Two Headed Girl
Episode 8 artwork
Episode 8 · February 5, 2020 · 00:49:50

8. Constant Grind: Q&A

This weekAlex and Mattie answer listener questions!
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Alex and Mattie answer listener questions!

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MattieHi, I'm Mattie Cox. And I'm Alex Cox. This is a show about gender, our minds, and all sorts of transitions. Welcome to Two Headed Girl. so we asked you our listeners to send us any questions no matter how uncomfortable or invasive that you wouldn't normally be allowed to ask any queer person but we were like hey

Alexthrow them at us hit us with them we got so so many questions thank you and we're not going to be able to answer them all in one episode, we'll definitely do another one down the line. We got a lot of questions that were fairly similar. And we also paraphrased a bunch of questions because some of them were very long. And some of them were not questions. They were just comments, which was actually okay in this case. Normally, don't ever do that. But we said,

Mattieanything you want. Anything goes. They were also really nice. Yeah. Thank you for all the kind comments. Some of the questions we both decided to answer, and then there are some of those that apply more to Alex or more to myself. So we kind of divided them up into those three categories.

AlexYeah, let's get going. All right, Mattie, how did you know that you were trans?

MattieOh boy, let's just hit it hard right out of the park, right? Well, I want to give a short answer that isn't a million minutes long because we've kind of already talked about this in a previous episode, in the first episode, actually. But I just never really felt secure in my gender, especially during puberty, starting around, well, high school, actually. And I didn't really think about it too much.

I was more focused on my depression and getting my mental health centered. So I didn't explore gender expression until much later when I was in college. And I cut all my hair short, and I was like, gay, rainbows everywhere. So it was a very long journey to get to the, oh, I am trans. And initially, it was because my friend was transitioning, and I felt trans jealousy. And I needed to explore that feeling and kind of figure out what was going on in my own head. And I explored

all the YouTubers and like the Tumblers and that whole like trans community online before it really

Alexsort of clicked. For me, I still don't really know whether I'm not. This is so this is the worst first question, but it was actually the first question we got. So I thought, you know what, let's just get to it right out of the gate. And I've come to accept that I am at least gender queer. If you look at me, obviously I'm gender nonconforming, like, and I'll say it a million times, but androgynous blob, but also there are boobs. I do, there are two key moments, well,

three. When I would say in the sandbox, you know, tell my mom and my dad, I'm half boy, I'm half girl, I'm half alien, because I didn't feel like a boy or a girl. And that just, you know, turned into what I thought was lesbianism. There are two other things, though, in my adulthood that kind of really sparked more of my gender exploration. The first being Transgender Dysphoria Blues by

Against Me because the lead singer and founder of the band, Laura Jane Grace, came out as trans and she's just a boss ass bitch. And it spoke to me more than any of their past albums in a way that you know how you just sort of feel something deep inside and you're like oh no oh wow okay oh oh man uh yes and it makes you both excited but nauseous at the same time that's kind of how

I was like all right something's going on here um or rather it confirmed for me like okay at least one other person in the world has these feelings and the second was the poem slash spoken word piece called your life by andrea gibson which kind of speaks for itself it's one of the

Mattiemost beautiful things i've ever heard and please pause this and go listen to it and or listen to

Alexit afterwards. Yeah, I just sobbed through the entire thing. And you're not I'm nodding and sobbing and nodding and sobbing. So it was Yeah. I feel like your answer was so much better than mine. No, I got too deep into this is light and breezy. I think the next question you should answer. What is your best advice for dealing with family who won't respect your transition?

I came out almost a full year ago and no one in my family even attempts to use the correct pronouns.

MattieIt can be really tricky when you're dealing with unsupportive family. And the thing is just to assert yourself more and more. If you're comfortable confronting your family and being like, hey, these are my pronouns. This is my name. You have to use them. Like, it hurts me when you don't. I think the more firm you are about it, especially if you talk to your family about using your pronouns and name when you're not there so they get the practice, that is what's most important.

Do you have any advice on how to safely and responsibly experiment with pronouns or gender expression?

AlexI really think you should start with the people that you love and trust. so your friends your family your partner go to them be like hey this sounds a little weird and it's not weird but if you want to say it sounds a little weird you know I feel ya I did the same thing uh you can say I'm gonna try using they pronouns can you do that for me and also uh I'm gonna go by let's say uh it's me and I would say I'm gonna go by Lexi which is something I tried

to do to sound straighter. It didn't work out. And just be like, let's try this. Luckily, it's much more normalized now. But if you don't have anybody close to you that can fulfill this, one, that sucks, and I'm sorry. But two, I really suggest doing it online. It's almost like a role-playing game. People pretend to be fictionalized characters on the internet. You

can be yourself. You can be many versions of yourself, depending on what community you're in. Be someone on Twitter. Be a girl on Twitter. Be a boy on Tumblr. Do you do you and just feel

Mattiewhat's right. That was a very good answer. Thank you.

