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18 minutes of us talking about the trans, our relationship, being goth kids, and various other things.

Here’s a short piece I wrote about the experience of doing this interview, too.

A couple of weeks ago, I got flown to NYC to be interviewed, with Rachel, about our relationship. As you might know, Rachel and I have talked about our relationship on and off for 25 years. We don’t do it a lot anymore; there are a lot more trans couples in the world, and right now our focus is on her acting career. We spend a lot of time apart as a result, which is what it is: mostly difficult. So a week together that came out of the blue was so welcome.

That we walked away more in love with each other is only the start. It was so important: we were about to spend months apart, and of course because we have been together for a long time, and we both tend to take our love for each other – and our partnership – for granted. And that, friends, is a luxury.

What was even cooler was that everyone involved was trans. Both folks on the cameras. The person asking the questions behind the third camera. The person who got us coffee. It was a room full of talented trans people, which is my favorite place to be. It felt so safe, and so affirming. We’ve both been on camera – alone and together – many, many times, and I don’t think either of us has ever felt so seen and respected.

We both know – and feel – very lucky for having met. We are both so deeply loyal, but more importantly, we’ve let the changes in our relationship go unimpeded. We wanted and needed it to change so that we could be together in a way that wasn’t stifling or predictable.

They asked what we like to do together and I’m still thinking about our blank faces and our answer: not really anything in particular, but also everything. We like being in the same room/apartment/house. We like doing our own things in those spaces, with moments where we share something we’re excited about, or blown away by, or even angry about. (Arguably that last one is mostly me; she is not an angry person, and she calls me The Angriest Woman in the World.) We both like getting dressed up. We both love clothes, spa days, getting smarter, cats, being in bars.

We love each other’s art, support each other’s ambitions, make space for each others’ regrets and fears, and we are, ultimately, each other’s biggest fans.

We are, as ee cummings for it, for each other. (I read that poem as my wedding vow, and it gets truer by the year.)

I am so looking forward to the final product, and to seeing the other interviews – seven other couples were interviewed – and I hope, for each one of you, that you find some kind of love that sustains you and makes you feel both kinder and more powerful than you can imagine, because that’s what we have, and we want it for every single one of you.

Love from your not-oldest-interviewed-but-longest-together couple, Helen & Rachel

I recently received a question, via email, from a young person about birth control.

“I am a 17 year old closeted trans guy who is looking for ways to mitigate dysphoria. I have access to binders, but I am physically unable to use one for health reasons. I have moderate to severe acne and have been recommended that I start estrogen-based patch birth control to mitigate it. However, my friend told me that the hormones included in patch birth control could have “feminizing” effects, such as breast growth. I looked on the internet to see if this was true, and there seems to be a lot of conflicting information. Some sites even said that taking birth control could lessen the effects of female-to-male hormone replacement therapy (FtM HRT) later down the road. I plan to start testosterone later in life. It’s not safe for me to come out to my doctor, so I can’t ask for help from a medical professional. Is there anywhere I can find reliable information about potential “feminizing” effects of birth control originally designed for cis women?”

So I asked a trans friend who is an RN, and who gave me this amazing resource and information:

“Lots of great clinically sound information in this document: https://www.reproductiveaccess.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/bc-across-gender-spectrum.pdf. Birth control is appropriate and people taking or planning to take testosterone can use most any method. The methods that typically help stop bleeding would be the progestin pill, implant, IUD or the depo shot. Sometimes these methods are specifically used to stop bleeding, even if the patient does not desire it for birth control properties. Progestin does not interact with testosterone. Sometimes patients choose to avoid the methods that contain estrogen such as the pill, patch, or ring, due to the lack of clarity if estrogen interacts with testosterone, which sounds like it would be something important for this individual. I would say we have a fairly large handful of patients on T that get the Depo-Provera shot every 3 months. For some, it is to help control any potential bleeding that testosterone has not stopped, for others it is for birth control and for some it is for both reasons. The copper IUD might also be an option as it does not contain any hormones but could potentially have some light bleeding associated with it prior to starting testosterone. A final note, testosterone is a very potent hormone and has very little, mostly no issue, overpowering estrogen.“

