genderqueer.me

resources, news, and occasional advice about transgender & nonbinary identities more at www.genderqueer.me

[neutrois]

Be Yourself

One of the most commonly repeated phrases / acknowledgments / pieces of advice / soundbites of justification that we hear as transgender people is “Be Yourself.” As I’ve transitioned, I’ve uttered these words in a meager attempt at explaining the hugely positive impact this gender journey has had on my life: – I am my authentic self – I feel more comfortable – I can finally just be myself But how…

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[neutrois]

I was invited to speak at Google about my book “Nonbinary Memoirs” and gender diversity in general.

In the talk I highlighted how social media and online platforms have been critical in connecting me and others in the #nonbinary community.

[neutrois]

#nonbinary: How has quarantine impacted your gender identity or expression?

[neutrois]

How have you found #nonbinary community online?

[the-delta-quadrant-deactivated2]

The first Nonbinary Awareness Week is from July 12th to 18th!

After that, it will take place annually during the week surrounding July 14th, International Nonbinary People's Day.

[neutrois]

ok so i know im nonbinary and im glad i figured that out but... what do i do now? i want to explore and express and better define my gender but i don’t know how. especially if you have any online resources.

You’ve come to the perfect place my friend!

I’ve given a lot of workshops over the years. The main one is called Nonbinary Transition, and I’ve put up a video and slides online of one presentation. I hope it helps you figure things out.

https://genderqueer.me/non-binary-transition/

[neutrois]

LGBTQ Anthology

The BreakBeat Poets Volume 3: Halal if You Hear Me, Fatimah Asghar and Safia Elhillo, Haymarket Books

Foglifter Volume 4 Issue 2, Luiza Flynn-Goodlett, Foglifter Press

The Heart of the Matter: The Gerald Kraak Anthology Volume III, The Other Foundation, Jacana Media

Hustling Verse: An Anthology of Sex Workers’ Poetry, Amber Dawn and Justin Ducharme, Arsenal Pulp Press

LGBTQ Fiction and Poetry from Appalachia, Jeff Mann and Julia Watts, West Virginia University Press

Love WITH Accountability: Digging up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse, Aishah Shahidah Simmons, AK Press

Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity, Micah Rajunov and Scott Duane, Columbia University Press

A Rainbow Thread: An Anthology of Queer Jewish Texts from the First Century to 1969, Noam Sienna, Print-O-Craft

Our book Nonbinary Memoirs is a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards!!!!

[neutrois]

What’s the point of taking a low dose if you take it for years and end up looking the same as you would have if you took a standard dose?

There are several reasons:

a. You are not sure if you want the “standard” dose, or how masculine/feminine you want your body to be/look. Taking a low dose lets you start the process, try it out, and take things slower. You can always stop too.

b. Gives your body time to adjust. It also gives your mind time to adjust. Puberty doesn’t happen in a day, or even a year, and the changes can be physically and mentally jarring.

c. Mental or physical health: everyone reacts differently. Some people feel worse on a higher dose (I know I experienced extreme anxiety) while others feel better on a higher dose.

d. Some people are still undisclosed, so with slower onset of changes this starts your physical transition while buying you time for social transition. 

e. Until relatively recently, there had been few studies on what the “standard” dose should even be, so this was truly an arbitrary number. Now many doctors agree that the touted “200mg/mL x 2weeks” for T is too high for a lot of people.

Even though I’ve been on a low dose for 8 years, I doubt I’ve reached the “maximum” amount of changes. That is, if I took a higher dose, my voice would probably continue to drop, and I would see a significant increase in hair, etc. I’m in the “middle” zone and that’s where I like it.

So why do I keep taking hormones if I’m not seeing changes? Well, I think my body is changing, just very very slowly - too slow to notice day to day, yet noticeable over the years. And staying at a low dose continues giving my body some of the non-permanent effects of T, such as body-fat distribution or muscle mass, even if I experience these in a lower intensity than at a higher dose.

The best thing you can do is forget the “standard” and find your own dose - one that works for you physically, mentally, and emotionally.

[neutrois]

Is taking a low dose for many years the same as taking a standard dose for fewer years and then stopping?

You would in all likelihood essentially end up looking/sounding the same. However… see next post!

[neutrois]

Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity

What happens when your gender doesn’t fit neatly into the categories of male or female? Even mundane interactions like filling out a form or using a public bathroom can be a struggle when these designations prove inadequate. In this groundbreaking book, thirty authors highlight how our experiences are shaped by a deeply entrenched gender binary.

If you’d like a copy of my book, I recommend clicking the link above and ordering directly from CUP website.

Use code CUP30 for 30% off!

[neutrois]

During my transition, I have lived as both completely out and (as much as possible) completely stealth. Right now, I’m somewhere in-between.

[gendercensus]

The Gender Census 2020 is now open!

[ Link ]

The seventh annual international gender census, collecting information about the language we use to refer to ourselves and each other, is now open until 12th March 2020.

