Resolution: Tackle Inner Transphobia

The hardest part about nursing my child as a trans person is that doing so forces me to come out to anyone who sees it happening.  If I nurse in public, people come up to me and ask what I’m doing. I guess they think that because I’m doing it where they can see it, this means that I am willing and available for questioning. It doesn’t occur to them that Jacob and I are nursing because we need to, because he has hurt himself or is very tired and I need to calm him down. If I nurse in front of a guest in my home, I feel obligated to explain a bit of our backstory.

Those of you who follow me on Facebook might have noticed that I’m rather dog-obsessed these days. We have a rowdy ten-month-old puppy that was having major behavior problems until he recently was diagnosed with a thyroid condition. I hired a professional trainer to come to our home and work with us. Of course, she could only come during Jacob’s usual nap-time, when he nurses a fair bit.

The trainer began her evaluation and then Jacob woke up crying. I brought him into the living room, and as I sat down to nurse him, I said something horribly awkward like, “Uh, we’re a bit of an unusual family. Ummm… I’m transgender. I was born female but took testosterone. Anyway, so I birthed him myself and I still nurse him.”

The trainer was wonderful about it. She said, “Oh, that’s fine. Now I want to show you how to teach Tadoo to accept a muzzle.”

Unfortunately, I found this trainer difficult for unrelated reasons, and located another one who was a better match for us in terms of our doggy issues. She, too, was only able to work with us at a time when Jacob was exhausted and badly needed to nurse. I could choose to either nurse him, or not hear a word the trainer was saying to us due to continuous crying. I said another explanatory spiel and started to nurse him in front of her.

The trainer said, “Oh, I’ve seen everything, don’t worry. I used to work as a nurse. A guy [sic] I used to work with was trans [a trans woman].  He [sic] and I got along really well.”

Then came the questions.

“How much milk do you make?”

Fairly innocuous. I didn’t mind to answer that. I explained that since I had chest surgery, I don’t have a full supply.

“Oh! I thought you’d gone the other way. I don’t know as much about female to male.”

Then she said something like, “When are you going to go all the way?” or maybe it was, “when are you going to complete your transition?”

Ian, my partner, told her that bottom surgery wouldn’t be very good for our hopes of having another child. I mumbled something about the risks of such a major surgery and then tried to get her back onto the topic of dog training.

There was so much in what she’d said that made me uncomfortable. I personally knew the woman that she had worked with, and I knew she would be horrified at the trainer’s use of male pronouns for her. Further, I don’t think of my transition as incomplete, but there would be no way to explain that in brief to someone who believes that gender is firmly binary.

There was something eerily familiar to me about her questioning. After her visit I remembered that medical professionals have asked me those sorts of questions, and she was indeed a retired nurse. In a clinical setting such questions are difficult because I can’t tell whether the practitioner needs to know the answers to take care of my health concerns, or if they are simply being curious (and inappropriate).  I feel like I am supposed to respond fully.

Why did I feel that I had to tell my dog trainer I am trans before nursing my child in front of her? It certainly doesn’t help normalize what I’m doing. If it is normal, then why do I need to explain it?

Coming out to her started a conversation that I didn’t want to have and led to her asking questions that made me uncomfortable. My intention was to share this as one piece of information and to get it out of the way, but that was not what happened. That said, I don’t believe that coming out to someone should give that person a right to ask intrusive questions. If a new acquaintance tells me, for instance, that she is a single mother, I do not respond by asking her, “What happened to your husband? Did he pass away, or did he leave you, or did you split up?”

My New Year’s Resolution: I am going to stop doing preemptive explaining in this sort of situation. I am going to do what I need to do, what is best for my child, and if someone is curious or confused about it, I will hand them a card with my blog on it, where I have laid everything out. I want to be an advocate and an educator, but I don’t need to continually open myself up to personal questioning in my day-to-day life. I will be brave and strong, and I will let go of my inner transphobia, embracing my own normalcy.

The trainer was excellent with our dog, by the way, and we have been making great progress.

My Queer Conversation With a Ninety-Year-Old

A conversation I had today reminded me yet again that age is not necessarily a good predictor of open-mindedness and compassion.

