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

Sometimes our kids frustrate us, other times they make us proud. This week we finally catch up with them, but parenting while sick is no fun. George still doesn't feel much better from last week's episode, and so needed to go back to the doctor.  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 ca...

When one of your best friends gets married, but plans it last-minute, and life doesn't let you go, you do the second-best thing: take a vacation to Minnesota in the cold! It's a good thing we got a break, because when we got back, George got sick and our kids' other parents couldn't take their visitation. Transgender fun at the airport *and* the hospital? Just another week in the life!  We are her...

Mansplaining, manspreading, manterrupting, all those tongue-in-cheek terms for stereotypically masculine habits take on a new meaning when one has transitioned to male. Having been the victim of them for decades, we both take a queer look at the way man-ness affects the way others perceive our presence and presentation.  We are here to share our entire intersectional experience with anyone who fin...

Why does it always have to be Friday? This time around, work stress got George to a place where he wasn't able to keep dysphoria from getting to him. The oddities didn't stop, though, the bizarreness of Friday didn't end with Friday.  The amazing music video we referenced is Ingrid Michaelson's "Girls Chase Boys", at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GBT37_yyzY .  We are here to share our entire in...

George got his blood tests back and the results are potentially concerning. While we manage that, he also had another revision to his top surgery.  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 yo...

As we continue to settle into our new house, we needed to call our handyman for some help. Our handyman who hasn't seen George since before he started transition. But he's an old hippie, fairly open-minded, a pretty cool guy... how awkward could it get?  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...

After over two years on testosterone, George's second puberty is well underway, but have his hormones started causing him trouble? While we wait for his blood work to come back, we discuss how Jess' hormones have also caused her trouble, and especially recently. We round out our conversation of hormone stuffs with the thought of both of us preparing for our respective visits to the gynecologist. ...

Chair (n): A piece of furniture designed for supporting the human bodyFan (n): An appliance that pushes air around. Transgender (adj): A person whose assigned/biological sex and psychological gender are not in congruence. You can sit on one of these things. Sometimes two, but we're not that kind of podcast. George thinks in pictures and concepts, Jess thinks in words and sounds. Sometimes this cre...

Kids are back to school, and they're making life-around-transition interesting. But that's kind of the usual around here. Jess is back to school also, so as we manage these changes along with finishing the move (see last week's episode), life-around-transition has experienced some gender-y things, and some parent-y things, and even some gendery-parenty things.  We are here to share our entire inte...

We moved. George was able to accomplish more things, more easily, as a man, than he ever could pre-transition. Jess is mildly jealous. But he did lots of the moving-stuffs while she was working or doing homeworks so we're even.  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 c...

For our fourth round of QnA, we have four questions ranging from parenting an autistic teenager to genderqueer dysphoria, and from coming out to our heroes or idols. Actually, not really "from" or "to" those things, nothing between them, kinda just those four things. Send your questions or feedback below!  TransPanTastic.tumblr.com   facebook.com/TransPanTastic   twitter.com/TransPanTastic   http:...

We've long known that Child#2 is our "most special" of our special needs children, but we do our best to help him achieve and enjoy life as much as possible. That often involves some extra resources and effort, in this case to give him a vacation to visit his cousins. As usual, hijinks ensue.  We are here to share our entire intersectional experience with anyone who finds it beneficial, but we wan...

Our lawyer friend had a metoidioplasty some months back. So of course, we pestered him to come talk to us about it, so all of you, our friends, could listen. Tangent topics include overeating, sex, and peeing on oneself.  Contains mildly graphic discussion of complications and their treatment, specifically a fistula and a stricture.  We are here to share our entire intersectional experience with a...

Our lawyer friend had a metoidioplasty some months back. So of course, we pestered him to come talk to us about it, so all of you, our friends, could listen. Tangent topics include the absurdity of female clothing, the difficulty of finding male clothing for guys like us, his coming-out story, government employment, and STPs. The episode we reference, in which George discusses his experiences with...

After two years of medical transition, George is regularly perceived as the man he is. This has caused Jess to be perceived more as a woman in his presence. Others' perceptions of us have recently highlighted just how gendered our culture is, and how the expectations of our perceived genders affect our comfort or discomfort with social interactions. We are here to share our entire intersectional e...

Finishing the story of a weekend of Cub Scouts sleep-away camp. Sorry, still no hummingbird story. 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, co...

Part one of our recap of George's and Child#2's time at Cub Scout camp. Will TransDad George survive interacting with the traditionally homophobic/transphobic boy scouts? Will Child#2 learn how to wipe his own rear end? Will George be able to manage the  Dick Patrol  while sharing a tent? Will we get back to the hummingbird story? Tune in next week to find out!! We are here to share our entire int...

For genderqueer individuals like Jess, the "typical trans narrative" often doesn't fit, and neither do the "standard" understandings of terminology and experience regarding their transgender experience. Transition can be more complicated when one is going in neither of the expected binary directions, and a medical understanding of life outside the binary is generally pathologized. As a non-binary...

We've done what we can  to help Child#2 adapt to his differences of development and manage his challenging behaviours for some while now. Since last year, that has included George taking him to Cub Scouts to (hopefully) engage some positive social skills. Between the history of the Boy Scouts and our child's unique challenges, we've done our best to keep the difficulties of being the TransDad to t...

When George was young, he never thought he'd get married. Now that marriage equality is a (mostly) settled issue, we reflect on its impact (or lack thereof) on our lives as a hetero-gendered couple. The times, they are a-changin'.  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 b...

George's transition has resulted in numerous changes to his body. Many of these have been clearly beneficial in more closely aligning his body to match his gender identity, and in assisting others to correctly perceive him as his identified gender. Some of these changes, however, have been less than convenient. From excess sweat and intolerance for higher temperatures, to changes in the functionin...

Queer spaces often have their own set of unwritten rules, expectations, or social norms that are based on a collective experience of being perpetually on guard for one's own safety and peace of mind. Lately we spend less time in queer spaces than we'd like, but we've recently had some refreshing experiences with "folks like us".  Ivan Coyote  discussed their experience with the bathroom dilemma at...

We got to see the beautiful and eloquent Laverne Cox speak, and it was amazing. She spoke on not just her experience as a transgender person, but as a woman, as a person of color, and as a human living all of these experiences at once. Intersectionality abounds as we reflect on what she said and how it touched us.  We are here to share our entire intersectional experience with anyone who finds it...

The madness never ends, and while George occasionally plans to make time for self-care it doesn't always work out as planned. Between naughty children and ailing pets and elderly parents, other peoples' problems keep encroaching on his free-time fridays.  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 mos...

Government employment has its ups and downs. We discuss our experiences working in the public sector, the fun situations we find ourselves in with colleagues, and Jess' elementary-school closet. No, not the closet she was in as an elementary student, but the one she finds herself in as an elementary teacher. But now that school is out, transfer time is in, and she's hoping for another chance at mo...