I bought Gatorade for the first time since I ran a marathon years before that day, because I figured I would become dehydrated. And when I took them home, I bought myself a pill organizer, one that ran through all the days of the week separated into morning and night and carefully planned out a week of testosterone-blocking pills. In that moment, I became my own healthcare provider, an apprentice showing the master all she had learned with a charming and awkward confidence. And with that, I plunked the full weight of my heavy binder down in front of him and said I had him covered. But I told him I was trans and he looked me dead in the eyes and said I believe you and then said I have literally no idea how to help you. If I could have pulled the skin clean from my bones, I would have. I was terrified to tell my doctor I was trans, staring at my hands as I wrung them together with a loud and urgent awkwardness. One pill makes you taller, one pill makes you small. What kind of testosterone blocker I could take, what kind of estrogen was right for me. ![]() ![]() There was no local repository of healthcare information in the Yukon when I decided to tell my longtime doctor I was trans, and so I built an irrefutable case file that he could not ignore. I researched and stockpiled information, built a binder out of documents downloaded from the corners of the internet, scrounging up whatever information I could find. When I first came out, it was as if I was applying for a genius grant. These are the joyful things we carry with us through otherwise hectic and difficult days, the little things we deserve that keep the fires in our hearts warm and raging.īeing trans affords me these same movements. These are all little movements I can make, like a dancer on an empty and unperceived stage, shuffling feet that generate minor movements of grand comfort. It is why I like to make the bed once my fiancé and I have both gotten out of it for the day. This is why I love to wake up early, to walk the dog at the same time, and to start the coffee the same way, to carefully pour it into the right mugs. But a ritual is not evil or ill-willed in and of itself rather, it is how we wield their power that determines a ritual’s value. The careful measuring and mixing and tasting and overdoing it. Rituals are a thing I, an addict, miss from a life I have left behind. I love a ritual, a tender process that requires care and forethought and my body to be an integral part of making comfort appear in the world around me. ![]() The Autostraddle Encyclopedia of Lesbian Cinema.LGBTQ Television Guide: What To Watch Now.
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