First, a bit of background. I met Luanne, a ninety-year-old woman, through a friend. This summer I am planting and maintaining Luanne's large vegetable garden and flower beds along with another friend of mine, Ana.

Today it was just me and my little boy, Jacob, weeding at the garden. Luanne opened her back door to say hello. I chatted with her for a few minutes and we both enjoyed watching Jacob crawling on the lawn. And then came the question: "Who is the baby's mother? Is it Ana?"

"No, he's my baby. Ana is my friend."

'"But who is his mother?"

"Ummm, well, my partner... well, we're a gay couple." I blurted it out and then looked at her, waiting.

"Gaaaaaaay...?"

"Yes."

"You mean, your wife is a man?"

"Yessss..." Close enough.

"So where did you get the baby from?"

I'd really been hoping she'd stop at gay. I couldn't bring myself to lie to her either though. "That's a bit complicated." I hesitated.

"Oh, I hope you don't mind my asking. It's not too personal, is it?"

"I hope you don't mind hearing the answer." I paused and looked at her. She looked back inquisitively. Ok, fine. "I'm transgender. I was born female but I transitioned to male. Have you heard of that before Luanne?"

"Well, on TV, yes, I suppose so."

"Ok, so, I took testosterone to transition, and had a chest surgery. But when my partner and I got together we decided we'd really like to have a family. We thought about adopting, but realized it might take a very long time. So, I talked to my doctors about it and asked if it would be safe for me to carry a child [I always emphasize the doctor/safety part of the story, especially around potential skeptics], and they said to stop taking the testosterone and it should be fine. I got pregnant, and had the baby. He's our biological child."

"Oh, wow, I've never heard of such a thing."

"It's a bit unusual, isn't it?"

"Well, as long as you have a baby, that's what's important."

I left the breastfeeding and milk sharing discussion for another time... And then we went back to talking about the geraniums. She didn't want white ones after all because they apparently turn brown when they get rained on. Too bad Ana probably already bought them this morning, following yesterday's instructions.

If Luanne, at ninety, born in 1922, can get all this, and simply be happy that we have a baby (and that we've pulled out an awful lot of grass and dandelions the last few days), what is anybody else's excuse?

Privacy

Some have wondered why the names on this blog have been changed, and, well, the answer is MY SON! I have made the choice to be a queer, breastfeeding activist - I am not only comfortable with this, I love it. It is my passion. My child, however, must be allowed to make his own decisions regarding how open he wants to be about his life. I don't want my writing to follow him around wherever he goes. For now and for many years to come, he will simply be a boy with two loving parents. I believe this is his right.

All of our friends and family know that I am transgender and that I birthed our baby. They are all fine with it. We will try to raise our boy with honesty and integrity. He will grow up understanding where he came from, but we will also have to teach him to guard his own privacy in some situations for his own safety.

This blog is important to me because I hope it will help make the world a better place for our child, and others like him, to live in. Awareness of transgender lives increases every time someone puts him or herself out there in some way. Because Thomas Beatie discussed his transgender pregnancy on Oprah, some of my friends were already familiar with what we were up to when we announced our own pregnancy. And little by little it gets better, right?

Dear Paramedic: I'm Transgender!

Last night I sat on the cold bumper of a fire truck parked in front of my house and told a young, dashing male paramedic surrounded by burly firefighters, "well, I'm transgender and I, uh, breastfeed my baby."

He didn't blink an eye. I guess he sees all sorts of strange people in strange situations all night long and he was just doing his job. I, however, was a little bewildered to find myself coming out in this fashion.

This weekend I had the flu, or maybe food poisoning, and I was still feeling nauseous last night. I was nursing Jacob in bed when our carbon monoxide detector went off. Ian opened the windows and doors and called police non-emergency but was told that he ought to dial 911. Could be deadly serious. We waited outside on our front steps and the fire truck pulled up within minutes.

Since carbon monoxide poisoning can resemble flu symptoms, the paramedic wanted to check me out while the firefighters went inside to measure the CO levels. He took my vitals and soon asked, "are you on any medications?"

"Yes, I take domperidone." This is a drug normally prescribed, ironically enough, for controlling nausea.

"And what do you take it for?"

"Um, well, I'm transgender, and I, uh, breastfeed my baby. Domperidone increases milk production..."

