TransPanTastic: Transgender parenting, work, marriage, transition, and life!

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we have birthdays and other to-do's that are unavoidable. The holiday dinner was nice, and comparatively quiet, but the string of gatherings started to pinch George's introvert sensibilities beyond managing, bringing us back to the questions about the effects of HRT on his emotional restraint.  We are here to share our entire intersectional experience with anyon...

As we prepared for Thanksgiving and the rest of the holiday season, we continue to be responsible for other humans with underdeveloped self-care skills. Between a nine-year-old with fecal incontinence and a seventy-year-old with verbal incontinence, we are having a grand old time! We are here to share our entire intersectional experience with anyone who finds it beneficial, but we want to know wha...

The election results and the changing dynamic among the bigot class have made the world a scarier place, but life keeps chugging along. George is sick, but that doesn't keep him from being responsible for his elderly relatives, who have new adventures with recurring themes.  We are here to share our entire intersectional experience with anyone who finds it beneficial, but we want to know what you...

It's okay to like things, to dislike things, to like or dislike people, even to have opinions on things or people. But to paraphrase a recent viral tweet, "Opinions are for things like 'I dislike coffee', not 'I dislike black people'." It is generally frowned frowned upon, and for good reason, to dislike people, for certain traits that have been historically used to justify their disenfranchisemen...

Did you meet us at some event? What should I do if my kid is trans? Does Jess have any voice tips for MtF's? Does George have any packing preferences for FtM's? Will we host your client on our podcast? We tried for six questions, but only got to five. The tutorial video for the homemade STP is at youtube.com/watch?v=TLiaVVihEn4  and we have a longer discussion of George's initial experiences with...

We continue discussing ALL THE THINGS that are kicking George's butt lately, between finding out who ate the cake, and taking the elders to vote, and continuing his game of "which doctor does mom think we're visiting today", he still feels more than a bit overwhelmed. Which has made him more than a bit irritable. And we still haven't settled on why he is more irritable lately, but there's likely s...

It is a common experience among those experiencing medical transition, that HRT can reorient one's emotions and expression of them. George has felt overwhelmed lately, and as many trans guys have mentioned many times before, "I can't cry about it." There's nothing particular to cry about, though, just a lot of little busy things that are each, on their own, only somewhat bothersome. When we put th...

Our thoughts on the US elections, with the usual sidetracks and rabbit trails.  We are here to share our entire intersectional experience with anyone who finds it beneficial, but we want to know what you connect with the most. You can let us know by clicking to a one-question anonymous survey at  vote.pollcode.com/32371374 . If you have a request/suggestion that isn't listed, comment!  We can be f...

Why do men and women give Jess different change when they are sent to retrieve Jess' lunch from the taco truck? And why on earth would Jess plagiarize a failing term paper? And did that plagiarism report make Jess more sweary than they've ever been? And can George rename election day "taco tuesday"?  We are here to share our entire intersectional experience with anyone who finds it beneficial, but...

We are a podcast. Well, technically we host a podcast, which is the thing you're probably listening to right now. Unless you're reading the notes without listening, which is your right if you so choose... But as most podcasters like to also listen to podcasts, we discuss some of our favorites, as well as some new transgender voices in podcasting. You can hear the Maddow quote we referenced here: ...

Our kids' lives are hard. Admittedly they don't have to deal with a lot of problems that children in poverty or trauma survivors experience, but they have their own unique challenges, and it's our job to help them find the adaptability and resiliency to manage themselves before becoming adults. Occasionally, though, we just feel like our Child#2 when he says "I don't wanna!"  We are here to share...

After decades of living in a female presentation, there are a lot of ways in which George identifies with feminism and feels solidarity with women's causes. We discuss the understanding that many FtMs have of the struggles of female existence, the privilege men have, and the ways in which these causes should be championed in social and political venues.  The Hillary Clinton piece we discussed is a...

