David Minerva Clover

[CN: PTSD, pregnancy, birth] Something snapped inside me and I was transported backwards in time.

I learned binge-watching Mister Rogers that he wasn’t just being comforting, he was rephrasing many of the things I was hearing in therapy.

It is worse to be fat shamed because thin shaming is often just fatphobia in disguise. Let me say that again for the people in the back.

But what I did write, and write constantly, were diaries and journals. I kept notebooks and three-ring binders filled with observations about my life that I thought were interesting. Sometimes I worried that these personal stories were too naval-gazing, but I still held on to them, hoping that someday someone would want them.

One of the most insidious things that patriarchy does is the complete and utter devaluation of anything that is considered “women’s work.” Not only does patriarchy limit what women (and all trans and nonbinary folk) can do in the world, it also takes what we do manage to do and tells us it isn’t worth anything.

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.

After the solstice, the light very slowly begins to return, and every day is a little longer. Yule is a promise: winter sucks, but spring will come again.

A human being does not go through an experience like that without getting to know themselves really, really, well. I learned more about myself than I could have ever imagined. Today, I am going to share some of those lessons with you.

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.

I expected it was only a matter of time until someone sent it my way. I mean... friends have even called my relationship with my wife “inspirational.” [...] [O]nce I noticed that I still hadn’t been invited, I started to notice something else: Everyone that I saw posting “love your spouse” pictures was straight....