more if more are funded through donations.

#trans #transgender #nonbinary #genderexpansive #genderqueer #genderfluid #transpride #selflove #trans self love #trans self care

2 notes · View notes

thegenderdoula · 1 year

Text

New Blog: 5 Signs You Need a Gender Doula

(Note: If I make a new post on my blog, I will put it here too! If you want to be the first to know about upcoming classes and workshops [and get a little discount] make sure to sign up for my mailing list.)

It’s not always easy to know when to call in support for any given issue. Between the hyper-independence most of us have been socialized into, internalized transphobia, and the general scariness of vulnerability, asking for help often feels like something someone else should do, or something we should put off until we’ve tried every other possible avenue. When it comes to gender exploration and transition, I often find that people spend a lot of time and energy trying to muddle through on their own before they reach out to me. And I get that! It’s really vulnerable to ask for help, and sometimes its hard to know what kind of help you need.

So here are a five signs (and a bonus!) that you need a gender doula. Of course, this isn’t an exhaustive list. But I hope that it helps you see some of the many reasons why folks contact me.

You are curious about your gender (identity, presentation, etc) but don’t know where to start.

Many people who come to me do not identify as trans or non-binary. They may feel curious about their identity, how it has been shaped, why they conformed to various gendered expectations, etc., and may want to talk that out with someone. Or, they may be curious about exploring their gender, but don’t really know what to do or even what gender exploration entails. However, they may also feel like they need to have some idea of what they want before they start asking for help.

The truth is, I think everyone benefits from gender exploration. No one on earth neatly fits in to the confines of a label, even if that label is chosen specifically because it feels more resonant than another one. Each of us contains multitudes. Each of us is far too dynamic to be fully apprehended in a single word or phrase. There is a tremendous benefit to giving your own unique relationship to gender room to breathe and develop, and a gender doula can help with that.

2. You’ve tried researching gender transition, but it’s overwhelming, confusing, etc.

Let’s be honest - research trans or gender-related topics can be mind-numbingly difficult. I spent about 10 years researching trans identity, health care, and law, and many hours were spent combing through Google and Google Scholar trying to find even one mention of the exact thing I was looking for. While many more resources are available now than there were even 5 years ago, its still incredibly challenging to find a source that is relevant, reliable, up to date, and high quality.

This is even more true for folks who deviate in any way from binary gender, who are racialized, who are disabled or chronically ill, or who otherwise don’t fit the narrow confines of a very specific type of trans. It’s common to say “google it” when people ask questions, but sometimes that makes things even worse! I’ve had client stumble unknowingly into TERF and other anti-trans websites, and end up confused, upset, and scared to continue searching.

Fortunately, I have a variety of resources that are incredibly helpful for all kinds of situations. Some of these can be found through my Linktree, my Transition Basics workshops, or the resource page on my website. But especially for folks who need specific resources and support, there’s no substitute for working together one-on-one. I also have contacts all over the U.S. and internationally and belong to WPATH and multiple email lists for trans professionals and healthcare navigators, so if I can’t find an answer to your question, there are a variety of folks who I can reach out to.

3. You want to change something about your gender identity or presentation, but you feel stuck, unsure, anxious, scared, etc.

I think that this is probably one of the most common reasons why folks come to me. Maybe they’ve explored their gender and maybe they’ve researched, but…then what? Inhabiting your gender in a new way is scary. It requires a moment of turning, of crossing a threshold. Even if no one in the outside world would ever notice whatever change you’re making, you will still be changed.

This is heady stuff, and something folks shouldn’t have to do alone. Sometimes we all need someone to hold the space for our anxieties, fears, hopes, and dreams as we step into the next iteration of who we are. And sometimes, we have no idea how to make that step, and we need someone to help shine a light so we can find our way forward.

If you’re in that space of stuckness, anxiety, or confusion, my goal is never to push you toward any specific outcome. Rather, I hope to hold the space for you to spread all your options on the table, and move toward whatever makes the most sense for you. I’m here for the messiness, the discomfort…all of it. Supporting you through those uncomfortable and tender moments is quintessential gender doula work.