As one ages, one generally develops various health problems. George's mother and aunt are both suffering from age-related ailments, which both of them will alternately bemoan or deny. George helps them nonetheless, as he is a total sucker, um, we mean, he is just that good of a person. As they deal with doctors and other medical professionals, how the medics deal with him is very different from th...

The kids are back to school, and we have done what we can to help them be successful in their transition back into a more scheduled routine. Nonetheless, with these kids, there's always a laugh to be had!  We are here to share our entire intersectional experience with anyone who finds it beneficial, but we want to know what you connect with the most. You can let us know by clicking to a one-questi...

When George was a baby dyke getting catcalled or even occasionally hollering at girls, it was a completely different experience than anything that would ever happen now. There are some behaviours that are really only acceptable in a homosocial context. An interaction between members of similar genders or gender experiences can contain a subtext of common experience, but cross-gender interactions o...

The American government has been occasionally known to do things that are only tangentially related to reality. When "7-12" is not included in "0-12", or when the number of genders finally needs to be greater than two, our careers in public service help the local government figure out some maths.  We are here to share our entire intersectional experience with anyone who finds it beneficial, but we...

When an old (pre-transition) picture of George resurfaces at work, what will his new intern think? Will she even notice? Will she recognize him? And what on earth were his bosses thinking in even bringing it to the intern's attention?!  We are here to share our entire intersectional experience with anyone who finds it beneficial, but we want to know what you connect with the most. You can let us k...

As we finish the discussion of our trip to Yosemite, we have a discussion with Jess' aunt, the one who asked which child George birthed, about Child#2's adoption and her own adoption of one of her four kids. Then continuing with our challenging children through a poopy train ride, repeated swim breaks, and George's discomfort over using an STP in the most crowded bathroom in the middle of nowhere...

In the first half of our discussion of our family's trip to Yosemite, we discuss George's adaptations to a lower dose of T and how that's affected his emotions as he deals with the stresses of a family vacation. Our children's challenges didn't get left behind, and managing them in places that aren't "home" present a completely unique set of challenges, in addition to the challenges of meeting up...

George recently got a male privilege upgrade. Gender discrepancies in pay and treatment at work are well documented, but transgender folks often have unique insights after experiencing cultural expectations in different gender presentations. We discuss how George's colleagues, including some who have known him for over a decade, treat him differently now. Jess is jealous, but gets to rib him about...

Health care and insurance can be troubling. Thankfully we have good coverage, as does George's mom, but that doesn't mean it's always easy to access that coverage, or that they won't get confused when some guy needs to visit the gynecologist. Even better, when George is managing insurance troubles for himself and his mother, he is stuck making calls during the work day so his cubicle-neighbor gets...

As we did the survey from last week's episode, it made us think about the balance of chores and household labor in our home and how that is different from more typically heteronormative couples. Jess also learned, and was mildly concerned by, the fact that George's happiness dial only has one click above average. George has embraced his inner Eeyore, however, and is more content with his life now,...

George never learned how to fish as a kid. Maybe because he didn't like fish, maybe because the elder males didn't want to teach a little girl how, maybe because he was a little kid and didn't like the whole sitting-and-waiting-for-a-bite thing. Either way, taking our kids fishing has been a gender-enlightening experience, as random guys are just cool interacting with another random guy, and as we...

The kids were driving George batty. Child#1 is sneaky, Child#2 is angry, and Child#3 is whiny. Jess gets preachy, Bob-the-dog is smelly, we just need one more dwarf for a full set... Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the bothered-est of them all?  We are here to share our entire intersectional experience with anyone who finds it beneficial, but we want to know what you connect with the most. You...

George is mostly-stealth at work. And by mostly-stealth, we mean about half the office remembers his transition, but everyone's fairly insular, so nobody talks much, and new colleagues generally have no clue that he is trans. Gender is, nonetheless, an integral part of one's professional presentation at work, for both of us.  We are here to share our entire intersectional experience with anyone wh...