Trans Education Network of Texas: https://secure.everyaction.com/Aluze8fLdEmlU5KgX5Ar1w2

Equality Texas: https://linktr.ee/EqualityTexas

ACLU Texas: https://www.aclutx.org/https://www.aclutx.org/

TX Trans Health: https://txtranshealth.org/for-patients

TX Trans Kids: https://www.txtranskids.org/

Organización Latina Trans Texas https://secure.actblue.com/donate/organizacion-latina-trans-texas-1

Trans Pride Initiative: https://www.tpride.org/support.php

OutYouth (Austin): https://www.outyouth.org/ https://www.outyouth.org/

Allgo: https://allgo.org/donate/

I wrote a new (free) piece for Patreon today and then started wondering about all the things I’ve written over the years about the Towers and that Tuesday.

So, in order of their appearance, this one from 2005, and a peaceful image that did my heart good when I first saw it, and that I still call Wish.

Then, in 2008, this kind of throwaway piece that still packs a wallop because it was true; from the first time I flew in a plane after that day.

Two pieces from the 10th anniversary, one of which I wrote in 2007 for a grant application, and the other – about the dogs.

A few years later, when fostering kittens – one of whom would become our Greta Bean – I would write about how having our two gray boys leave footprints in the dust of our Brooklyn apartment that day.

I first started hating the term “never forget” I don’t know when but I first said something about it in 2014. That’s also when I posted this beautiful view from the top of the Towers.

By 2017 I had a fellow New Yorker here in Appleton with me, and I wrote this for her, and for me, and for all of us who were there but who left NYC, but moreso for all the people who weren’t there who think they’ve got something to say.

In 2018 a smattering of memories about the beautiful place it was and the hints of what was lost immediately after, soon after, and much after. (This is still something I need to write a hell of a lot more about, personally. I lost my life in no small part that day and have only insinuated about it but never really dug in.)

In 2019 this piece about being a post traumatic, when I was convinced that would be the center of my next book, an idea I abandoned once I started trying to write it because it was too fucking painful and I did not have the mental health resources – or the time off – to really do it. Sometimes you lose too much blood trying to get a thing down, and that was the case with this. Sometimes projects are abandoned because they have to be.

Last year, this piece a week ahead of time about a song, and a band, and a concert that happened afterwards, and the pathos and drunkenness and community.

But 2020 was filled with so much other grief, as is 2021. My rage is always the first thing that I can express, and I’m glad I get to, because I’m so continually disgusted at the misuse of this day for patriotism instead of memory, perspective, grief. What strikes me most this year is how much I still haven’t said or written about, my nightmares, how much of my life and my self I lost as a result. I’ve never written about Mychal Judge but I read about him a lot and hope he does become a saint.

So the rage is often what you get, the pushback to how we do this as a country. I’m sad not to be in NYC and relieved not to be in NYC, too: just one show on “what ‘never forget’ means to you” had me weeping in my BK apt, so maybe it is for the best that I’m not soaking in a whole town’s grief and anger today.

Or not. For now, I compile and cry and play with cats and order groceries and go back to reading N. K. Jemisin’s The City We Became.

For our 20th anniversary, I had this plate and artwork commissioned because queer artists are the best. Kaffers Illustration on Insta and FB.

(And yes, of course I have more to say about what it means/what it takes to make it to a 20th wedding anniversary as a trans couple, but not today…. )

The Fox Cities Book Festival recently chose the book George by Alex Gina as a community read, and as a result they asked me to do a Trans 101. It’s been up on Facebook but they were nice enough to get me a copy to be shared, so here you go:

I wrote a longer post about having a panic attack as someone with PTSD today. It’s not something I write or talk about often, but after this year, I’m realizing I probably need to share more of what it’s like, what it’s been like, how you learn the shape of your own trauma, how you negotiate with it.