So my lovely paramedic got a mini-lesson in lactation - queer lactation, at that.

As it turned out, it was all a false alarm. The firefighters determined the house to be fine, and I must have just had the flu. Unfortunately Jacob is not yet at an age where he can appreciate a fire truck but all the commotion left him wide awake until 1:15am. We'll be replacing our CO detector today.

And while I'm on the subject of domperidone, Health Canada recently came out with a new warning against its use: http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2012/03/08/domperidone-maleate-drug-.html

Breastfeeding expert Dr. Jack Newman had this to say about it on Facebook:

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"Based on a study that was published in Belgium which looked at over 1000 cases of sudden death and found that some of the people who died suddenly were taking domperidone, Health Canada has put out a warning about possible concerns about treating with domperidone. This is a bit of an overreaction on the part of Health Canada. Well, a big overreaction given the data.

"Note that in the study, the youngest person who died was 55 and the average age of those who died was 75 years. What has this to do with breastfeeding mothers who are rarely older than 45 years and are usually in reasonably good health? Furthermore, this information came from a data base with no clinical information. It simply has information that so and so died suddenly and was taking such and such a drug. The thing is that domperidone in these patients was used for reflux and we know that heart disease is frequently misdiagnosed as reflux; severe pain at the top of the abdomen or lower part of the chest is typical of both reflux and cardiac pain. Misdiagnosis is particularly possible in Europe where domperidone is available in countries like the United Kingdom, Belgium and the Netherlands without a prescription and it is likely that many people are self-diagnosing and self-medicating.

"So that's it and it does not mean that domperidone kills. I will continue to prescribe domperidone at our doses which are based on many years of clinical experience. I have treated many thousands of women with it with only minor side effects. I believe this article from Belgium proves nothing and does not require us to stop prescribing it.

"It would be a pity that mothers and babies not benefit from domperidone when used in conjunction with our Protocol to manage breastmilk intake."

Thanks for the insight, Jack! Although you might want to add "fathers" to the list of those who derive benefit from this drug.

Nursing in Public

I haven't written in a while because the whole family has been sick with colds and nasty things. The illnesses have been pretty awful, but they did provide interesting opportunities to breastfeed publicly while waiting around in doctor's offices!

Today I fed Jacob immediately before leaving home for the walk-in clinic down the street, but after forty-five minutes of waiting perfectly quietly, he started to get antsy. I struck up a conversation with the woman sitting across from me, distracting him and biding myself some time. She mentioned that she has twin baby boys, seven months old. We compared notes for a while, and she said she breastfed them until six months and then gave up out of sheer exhaustion. I applauded her effort, congratulating her on breastfeeding through a very important period in her sons' lives.

Then she mentioned that she always pumped for them. I commiserated, "Oh, that is difficult. Were they born premature?"

"No, they got to full term. 37 weeks to the day."

"That's fantastic! Great job." But I was still wondering. "Did they have trouble latching then?"

"No, I never tried. It's the same way I did it with the first one. I just pumped. That way somebody else can do the feedings too. It takes so much time to pump though."

Bizarre! She thought it was easier to pump than to breastfeed, so that somebody else could feed them too? What about getting up to do the pumping, getting up to feed the babies, cleaning the pumping equipment, cleaning the bottles? And to miss the closeness of a breastfeeding relationship! I guess she never considered doing some feeding at the breast and then pumping some so that her husband could feed the boys. I am so sorry for this woman - I don't think she knows what she missed.

Anyway, soon enough Jacob just had to eat, so I fed him. Right there. About two feet away from old ladies, and young ladies, and scruffy men, and big fat men, and the receptionists. And they mostly frowned and looked away. The ones who had been smiling at Jacob before didn't smile at him anymore once we were done nursing. But none of them dared say anything. I love it. If anyone questioned what I was doing, I planned to ask if they would prefer for him to cry, for the pleasure of the whole waiting room. One way or another, we will assault your senses, either visual or auditory. It is much easier to look the other way than to shut off your ears. I suppose they figured as much.

A friendly new woman came in, who hadn't seen me breastfeeding. She asked how old he was. I told her, and she mentioned she has a six month old. I told her we had a trip coming up and I was wondering how to make it go smoothly for my little boo.

