Trans woman talks fatherhood

Masculinity and me

I used to write about fatherhood all the time. Every day in fact. I’d write about the fun parts and I’d write about the sad parts and then I’d start writing about masculinity and fatherhood.

And then I started to transition and fatherhood went out the window.

You know what? I had a lot of pretty valid insights into masculinity then and I’m willing to bet that even through a transition, I carry some of those same insights. Yes, it is a different position than I was in three-plus years ago, but they are valid still, and now they are based on things I desperately need dads to be doing to raise kids that will be loving and caring and accepting.

So now I’m a transfeminine parent writing about fatherhood, something I didn’t expect I would be doing, but now feel more comfortable doing that I did three years ago. I don’t feel the same need to separate myself from that part of me. I miss the days I talked about parenting and my role as a parent. I feel good about letting my kids tell their own stories about being kids but regret letting go of my part as a parent going through transition and how that impacts raising kids and seeing kids make friends and have friends who don’t understand transition as much as they do.

I left myself vulnerable to feeling sad when I couldn’t share my part in parenting really cool kids. I felt like leaving the relationship I had with masculinity completely behind was a betrayal and something I never processed fully. It feels now like something I never dealt with in an effort to magnify my femininity. So, like pretty much everything I do I guess, I’ll just use this little space as a way to work through another thing in my head. I’ll talk about masculinity as a trans woman. I’ll work through it the same way I used to, just in a different body, one that feels nicer to me and one that is ultimately more me.