Transitioning Quotes

“Maybe living through it isn't the only hard part. Maybe being in the world afterward is also the hard part.”
― Casey Plett, Little Fish

“PLACEMENT
The Physical Transference of Care and Saying Good-bye

"A toddler cannot participate in a discussion of the transition process or be expected o understand a verbal explanation. [They benefit] tremendously by experiencing the physical transference of care, and by witnessing the former caregiver's permission and support for [their new guardians] to assume their role. The toddler pays careful attention to the former caregiver's face and voice, listening and watching as [they talk] to [their new guardians] and invites the [guardians'] assumption of the caregiver's role. The attached toddler is very perceptive of [their] caregiver's emotions and will pick up on nonverbal cues from that person as to how [they] should respond to [their] new family. Children who do not have he chance to exchange good-byes or to receive permission to move on are more likely to have an extended period of grieving and to sustain additional damage to their basic sense of trust and security, to their self-esteem, and to their ability to initiate and sustain strong relationships as they grow up. The younger the child, the more important it is that there be direct contact between parents and past caregiveres. A toddler is going to feel conflicting loyalties if [they] are made to feel on some level that [they] must choose between [their] former caregiver and [their] new guardians ...”
― Mary Hopkins-Best, Toddler Adoption: The Weaver's Craft

“I am against the rush to medicalize our children and young people to present as the opposite sex when they are confused or when other conditions such as autism are misattributed as trans.”
― Lisa Shultz, The Trans Train: A Parent's Perspective on Transgender Medicalization and Ideology

“The people who claim that being transgender is a choice are right on one regard. Living freely as the person you were meant to be is, in fact, a choice. You can choose not to. The decision to transition reflect the time spent grappling with that difficult question:

Are you going to give yourself a real chance to be happy?”
― Ian Thomas Malone, The Transgender Manifesto

“Trans folks are often expected to embrace a narrative that makes cis people comfortable--something simple and linear that upholds their binary understanding of gender transition.”
― Zena Sharman, The Remedy: Queer and Trans Voices on Health and Health Care

“The blatant harassment of electromagnetic radiation researchers should be expected to be a feature of transitioning out of the energy based economies.”
― Steven Magee

“When Margaret Thatcher transitioned her speaking voice to a more male register to be listened to by men of the House of Commons, she was not scrutinised in the same way a trans man would be - her voice was mainly praised ... becoming more masculine is always [socially] favoured over perceived femininity.”
― Sam Hope, Person-Centred Counselling for Trans and Gender Diverse People: A Practical Guide

“When I look at the US now, I am devastated and angry that we live in a country that supports the narrative that it is okay to medicalize young girls and women by prescribing testosterone and performing mastectomies as a first response to the girls’ gender confusion, stress, or mental health concerns.”
― Lisa Shultz, The Trans Train: A Parent's Perspective on Transgender Medicalization and Ideology

“Something is terribly wrong when natural and holistic measures to relieve emotional struggles are left untouched in favor of lifelong, irreversible medical interventions that are experimental, expensive, and come with a host of additional adverse effects.”
― Lisa Shultz, The Trans Train: A Parent's Perspective on Transgender Medicalization and Ideology

“I think it's hard for people to understand what I mean when I say "I'm a guy's guy." I am in one way "becoming" a man and in another way I have always been one and I'm trying out all the ways to understand how I want to live that out, good and bad. Becoming a white man visibly is like a newly found superpower-like when Spider-Man suddenly realizes he can scale the sides of buildings but doesn't quite know how to control his own power and smashes up against a concrete wall on his first several attempts. He flails until he eventually knows how to use his power for good.”
― P. Carl, Becoming a Man: The Story of a Transition

“In the final image, he is sitting atop the horse. We have not witnessed a victory or a conquering, but a love scene, a man who knows innately how connection happens, how we traverse emotional distance, how we calm one another's fears.

Similarly, toward the end of the film, Brady goes to visit Lane. He is wearing his cowboy hat, green rodeo shirt, jeans, and a bandanna tied around his neck as if he's ready to go riding. With the help of the nurses at the rehab facility, he dresses Lane in boots, jeans, and his old maroon-striped rodeo shirt. Brady puts Lane's cowboy hat atop his head: "We don't want you to get a sunburn," he says. With great difficulty, they ease Lane over a saddle propped up on parallel bars. Brady holds the reins as if he is the horse and takes Lane riding again.

"You're loping off into the distance," he says as Lane struggles to stay upright. Lane's head falls and Brady cajoles it back up with the patience of a parent teaching a child to ride a bike.

Together they are in a rehab facility loping, smiling, tilting, riding, Brady talking softly, lovingly. Brady's man talk soothes me. I have been the horse and I have been Lane, broken through a transition, learning to allow my body to feel pressure, to be cajoled to walk two steps forward, to trust someone enough to help me imagine what it would be like to lope along in my cowboy hat protecting me from sunburn, to learn what it means to talk like a man.”
― P. Carl, Becoming a Man: The Story of a Transition