Here’s an excerpt:

“Today’s panic started around 2:30. It’s just past 6:30 now and I’m coming down which is why I’m able to write about it. I’ve always wanted to and I honestly don’t know (also don’t care) if this explains how it works. This is just my version of PTSD; everyone experiences it differently.

In this case, too, there was resolution to the thing that caused the panic within an hour of the stimulus that set it off.

So: panic stimulus – stop breathing – stomach goes weird – fingers go cold – head comes off.

That all happens in about a minute.

I had a reason, an actual direct cause, to stop panicking maybe a half an hour after that.

Yet here I am, four hours later, typing this because I can’t get back to my work because I can’t focus. Because once it starts, you’re kind of just a passenger while the whole of you goes off the rails for a while. You wait. You watch symptoms once you’ve learned them – and that takes years – and you do the things that help a little, whatever they are, but mostly it’s just about passing the time until the brain can wrest control back, once telling yourself “you’re okay” actually starts to sink in.

So yeah. That’s what PTSD is like. I’ll be a little weird the rest of the day, a little queasy, a little angry, a little jittery. Eventually I will tell myself it’s okay to go to bed and I’ll take a pill for it, the kind I have an “as needed” prescription for, and mostly I’ll wake up feeling like myself tomorrow.”

You can read the whole thing here.

As many of you know, I am not a sports person.

What I am very enthusiastic about, however, is girls doing sports. I was a tomboy, remember, and had to compete with boys a grade older in order to lose some races. I dropped out of sports for a variety of reasons, but that’s a different story for a different day.

But I’m even more enthusiastic about trans inclusion in sports, because it makes sense. And with this rash of bills making their way around the country – one is supposed to be introduced here in Wisconsin – I thought I might gather a reading list on the issue for those who want to know more.

First, this great article by the ACLU about the common myths surround trans inclusion in sports.

This piece by the ACLU about why we’re seeing this rash of state bills right now and what’s behind it. (And this additional one on the same topic by Dawn Ennis for Forbes, too.)

Completing the ACLU trifecta, Chase Strangio’s annual tracker of trans bills on Twitter.

My friend Quince Mountain on trans inclusion in sports and on being able to play sports doesn’t necessarily have to do with winning at sports.

TransAthlete.com, a project of Chris Mosier’s, which has a ton of information, from the basics on trans and sports, and an action center.

Dr. Veronica Ivy on Twitter regularly writes about sports and champions trans inclusion.

Here’s a great piece about how, if you want to protect girls in sports, you should probably worry a lot more about sexually predatory coaches (and not about trans people).

To close, I’m going to say a few things. When someone you know contacts yourself, ask yourself a couple of questions: (1) has this person ever cared about women and girls in sports before? (2) has this person ever expressed any interest whatsoever in feminism and “leveling the playing field” ever before? and (3) where is this person getting this information?

Because if the answers are (1) no, and (2) no, and (3) who the hell knows, you might want to send them this list so they can do some research and get back to you.

I’ve got 20 years of experience doing this work and no, I can’t boil it down to a meme or 5 basic issues. This rash of bills is an attack on trans people, plain and simple, and it is hateful and unwarranted and a waste of time.

But while they’re out there trying to pass these state by state by state, trans people you know are suffering, scared, and already dealing with so much prejudice and discrimination. Be kind to them, and argue with your friends for them as often as you can.

(I’ll keep adding to this list, so feel free to send me more resources.)

added: Utah op-ed by Max Chang which makes great arguments.

added: This Nancy podcast called “When They Win“.

added: this NYT article about Rachel McKinnon.

added: Vice article on the physical changes transition brings.

added 3/19: American Progress article on the importance of trans participation in sports.

Here’s a piece I wrote before Election Day about Monica’s death that I recorded for FORGE’s Trans Day of Remembrance.