Let's Talk Gender

Hi everyone. Welcome back to Let’s Talk Gender. This episode is about pregnancy and parenting as a nonbinary person including navigating the incredibly gendered world of fertility and pregnancy, the physical experience of being pregnant, and my thoughts as I look ahead to parenting. FERTILITY AND TRYING TO CONCEIVE Over the course of four years, my husband and I tried as many methods of getting pregnant as we could access. This included home insemination, known … Continue reading Let’s Talk Gender S2E8: Nonbinary Pregnancy and Parenting

Hi everyone. Welcome back to Let’s Talk Gender. This episode is about living in the world as a nonbinary person including what ‘passing’ means for nonbinary people, navigating public washrooms, going to the gym, and how a nonbinary perspective can influence how you interpret other aspects of society.  PASSING AS NONBINARY Passing typically refers to the idea of ‘blending in’ with one of the binary genders, or being consistently recognized as the gender you identify … Continue reading Let’s Talk Gender S2E7: Living in the World as a Nonbinary Person

Hi everyone. Welcome back to Let’s Talk Gender. This episode is about some of the more complex aspects of being nonbinary such as genderfluid identities, how physical and social aspects of gender can feel at odds with each other, and how nonbinary genders interact with sexual orientation. GENDERFLUID IDENTITIES Let’s start with a deeper look at genderfluid identities. I’m going to break this into three different categories for ease of explanation. These categories are arbitrary … Continue reading Let’s Talk Gender S2E6: Complexities of Nonbinary Identities

Hi everyone. Welcome back to Let’s Talk Gender. This episode is about coming out as nonbinary, why it is so darn hard, how to figure out whether it’s the right time and place to do it (again), and how to respond to inappropriate questions and ignorance.  TO COME OUT OR NOT TO COME OUT… I look at coming out as an equation between pros and cons. On the pro side, I have need and benefit. … Continue reading Let’s Talk Gender S2E5: Coming Out as Nonbinary

Hi Everyone. Welcome back to Let’s Talk Gender.  This episode is about nonbinary gender presentation and expression and how to figure out what works for you.  EXPLORING MY GENDER PRESENTATION AND EXPRESSION I think of presentation as things people would see in a picture – clothes, hair style, makeup, facial hair, accessories. Expression is everything else – behaviours, voice, how you walk, gesture, and move, conversation style, word choice. As I was raised female and … Continue reading Let’s Talk Gender S2E3: Nonbinary Gender Presentation and Expression

Hi Everyone. Welcome back to Let’s Talk Gender. This episode is about nonbinary gender exploration including my own personal exploration process and some other general ways you can explore your own gender. MY INITIAL GENDER EXPLORATION PROCESS I started with a list of what I knew: Both male and female  My gender fluctuated somewhat I had both physical and social dysphoria I felt invisible but didn’t feel ready to come out yet I then made a … Continue reading Let’s Talk Gender S2E2: Nonbinary Gender Exploration

INTRO Welcome to Season 2 of Let’s Talk Gender. I’m Meaghan Ray, a nonbinary person. My husband Jake is a trans man. We have been together since before either of us began exploring our gender identities. I co-hosted Season 1 with Jake where we discussed our experiences through the gender transition process. Season 2 will be radio host monologue style and is all about life as a nonbinary person. To start off Season 2, I … Continue reading Let’s Talk Gender S2E1: Nonbinary Identities and Labels

Hey everyone, I’m Meaghan Ray, a nonbinary person, and the host of Let’s Talk Gender. Coming up in September 2020 is season 2! This season will be another eight episodes, this time around the topic of nonbinary identities and experiences. If you listened to Season 1 you got to hear from my husband about his experiences with transitioning. This season will be more of a radio host monologue style with just me as the host.  Here’s … Continue reading Let’s Talk Gender Season 2 Coming Soon!

OVERVIEW We start by talking about Meaghan Ray’s thoughts on top surgery because we didn’t have time in the previous episode. Then we talk about Jake’s process of changing his legal name and gender marker, Meaghan Ray’s role as his partner through that process, and Meaghan Ray’s thoughts on potentially changing their name and gender marker in the future. This is the last episode in this series which has focused on the various stages of … Continue reading Episode 8: Legal Transition

OVERVIEW In this episode we talk about Jake’s path to top surgery and his experiences of the procedure and the recovery process. We also discuss the role of the partner and Meaghan Ray’s experience during each stage of this process. SHOW NOTES Jake’s Top Surgery Experience Referral to gender psychiatrist September 2016 Saw gender psychiatrist July 2017 Referral to top surgery – likely a two month wait No word, called back, finally heard from the … Continue reading Episode 7: Medical Transition: Top Surgery

OVERVIEW The changes with HRT are some of the most positive and euphoric aspects of transition. We talk about Jake’s experience with Testosterone and going through his second puberty. He talks about all the different physical changes and the emotional changes as well. We also discuss what it was like as his partner adapting to those changes. SHOW NOTES Jake’s Experience Taking Testosterone Typical trans narrative is based on changes with HRT External, obvious changes … Continue reading Episode 6: Medical Transition: HRT

OVERVIEW Jake has now been out at work for nearly two years. We discuss his process for coming out at work from the preparation, through coming out, and all the frustrations that happened afterwards including HR struggles, bathrooms, mysogeny, and misgendering. Meaghan Ray talks about what it was like to be in the role of the partner during this part of the transition process including having to come out to their co-workers about Jake’s transition. … Continue reading Episode 5: Social Transition: Coming Out At Work

OVERVIEW Coming out to friends and family is a long process that involves lots of uncertainty, strategy, and a bit of luck. We discuss Jake’s process of coming out as a trans man and Meaghan Ray’s experience of that process as his partner, including how this process went for us, what methods we used to come out to people, what emotions we experienced, and what responses we got. We also discuss Meaghan Ray’s experiences of … Continue reading Episode 4: Social Transition: Coming Out To Family

OVERVIEW The first stage of transition is the personal exploration of your gender. We discuss what the process of exploring your gender feels like, how each of us figured it out in different ways, and what it’s like to be the partner of someone going through the gender exploration process. Sorry for the variable sound quality. We are still trying out different set ups to find something that works for us. SHOW NOTES Exposure to … Continue reading Episode 3: Personal Transition: Gender Exploration

OVERVIEW Transitioning is a slow, often frustrating, ongoing process. It can roughly be broken down into four phases: personal, social, medical, and legal. We discuss the general timeline of each phase and how they overlapped for Jake’s transition from female to male. At the end, Meaghan Ray shares what their transition has included so far. SHOW NOTES General Thoughts on Transitioning Typical FTM trans narrative Binary transition from one to the other Medical system sees … Continue reading Episode 2: Transition Timelines

OVERVIEW Language and labels are used to communicate our identities to others but for trans people, the first step of this process is finding language and labels to understand and define our own identities. There is a ton of language that is specific to the trans community and trans experiences and identities. As the partner of a trans person, finding this language can be helpful but also overwhelming. The social context and definitions of labels … Continue reading Let’s Talk Gender Episode 1: Language and Labels