"Oh, make sure you get onto the plane with him on an empty stomach because he'll need to drink a whole bottle on the way up and a whole one on the way down to help his ears adjust to the pressure changes."

"He's still breastfed. We'll make sure he eats."

"Wow, really? Still breastfed? Mined weaned herself at four months."

How does a baby wean herself at four months? Did she really decide to commit suicide? Stop eating her available liquid food before she would be able to chew and swallow even rather soft solid foods? I can't imagine an infant so young having a death wish like that. I know that somehow there was a communication failure, but I'm sure that this baby didn't want to wean herself.

When I got in to see the doctor, he tried very hard to be respectful. "Well, hello Dad! How are you today?" He looked at the chart. "I mean, Mom!! How are you?"

"No, it's Dad," I said.

"But why does your chart have an F on it?"

Here we go again, I thought. "Because I'm transgendered. I was born female, transitioned to male by taking hormones. I identify as male. But my birth province won't change my ID unless I get a complete ovariohysterectomy. It sucks."

"Well, would you like me to change it in your file here?"

I thought about this for a minute. It was a kind offer.

"No, probably better not, because my government health card still says F. It would mess up your system and they'd likely decide I'm not insured or something."

He nodded sympathetically. "So, what's up?" And we got down to business.

He's Local

Sometimes I am pretty cavalier about my unusual family situation. I can find myself telling some stranger on the street, "oh, no, my partner is a man, my husband. I don't have a wife. I'm actually transgender. I birthed my baby myself, and I can even breastfeed him some. Great, isn't it?"

If I have plenty of time, and I feel safe, I'm pretty willing to explain what we've done. Most people respond very well, with mild curiosity or amusement. Sometimes though, it just isn't the right moment to get into explanations about how transgender folks give birth. One evening Jacob had just fallen asleep in a coffee shop and we needed to get going when somebody asked us if we used a surrogate. Neither Ian nor I like to lie about anything, so we kind of mumbled something confusing yet agreeable and walked away. "Ah, yes, isn't it wonderful that people can do that nowadays? Well, we have to go!"

On another occasion we were eating at our favourite restaurant in Winnipeg, a small, family-run Ethiopian joint downtown. We had our wedding dinner there, and we love the friendly staff. However, communication is a considerable challenge due to the language barrier. I thought I'd booked the dinner only to find out a week before our wedding that the restaurant had no record of the event. Luckily, they hadn't booked anything else either, so I simply booked again, this time in person. The actual day went well except for that there had been a misunderstanding over the number of guests, and there weren't enough chairs for everyone. Then the restaurant Momma forgot to include samosas on our bill and we didn't notice either. Weeks later, she mentioned it to us while her son pleaded with her to forget about it. We apologized and paid for what we'd had.

So, after all this, Ian and I both instinctively felt that there was no way we could successfully explain the origin of our child, even though I'm sure the well-meaning restaurant owner would have been delighted to hear all about it. She cooed over Jacob for a good five minutes. Then she asked, "So, you get him in Canada, then? Or international?"

She was assuming that Jacob was adopted. Ian responded quickly, saying, "yes, he is a local Winnipeg boy!"

The restaurant Momma approved heartily. "Very good, very good," she said. "Have a good night! See you again soon!"

I vowed that the next time I saw her son with his much better grasp of English, I'd explain everything to him and ask him to tell his mother in their language.

"Good Thing He Takes Formula!"

My baby, Jacob, has been completely breastfed since his birth seven months ago. He is beginning to eat a few solid foods now, but he has never tasted formula. To make this happen, my partner Ian and I spent (and continue to spend) countless hours tracking down donors, driving all over town picking up milk, and meeting breast milk shipments at the Greyhound bus depot. We do this because we want the best for our little guy. So far, Jacob has had my milk as well as the breast milk of sixteen extremely generous women.

