David Minerva Clover

The way we as a society discuss genitalia is already messed up and confusing. When the word “vagina” is used to mean everything from, well, “vagina” to “vulva” to “the entire female reproductive system — yes, even including the ovaries,” it’s no freaking wonder we don’t know how to talk about this stuff.

When I finally realized I was trans, it was after almost a year and a half of therapy, a lot of trauma, and after becoming a parent.

Babies, while awesome in so many wonderful ways, do not give a single shit if you really need another hour of sleep. If the baby is up, you’re up. So we were up.

In today’s world, children may be a financial liability, but that shouldn’t make them a luxury item.

Thin women can overeat, and it is seen as a quirk, or a one-time indulgence they deserve, or even proof that they aren’t anorexic. Fat women though? We are expected to constantly prove that we’re doing our best to not be fat.

I mess up and do things very differently than I want to sometimes. When that happens, I have one rule for myself: I stop and apologize to my kid.

People might raise their eyebrows when they hear me say “snowperson” for the first time. But it makes perfect sense. A man is just a kind of person.

Faced by the extreme pressure to conform to impossible beauty ideals, I followed my instincts (and my budding feminism) and rejected them wholesale. I wasn’t going to play like that; I wasn’t going to let my gender require that I wear makeup or perform a certain way.

My kid, who turned three the day after Mary the duckling died, wasn’t old enough to get any of it. Yet talking to toddlers about death is part of life.

I stand at the ready to remind these adults what ought to be common sense: mind your own plate. Stop policing how kids eat!