Alright, listen, sometimes you just have to write it out. Like, sometimes I'm on here talking about fiction and tabletop stuff, and sometimes I'm on here rhapsodizing about life. This is gonna be one of the latter of those times. And maybe the end of the hiatus, but no promises. Just gotta get some stuff off my chest. Scream into the void as it were.
Trigger Warnings: -stage whisper- I'm going to be talking about pregnancy and nonbinary trans stuff so if any of that grosses you out go find something else to read please.
So, unbeknownst to you (or more likely beknownst to you, if you're reading this we probably know each other) I've been in the process of growing a person the past 7 months. I've noticed a few things while all that's been going on. Inside, outside, all that good stuff.
And it is good stuff. My spouse and I are both very excited to be becoming parents.
We found out early on the assigned gender is male. This had a little bit of impact, but probably not the kind you're expecting. We'd already selected the name "Rowan", you see, and we're still teetering between "Willow" or "Cypress" for the next one because they are both gorgeous names and work equally well for a boy, a girl, or a whatever.
Don't @ me, I feel like a whatever today.
The big argument was 'are we getting him circumcized', to which I promptly informed my spouse that I would tear my IV out and physically fight him if he tried to get our son's body surgically altered without his consent and then a couple of days later we both calmed down enough to discuss it like civilized adults. See, I don't throw down unless it's really important. We're not getting him circumcized.
Other things we've decided:
- No creepy sexualized baby clothes that say things like "lady-killer" on them. Seriously, why do people do that?
- Haircuts are opt-in only; it grows freely until he decides he wants it short.
- Dresses are opt-in only; this would have also applied to an assigned female baby and in a lot of ways I'm glad the first one is a boy because while there have still been fights with the relatives about his clothes, they were a lot easier than they'd have been otherwise.
Can we take two minutes to talk about baby clothes?
So I'm out to my family. Changed my pronouns on Facebook, slapped my name up there, have answered anyone whose asked me what's up with exactly what that thing was. And I know, a lot of people have enraged relatives that cut contact after they come out. Mine just....sort of elected to ignore it.
But electing to ignore it and continue to aggressively she/her me doesn't make them suddenly unaware, and I've had multiple very awkward conversations about how I plan on dressing my son. Including my grandmother at one point saying "you can't expect him to spend equal time in a dress" which no one ever implied was going to happen, and my spouse's mother telling him "I know you want to dress him gender neutral but I don't think clothes with a fire truck or a football on them are a problem".
Everything I picked out is covered in dinosaurs and toys are toys. A fire truck isn't gendered until you make it gendered. And like, man, he's gonna be a baby, he isn't gonna care what pronouns people use for him or what toys he has to play with (as long as they're fun) or what colors he's wearing. He's gonna care about soft and warm and familiar.
My grandmother went, "Of course he's going to have a boy's haircut."
I asked her what a boy's haircut was. She had no answer for me. This was aided by the fact that both of my brothers, both adults, have long hair, and so do several of my male uncles and cousins.
Basically, this was exhausting because I know the only reason it was even a conversation was because I personally don't use she/her. And I love her, but she is very passive aggressive.
So yes, I'm out to my entire family. I'm out professionally. I'm out amongst my friends.
I am not, however, out at the doctor's office. And I've had to be in there once or twice a month for the past 7, and that has been...wow, more difficult than I expected.
It's not safe or healthy to chestbind when pregnant or nursing. I've been shopping for a detachable penis to fill that void for myself (okay that sounded wrong, I'm looking for a stand to pee device, not a dildo) but you never really realize how many assumptions the doctors make until you're sitting in the middle of them and primed to notice.
And look. I'm really excited about the baby. I already know I want at least two. I'm going to be a fucking good parent, that prospect does not worry me at all. It's all this nonsense leading up to it.
I just want to shake everyone (except the baby obviously) and ask them what they're so concerned about. Like, what exactly do you think is going to happen? I'm legitimately just sitting over here existing and trying to stay hydrated and people are sticking their entire faces in my ear whispering, 'you should shave your legs so the doctor doesn't think you're unheigynic'.
That's an entirely different rant. Suffice it to say if the doctor thinks me keeping my body hair is unheigynic I want to know where they got their medical license so I can avoid anyone that came through that school forever. It's amazing how many people are like 'body hair on women is unnaturalz!!1' and still have the gall to make fun of flat earthers for their bad science.
Listen. We're all coming out of Covid and I left quarantine directly into being pregnant. I'm aware that I'm kind of frumpy at the moment. I haven't been able to dye my hair in two years. My maintenance routine is on a skeleton crew. You know who else that's true for? Both my brothers and my male spouse. You know who no one tries to be like 'you should dress up more' to? Yeah.
I basically just said 'no', and you would think I'd declared my intention to set the house on fire. Like, if you want to go shave all your body hair off, be my guest I'm not stopping you? How do you have this much energy to put toward somebody else's armpits?
And on the other side of it I just feel like a bad enby. Like, I've opted to spawn a wrinkled jellybean of my very own. I want a tiny human. It turns out, one of the super relevant things about the way my body is laid out, is how I go about doing that. And I'm kind of fine with this. It means I'm doing the hard part myself. I don't have to feel guilty for wanting more than one because I'm the one sharing my body and immune system and getting all torn up at the end.
'But Robin, is that not triggering your dysphoria?'
It wouldn't be if people wouldn't keep commenting on it. I'm privileged enough not to really get body dysphoria, but socially speaking when people aggressively treat me like a woman it makes me want to use their face as a bongo drum.
No, but seriously, I'm not a bad nonbinary person because I want kids. I'm not going to be a bad parent because I don't shave my legs (and what sort of weird Martian logic is that anyway?) and I'm not gonna cut my hair because it looks feminine the way it is. Like fuck, sometimes I feel like people expect being nonbinary to be more work than being traditionally femme.
Guys, I'm lazy and I have more important shit to worry about. And frankly, so do you.
Fortune Favors,
Robin
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