4. You don’t have many folks in your life that you can talk to about gender things, or you don’t feel comfortable asking them these deeply personal questions.

Some of the folks who come to me don’t have any trans people in their life that they can talk to. Others are surrounded by trans community, but sensitive to the idea of asking their trans friends to answer their questions, especially when those questions feel deeply personal for both them and their friends. Further, it can be confusing and intimidating to know where to take your questions. If you want to know more about HRT, do you feel safe enough with your doctor to bring that up?

Working with a gender doula gives you a safe space to work out your questions and to find answers. I don’t always have the answer to every question, but when I don’t know, I have a variety of ways of sourcing answers. For more personal questions that may not have clear answers, I can sit with you in the unknown while you work toward answers.

Having a safe space to bring your questions can also help you unearth questions that you didn’t know you had, or that you felt too scared to bring up, even just to yourself. Gender exploration can be an intensely personal process, but knowing that you’re not alone in that process can make a huge difference. And with my experience, I can also give you feedback that is grounded across research, personal experience, community involvement, and gender doula work.

5. You’ve transitioned in some way, but now you want to take new/additional steps.

There is a common misunderstanding that transition is a sort of one-time thing…you realize that your identity is not in line with what you were assigned at birth, you find the identity that suits you, you take whatever steps you need to to actualize that identity, and then you move on with life. And who knows, maybe some people experience their gender that way! But for most people, gender exploration is an ongoing pursuit that sometimes comes in waves.

Also, the norms and standards of care around medical transition have shifted over the years. Several folks have come to me who transitioned under older standards that required them to take more medical steps than they actually wanted or needed, or gate-kept them from vital care. Either way, there’s a lot of trauma around this, and it can be helpful to talk it out with someone who is familiar with how these things have changed over time.

Whether you want to explore new aspects of your transition, shift your presentation, or parse through complicated feelings about earlier decisions, the space we make together can hold this in great detail and nuance. A gender doula can hold non-judgmental space for the tough stuff, and help you shift your gender paradigm toward joy and affirmation.

Bonus: Your friend/partner/loved one/child is transitioning and you need a safe space to ask all of your questions.

I’ve done several sessions with partners, parents, and friends of trans people who want to be supportive but aren’t always sure how. Working with a gender doula for this is excellent, because you can ask all the questions that you need to without damaging your relationship to your trans loved one. Allies and loved ones have found these sessions so helpful and so supportive that they often need only one such session, though for parents I have occasionally done more frequent work, as gender situations with younger children can be very dynamic and challenging.

If you are the parent of a trans child, finding resources can be challenging. While I personally deeply recommend Gender Spectrum as a general source for parents, I know that parents who try to find targeted answers to tough questions on Google can be waylaid by spurious sources and bad actors masquerading as concerned citizens or even credentialed professionals! Having a space to speak with someone who can not only answer your questions, but can also curate your resource list with high quality, trustworthy resources, can save any parent or loved one from a lot of misinformation and fear.

For parents and loved ones who need support, but prefer not to work one on one, I have a variety of resources in my Bookshop and on the resources section of my website.

Bottom line: There are many reasons to hire a gender doula, and these are just some of them.

Gender touches so many different parts of our lives. For trans, non-binary, and other gender expansive people, gender is often grappled with in overt ways, as well as ways that are less obvious. For cis people or people who don’t identity as any of the above, gender is still a dominating force, and one that can be challenging and confusing to navigate.

Gender doulas are truly for everyone. Gender exploration is a helpful and beautiful process for people of all gender identities. But it can also be a challenging and confusing process, and having someone to hold you in gentle acceptance, and who can also answer thorny and confusing questions, can make the whole process a lot more human.

If you’re interested in 1:1 gender doula services, contact me here or shoot me an email: [email protected]. If my books are full, I have a few colleagues that I can refer you to. If you are curious about workshops and classes, sign up for my mailing list. And if you like this blog post, follow me on social media. I do this work because I love this work - it is my purpose and my passion. I would love to support you in whatever ways I can!

#gender doula #the gender doula #trans #transgender #gender exploration #gender transition #gender questioning #trans resources

2 notes · View notes