After the survey is closed I’ll process the results and publish a spreadsheet of the data and a blog post summarising the main findings. Then anyone can use them for academic or business purposes, self-advocacy, tracking the popularity of language over time, and just feeling like we’re part of a huge and diverse community.

If you think you might have friends and followers who’d be interested, please do reblog this blog post, retweet this tweet, boost this Mastodon post, check out this post on Reddit, and share the survey URL by email or at AFK social groups or on other social networks like Facebook. Every share is extremely helpful - it’s what helped us get 11,000 responses last year.

Survey URL: https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/gendercensus2020/

The survey is open to anyone anywhere who speaks English and feels that the gender binary doesn’t fully describe their experience of themselves and their gender(s) or lack thereof.

Thank you so much!

[neutrois]

Hey Micah, thanks so much for creating this resource! You mentioned that early in your transition, you hadn't seen any examples of other non-binary people taking similar biomedical steps. That sounds really intense, but I hope that having more examples (including yours) gives people an expanded sense of their options.

Thank you for the kind note! I do hope that others feel empowered and are allowed to take the steps they need.

The reason I started my blog, and the reason I kept going with it, is because I really couldn’t find more than a handful of folks doing what I was doing. They existed, they just didn’t post about it online :P

I remember that I had literally watched all the videos on youtube about low dose t. Confession: it was no more than 5 people. Now you search for low dose hormones and there are thousands of blogs and videos and official pamphlets and everything. It’s amazing!

While I don’t write about my personal journey anymore, I’ve uploaded some of the workshops I’ve given on nonbinary transition. Hopefully these are still useful to people!

[neutrois]

Is passing as non-binary possible? Do you have any tips for doing so?

Yes, you could “pass,” if passing for you means having people see you as a mix of binary genders. Or it could mean that people always ask for your pronouns, or they refer to you with neutral pronouns. Passing could even mean being seen as a binary gender consistently.

It really depends on what passing means to you.

So instead of “passing” you could ask... what is your goal? What do you want to look like, and what do you want others to see (or not see)? What do you want to feel?

I liked to think of my goal as being comfortable.  I wrote a post about what it meant for me to “be myself.”

The answer is not easy, and it’s not obvious, and it may change. Just keep asking yourself these questions and eventually things will make a little more sense.

[neutrois]

Is it ok for me odentify as genderqueer and use she/her pronouns alongside they/them pronouns? I know it seems like a silly question but it's been bothering me.

Yes it is ok!

Some people choose to use multiple sets of pronouns, including “binary” pronouns like he or she alongside other options.

[neutrois]

Do you know the origins of the neutrois flag? (white, green, black horizontal stripes) ive been looking into the term neutrois lately and have seen this flag called the neutrois flag but no one knows who designed it? I keep asking and no one knows. Do we know when it first immerged? When neutrois was coined? After? Recently? Years ago? I am very curious and if you or your followers know id be very happy.

I have no idea! The site genderqueerid.com used to have a lot of great historical archives (like the genderqueer flag), so maybe the answer is somewhere in there. I don’t remember having a flag when I started blogging (in 2011).

The origin of the term neutrois is also unclear, but I think it may have started in 1995 or so in an online listserve. Although I still think that term describes my gender the closest, I generally refer to myself as nonbinary now, because it is more inclusive and people are more familiar with it.

Does anyone have more info?

[neutrois]

Do you feel like after 5 years of low-dose T you’re passing as a cis male, or do you still get gendered as female when you’re in public sometimes? Do you ever “pass” as non-binary, or do people always end up gendering you as one binary or the other?

I’ve been on low dose T almost… 8 years now? Wow. At first I was on-and-off, but I’ve been consistently on since 2013. I take about ¼ of a “standard” dose (although standard varies a lot nowadays).

In 2013 I had written a post about whether I would ever be “post transition” - or rather, whether it was even possible for someone nonbinary to be “done” transitioning. At this point in my life, I am “post transition” in the sense that I really don’t think about gender very much. Sure it will come up once in a while, but it’s more like a small blip, a funny anecdote, a parenthesis in the daily course of my life. 

Generally I get read as male. Although, I’ve found it really depends on who I am with, and the context I’m in. I transitioned socially about 8 years ago, and I’ll tell you, it is still sometimes very weird when I get called sir or when someone looks at me directly and says he, especially if it’s someone I know.

I do still get called “she” sometimes, which usually leaves my friends aghast, like “how is that even possible?!?!?!” but yeah, it happens. It’s more amusing than awkward, but only because it is rare. Generally this is with strangers, but if it happens with someone I will be working with or seeing regularly, I kind of let it slide and hope it will auto-correct itself later - as in, they’ll catch on by hearing others refer to me, or someone else will tell them.

I’ve also experienced an uptick in people simply asking for my pronouns - out in the wild! - and this is new and amazing and I want to hug the person every time.