Alexthis next question we cut down a lot but it's basically two parents asking we're expecting our daughter but we don't know if we should say yes my child is female and how should we deal with that. I think that it's not a huge deal. Like, I think if you are saying to people, my child is

non-binary, that's also making an assumption about them. Gender isn't real. It's a big old made up mess. And you just just don't project your feelings about gender onto them. Like, obviously,

Mattieyou can say they're female because as a baby, you know, the child doesn't know any different. But don't force them into like everything is pink. Everything is feminine. Gender is a construct. Have green. Have purple. Ask family members for like not just all pink stuff for when they're born. You can set up an environment early on where there is a spectrum of gendered stuff around them so that they don't feel forced to choose one or the other.

AlexAnd if you're still really worried about this, choose a name that is gender neutral. Is it okay to ask someone how they chose their name? I'm always so curious about it.

MattieMy short answer is definitely not. Unless the person brings it up, you should not ask it all. That is a really inappropriate question. So if you're in a conversation and no, I don't even need To add to that. That's it. Yeah, just know.

AlexAnd a lot of times when you're close to people, they will just offer up that information. Like, you know, it's like, hello, I am Reginald III. And then once you get to know them, you know about Reginald I and Reginald II. I don't know. Just don't do this.

MattieThere's a follow-up question that asks, how did I choose the name Mattie?

AlexAnd that is okay because we said, ask us anything.

MattieRight. Exactly. Alex actually helped me choose my name because they did not like my original choices. Would you like to say what name choice you didn't ask there, Alex?

AlexI don't want to say what the name is because I don't want anybody to feel bad. I just had really negative associations with a TV character that just happened to have this name. And I was, oh, God, you should. What I did was terrible. It was a mistake. But I'm like, you can't do that. You can't do that. So you had Matthew and a few other names. And I liked Mattie the most because it was you'd be able to go by Matt in areas where you wanted to present as a binary guy. And Mattie is more androgynous. Also, it's cute. And I like saying it. So I really should not have had any input. But that's where we were.

MattieAnd that's just kind of how we work.

AlexI love this next question. I find trans FTM people very attractive. Is that offensive? I have seen mixed feedback online regarding being attracted to someone you know is trans. Is it creepy? I don't think it's creepy. I think that everybody has a type, if you will. like if you are gay you have a type if you're straight you have a type and i i mean i don't know like even now when we're watching like tv and i'm like oh that person's hot usually i'm like

is it because they look like me and then i then it clicks and i'm like oh all right okay so you

Mattiecan make it creepy but just like don't be creepy about it there's a great essay about this that

Alexwill put in the show notes that a trans woman wrote. She goes into it in a way that I had never thought about it before because I'm not a cis guy who loves trans women. I'm a queer whatever the

Mattiefuck. Oh, the next question is for me. Is there any good information about figuring out if you're non-binary? I'm identifying less and less with the thing a man is and actually feel pretty gross with some of the things that are supposed to be, quote, manly.

AlexWell, there's this podcast. But also, of course, there are many resources. We'll put them in show notes. I like this workbook. There's a few ones by Kate Bornstein. And it's kind of just, it's more of a journal, honestly, and prompts you to just talk to yourself about your gender and how you like to present yourself. One thing that stuck out to me in this, though, is the idea of being grossed out by things that are manly.

Masculinity in itself isn't toxic. And that is, I think, a really dangerous misconception. And this is from the person who always says how much they hate men. when someone gets surgery to add a penis, do they get to select size and shape?

MattieWell, yes and no. There are different types of bottom surgery, and I'm not going to get into all that right now. But when they get phalloplasty, which is one type of surgery where they take a graft of skin from the arm to create a penis, that is the surgery where they get to select the size and shape. What is the other one? A toyoplasty. There are two really great trans YouTubers that talk about both types of bottom surgery, and we will link each of their videos in the show notes.

Alex, do you feel any obligation to have representation from the Black trans community, which experiences extremely high murder rates each year. And do you ever wonder if your race has made your transitioning experience easier? Thanks, Smiley Face.

AlexAbsolutely, 100%. Fuck yes. The original leaders of the queer movement were trans women of color. You probably wouldn't be hearing this podcast if it wasn't for Marsha P. Clark, who was an activist and just an all-around boss-ass bitch. And, you know, I often think about the ballroom culture, too, in the 80s and 90s. Watch Pose. Please watch the show Pose.

