David Minerva Clover

The Trump administration plans to define trans people like me out of existence. How can I keep my trans family safe now?

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.

There’s just no getting around it, and other than one half-hour spell where he sat with a good friend of ours while both of his moms took a swim, one of us had to be with him the entire weekend. And let’s be honest, because I’m “boob mom” and he was nursing even more than normal, it could never really be divided 50/50. All of that was fine, but it was often just fine, and there’s just no denying that it was a very different trip than it would have been without a kid.

I think kids and parents need old school trick-or-treating. I think it has a value far greater than the sum of its candy. I love trick-or-treating!

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

I had always considered myself to be extremely body positive. I loved my body! I had several close friends who were fat activists, and I was working hard to be a good thin ally. But despite all of that, I wasn’t ready for the changes that were happening in myself.

To knowingly include stories with deeply problematic themes strikes me as just adding fuel to the fire.

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.

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 don’t want to deprive my child of these magical Halloween memories, I just also want to light candles and talk about our ancestors.