We often meet people who don't value breast milk anything the way that we do. Yesterday, for example, we ran into somebody I'd met a few months before at a local play group. In the course of normal chit-chat, she happened to ask me something or other about bottle feeding Jacob at night. I gave her a quizzical look and said that our baby was entirely breastfed. Then I realized that perhaps I'd never told her that I was transgendered. I know that my personal history is fascinating and highly memorable to most people, but it is also my normal life that I live every day. I don't always bother to mention it, and sometimes I just can't recall if I've come out to someone in particular or not. I quickly explained myself to this woman using my usual spiel. "I was born female, transitioned by taking hormones... I make some milk myself... we use a supplemental nursing system, know what that is?"

She caught herself up remarkably quickly, hardly missing a beat. She said we should get together some time soon, and I agreed. But then she said the unthinkable. "Yeah, my guy gets mostly the breast. Luckily he takes formula though, so his Dad can feed him too. I mean, I could pump my milk but I don't want to feel like a COW! My first would never take formula. Ugh, that was difficult. Sure glad this one does."

Cow's milk is designed for baby cows; human milk is for baby humans.

I responded, "Well, I guess it tastes different, doesn't it?"

"Oh yes, formula tastes pretty gross while breast milk is so sweet."

I tried not to let my jaw clank too loudly when it dropped all the way down onto my chest. If only this woman had any idea the way that we search, scrounge, and beg for breast milk for our baby. She could just pump some out if she wanted her boy to have breast milk when she's gone, but formula is easier, so she doesn't.

Hospital Visit

Last night, after two hours of inconsolable crying, we took our little guy over to the hospital. By that point I was crying too. I was scared for my baby boy's health but I was also scared to be a transgendered parent going into a hospital.

The night before, Jacob's temperature spiked to just over 103 degrees. Still, he seemed to be managing ok with it. In the middle of the night he threw up all over our family bed, and then he smiled at us.We didn't mind as long as he wasn't too miserable. By morning his fever was way down. He was quiet but not unhappy. We had a lazy at-home, in-bed kind of day.

At 8pm, Jacob woke up screaming from his nap. I tried to breastfeed him, I bounced him, I walked him up and down the stairs, I walked him in circles around the house, I took him to see the dog, I let him have a whiff of the crisp November air, all to no avail. He cried all out as hard as he could for about a minute, and then would pause, sobbing those huge, full body sobs, for thirty seconds, and then would cry all out again for a minute, and so on.

Finally Ian walked in the door, home from work. I told him how things had been, we deliberated for a few minutes and decided to head to the hospital. Our little guy was in pain. There was something seriously wrong.

I could hear their questions already in my head. So who is the mother? How much formula has he taken today? You don't give him formula? Well, where do you get this donated breast milk? I imagined explaining first to the intake nurse, then to the doctor, then to the next doctor when the shift changed, then to some other nurses, then to another doctor all about how I was transgendered, I'd birthed Jacob myself, and was breastfeeding him using a supplemental nursing system and donated milk from generous women we'd met online.

The hospital we were headed for, only two blocks away, is notorious in our city for being breastfeeding unfriendly. Women and their newborns regularly leave with soothers, bottles and formula in hand after receiving muddled or no advice on breastfeeding. How were they going to cope with a breastfeeding man using donated milk?

Health care providers are supposed to be trained to cope with queer individuals and families. They should know the basics of what it means to be transgendered or gay, and they should at least get their pronouns straight, so to speak. (If you don't know what "transgendered" means, click here to see how I define it for myself) One doctor I encountered confirmed that yes, he knew what a transsexual is, no need to explain. I went on to tell him about my health problem only to realize that he had no idea what it meant to be transgendered. He had my anatomy, well, if not inside out, then certainly backwards. From that day forth, I vowed to always explain myself from the beginning, whether or not the health care professional in question claims to know what I'm all about. "I am transgendered. This means that I was born female, but transitioned to male. I did this by taking hormones..."

As we walked over to the hospital with our seven month old baby, I wondered what kind of conversations this evening would bring. I held him close to my skin underneath my coat. And, as we walked over to the hospital, our baby magically stopped crying. By the time we got to emergency, he was looking all around him and smiling coyly at the intake nurses. They took his temperature and found it to be perfectly normal. We walked around the hospital for about forty-five minutes and then went home with our baby who was fussing over having to be bundled up in the cold. He wanted a better view of where we were off to and his toque and my jacket were getting in the way. But at least we'd finally had the good sense to get out of the house and do something social for a few minutes...