I mean, wow. It is, man.

MattieWe literally wouldn't be sitting here recording this if it wasn't for trans women of color.

AlexYeah, especially black trans women. I think we always need to be reminding ourselves how we got here and how our queer grandmothers made this space for us, basically. And as for our race, yes, it's way easier to be white. That's terrible. It sucks.

MattieI mean, I literally present as a cis white male.

AlexYeah, yeah. Yes, it doesn't just make transitioning easier, but it makes life easier because people have a lot of assumptions and hangups about people who are queer or trans, but not so much when, you know, there's not a ton of hangups about this person's white. So again, always, always, always trying to remind ourselves about, always, always, always trying to remind ourselves of the amazing queer women of color who came before us.

MattieIs there a difference between gender and sex?

AlexYes. Gender is an identity or an expression, whereas sex is what you are born with. However, it is a misconception that there are only two sexes. It used to be you come out of a pussy, you're a boy, you're a girl, and you're given, yep, XX chromosome, XY chromosome. But science has come along and said, oh, wait, wait, wait, there's way more nuance to it than just X and Y.

And we'll get an actual scientist on here to talk about this because I think it is fascinating. But it's not just our chromosomes. It is also, you know, what our genitalia looks like because, you know, it varies widely. And there are also people who are intersex that sometimes have two sets of genitals. Like science is wild and it's awesome. And the way that people are starting to understand gender as a social construct, we're starting to unpack sex as a scientific construct and learning.

We're learning more and more about it. Mattie, what's the number one piece of advice you'd give to someone wanting to be a better ally?

MattieListen to the queer people in your life and make space for them and raise them up. Don't be the voice for them. Let them talk. And also educate yourself like Google. Don't expect the trans or queer person in your life to tell you everything about everything.

AlexYeah, not every trans, queer, gay, straight, whatever, like, no one's a walking Wikipedia of gender and sexuality.

MattieAlso, we don't all have the same experiences, which Tan France mentions in the trans episode of Queer Eye. He's like, I literally had no idea about this part of the queer community. I had nothing, no knowledge. So educate yourself and lift up the voices of the queer people around you.

AlexBasically, I would say that they're being a better ally right now because somehow you are listening to this and good job.

MattieListening and educating yourself.

AlexThis one's definitely just for you. What does it feel like when you first go on tea? Did you get angrier or hornier? Yes and yes.

MattieGoing on tea is second puberty. You are literally, your body thinks you are growing again. So you need more sleep. You're getting mood swings. You're hungry all the time. Your libido swings. The anger thing is problematic because people think, oh, yes, men, er, testosterone, angry. That's not what happens. You don't hulk out. You're having hormone swings just like you would in a normal puberty. So it's not like I'm angry all of a sudden. It's like, no, you're having mood swings like you're a teenager again.

AlexAnd they can be happy.

MattieYeah, exactly.

AlexRelated to that, this question is, could you say something about the interaction of having sex and having dysphoria about one's genitals? What is it like to pay attention to a partner's parts that they're not wild about or have attention paid to parts that you have an ambivalent or otherwise complex relationship with?

MattieOh, boy. Wait, wait. I got this. Let me do it.

AlexYeah, you go with the first part.

MattieI have a lot of feels.

AlexI know.

MattieAsk and communicate with your partner really, really, really well. ask what parts of what you should refer to the parts of their body as like like chest or bits or

Alexwean or or dick or butt or pussy or cunt or glory hole i that's not one of them there's

Mattiea really great scene in work in progress where chris the the trans boyfriend of the main character slash dyke abby texts her what words he likes and he says dick and hole and chest like so don't assume anything let your partner tell you what they want those parts to be called and this isn't

Alexjust for trans people i think like we should always talk about these things you know i i guess you know I don't know like some women don't like it when someone is like oh yeah love these titties was that me motorboating I don't know what that was so yes communication in bed is key whether you're trans or not what is the scariest part about transitioning oh it is definitely different

Mattiefor everybody. For me, it was social transitioning and being accepted. I was not afraid of the medical side effects of tea or doing my shots. And some people, like every time they inject testosterone, they get really worked up and anxious. And for me, that's just not really a thing. So specifically for my transition, it was social transitioning and being accepted by my family, by my friends, by my extended family, and having to come out like over and over again

to strangers. And that being a situation where I had a lot of anxiety, like when I had to come out to my mechanic because I had been seeing him and going there before I identified as Matthew and had to change my name there. So it was definitely the social part of transitioning for me.

