I broke off all contact with my mother almost five years ago, so my situation is a little different, but I still have some similar sentimental items of my own with my dead name (or other “old me” tags) on them. For some I decided to keep them with other souvenirs of my life journey – so I have a “Mister Congeniality” sash up along some other buttons and memory tags.
Other things have been put in the huge bonfire we have at camp over the past several years. It’s not that I had any ill will towards those items, but I feel like I released them from my life and honored them for being a part of my travels. (That bonfire is often an interesting mix of deep emotions; sometimes releasing pain, sometimes a wish for better times, others releasing things no longer needed: all of these at once.)
This is not meant to be anything even resembling advice, it’s just my thoughts on how I’ve approached it!
Oh wow, my grandmother had one of those! (I likely do not want to know what happened to it after she died. I was overseas at the time, but I heard stories of some of the aftermath.)
If you aren’t sure once you have them in front of you, you can always wait a bit. Put them in a box and set a reminder to check back in a year. Your mom’s feelings are important, sure. But your feelings are the most important. I don’t know your mom, of course, but if keeping something made my kid feel bad then I’d want my kid to get rid of it. No matter how I felt about the emotional weight of the item, it wouldn’t be worth it to ask my kid to keep it or even hint that I was hurt by them giving/tossing the item.
Edit to add: maybe go ahead and ask about the sewing machine? Or just make sure your mom knows you’d like to have it
She actually just asked me to speak up about anything else I wanted. Apparently they’re moving sooner that I had thought. They’re putting a deposit down in January. So I did repeat my desire for the sewing machine.
Today I had to work at the office. I work at a large Canadian university, and it’s been really accommodating and accepting being trans there. I previously worked there from 2008-2021 before I came out and I’m very familiar with the campus.
One thing I noticed during my usual lunchtime walk was the way I am treated while moving around the halls and paths is subtly different. I often encounter groups of people walking together, and while presenting as a man, I could generally just walk along and the group would make room for me to move by.
Today, I was in this situation several times in short succession as I forgot to check when the period change happened, and it was noticeable how differently people, mostly men, behaved as I approached the group. They just didn’t make room for me to pass. I had to stop to avoid running into them and they seemed annoyed I didn’t get out of the way for them. That never happened when I was perceived as a man.
I can’t speak to the transmasc experience, but as a transfem the loss of privilege is very interesting, if frustrating, to observe.
I don’t know. They’re in their 80s but still of sound mind. They want to do this now because they saw too many of their friends wait until their minds had started to deteriorate, and then it was an ordeal for their spouses and/or kids to convince them they couldn’t live on their own anymore. And my mom wants to give stuff away now so that my brother and I aren’t left to deal with a huge houseful of stuff when they pass. This is an inevitable transition, and I’m glad my parents are trying to make it as smooth as possible on themselves and on us. It’s a little sad, them selling the house I grew up in and that they’ve live in for 46 years, but it’s life.
I am going to have one hell of a time dealing with mom’s quilting stash when she’s forced to give that up. (or not; I could probably make one call to the quilting guild she’s in, and they’d be on it like a flock of buzzards on a fresh deer carcass. )
I did get her old sewing machine (a cabinet style “Coronado 45-4116” made in the 50’s- my research tells me it’s one of the many, many japanese clones made for stores) which works about as well as the more modern brother I have.
A few years ago there was not much advice or examples for nonbinary styles online. It usually came down to:
Be born looking like the intersection of Tilda Swinton and David Bowie.
If you can’t do that, be small and cute.
If you can’t do either, you’re not really androgynous. (But you can embrace chaos, wear lipstick with a beard… oh you have anxiety and also want to be subtle? Well, you can’t.)
But now there’s a lot of advice and examples, a diversity of styles to try out. Not just a choice of cold dystopian androgyny, or chaotic mix-and-match (those are both options though).
I am also less concerned with people misreading me than I used to be. Some people don’t believe nonbinary genders (or even trans identities) are real. If they think I’m gay or just an effeminate man, well, that’s their mistake.
My big insight has been layering. It seems to be pretty common in feminine styles, but is not inherently feminine. I’ve always liked oversized/loose button-up shirts, but wearing one unbuttoned or half-buttoned over a t-shirt or tank makes a big difference. Mask the silhouette, be flowy, provide an opportunity for an accent color, draw attention away from the belly, show off a necklace… nice, but not at all overt.
I’m experimenting a little on pants and shoes. Mostly sticking with chinos and will probably wear Chucks most of the time, but I have some extremely comfy Thai harem pants that are nice and flowy (not great for winter and they only have one small pocket and I probably need to build up my confidence to wear them outside the house). Some leggings incoming, which will just get worn under other pants if they don’t work for me. Some slightly funky men’s boots, and some very extra theoretically unisex heeled boots that may end up reserved for Halloween and industrial concerts or might get donated to a local trans charity with some other clothes I’m letting go of.
I’ve been dressing at home as if I’m going out, instead of the usual work-from-home slob thing. That’s been nice. I’ve also gotten a couple of compliments already, which is even nicer and kind of a shock.
Interestingly, there have been several Jeopardy! contestants the last few years who are non-binary, as evidenced by Ken Jennings using they/them pronouns for said contestants. Most have had that Bowie/Swinton androgynous look, but just last week, there was a contestant who was decidedly more stereotypically masculine in appearance (kind of had the big teddy bear look, but with long hair), who used they/them pronouns. The best part about this is that Jennings never brings it up. He just uses their preferred pronouns as if it’s perfectly normal, which, of course, is how it should be.
Not sure if this belongs here, so I’m happy to move it if not… more about a cis person and how his brother treated his trans friend and some commentary around that…
That’s a really cool story. The part where his trans friend got in a disagreement with another trans person immediately called to mind what i refer to as the first rule of autism: if you’ve met one autistic petson, you’ve met one autistic person. Don’t make assumptions beyond that. But it makes perfect sense when said out loud. If their whole thing is to be accepted and valued as a trans person, so be it. If it is to be accepted and valued as a man, or as a woman, so be it. Clouds and boxes, no matter how you subdivide. It will always be clouds and boxes.
This is why since i was a kid i bristled at the idea of labels. They can be useful for oneself, but the reality is that i see it as limiting and used as a tool for others to exert influence over you. Additionally from a podcast i listened to (You Are Not So Smart) one of the guests said that whatever label is placed on someone, whether its true or not that person ultimately fulfills it.
There’s a reason why i typically don’t have discussions IRL about my sexual preferences and more. To me those things aren’t useful, i want the people i meet to have a relationship with me and not the categories that i fit under. Those categories can’t contain the entirety of me
I’ve been watching one of my kids and their friends struggle with this for their adolescent life. Their art-oriented high school was, and now art-oriented post-secondary program is, a magnet for every kind of kid who might get a label. The ‘labelling’ discussions have been lively in my house, whether it be race, sexual preference, etc. etc. with me usually arguing “be careful with a label: it’s never quite right, always reductive, almost always political, often in a bad way”.
I’m usually not out to interact with people on the basis of their labels. The trans kids over for lunch are usually talking Marxist politics, art subjects, 13th century Italian poets… Labels are not particularly relevant to enjoying a meal at my place, although we’re happy to engage in stories that might reflect things that could be labelled that way (and happy to cook to dietary restrictions).
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