Alexthis is this is a fun one um i i guess we can both answer this what is the worst act of discrimination you've suffered oh you first honestly here's the thing i could talk about the like really bad things like someone took a bat to my car I've had my driveway vandalized

and actually all this was in in high school you know I've been called a fag and a dyke and another t-word that I feel like it's not my place to say but the worst I think it's not like one specific thing it is the constant like microaggressions of being beaten down like as a non-binary person and and still like a non-binary woman and like however I'm perceived

by cis men in the tech and like media fields it's exhausting I am so so exhausted all the time about the assumptions that people make and along with that too which I I wasn't going to be super honest about this and I don't know why but I'll just say it having to go through that personally with, you know, with all of my Catholic friends growing up, being told that you're a...

I was never told that I was a monster by someone close to me, but I was told that I had a demon inside me by multiple people and that I was possessed by sin. And that sucked. I don't know. It's something that I'm still processing and I think about it a lot. How about

Mattieyou? Mine are really different than that and don't seem as impactful right now.

AlexYeah, but it's different for everybody. Like the physical acts of discrimination, I don't feel as

Mattiebad about. I have two that come to mind. And one was when I was first transitioning at work. And I worked in the service industry and people, I had a name tag on that said Matt and people over and over again would ask me, are you sure that's your name? Are you sure that's your name? And give me like a knowing look. Like it basically felt like they were saying you're pretending to be a man. You're pretending to be someone you're not. and that just dealing with that working a shift for eight hours a day and hearing that over and

over again like you said the microaggressions like that was just awful and I'm so freaking

Alexglad I don't have to deal with that anymore I mean the one thing that both of our answers have in common is that it's the constant grind of having to feel like you need to justify your

Mattieown existence. Yeah. And the second one was particularly hard. And it was, why are you on hormones? You're basically going to end up like someone who is in a freak show.

AlexHow would you suggest that someone deal with that? Like when I know that you were told that

Mattieby someone close to you. It really hurt me. And honestly, I didn't deal with it in the moment because I couldn't and stay close to those people. But honestly, it was literally and still is something I used to think about on a daily basis and now something I think about on like a weekly basis because it hurt me so bad. And the only thing that really helped was talking about it to people close to me and in therapy.

AlexSpeaking of therapy, what role has therapy played in your lives? Have you ever gone to couples therapy? I will say that I have had a very complex relationship with therapy my entire life.

MattieOh boy.

AlexJust, I didn't have a lot of great therapists when I first started getting treatment for being bipolar. And that was, you know, like they see someone who is queer and it's like, okay, are you mentally ill because you're gay?

MattieAre you genderqueer?

AlexWhat's up with you? I was considered sick because, you know, at the time I knew that I mostly like girls and they wanted to focus on that instead of the, you know, chemical imbalance that was going on in my brain. Eventually, I had some better experiences. Right now, I'm going through a rough situation where I'm trying to get myself into gender therapy because my psychiatrist, who I've had for almost a decade now, a wonderful man, is really like, okay, this is a new thing that you need to deal with.

And you agree with him.

MattieMaybe a little.

AlexYeah. And we have not been to couples therapy, but I kind of assume at some point we will.

MattieWe've talked about it.

AlexYeah. Because, you know, when your partner suddenly, not suddenly, but, you know, when your partner changes gender, that's a whole lot to deal with. And we thought about it. And I think that we will at some point. And it definitely shouldn't be like stigmatized. Like why not go to couples therapy? Yeah. Take care of your relationship.

MattieMy relationship with therapy has been really different. I've had great therapists. I've almost been in therapy steadily for a decade. This year, it'll be 11 years. I think I only took like, like a 10 month break in therapy over those 11 years. and at first treatment was about my mental illness and getting stable and then it became in the past three and a half years two and a half years it became more about gender I am a teacher at a public high school and I want to know if you have any extra advice on how I can

best signal to my trans students that I support their preferred pronoun and put them at ease in

Alexmy class? First of all, thank you for being a teacher. I don't know how you do what you do.

MattieYou're awesome. Thank you for being a teacher that wants to support trans kids and make them

Alexfeel safe. That is amazing. I mean, just the fact that you're aware of this, you know, is a huge step forward. And there's a time and a place to ask for pronouns. Maybe you share your own pronouns, or you have, you know, I think school is actually one of the times where when you're going around introducing yourself, like, my name is Bob, my pronouns are he, him, and my favorite thing is

chess or you know something something like that yeah don't make gender the center of their identity but just be aware of it and you already are so good job how do you balance your own mental health when you are helping your partner with theirs

Mattieshort answer is therapy you cannot take care of your significant other if you have not first taking care of yourself. You can't take care of anyone else if you haven't taken care of yourself. You have to make sure that you've gotten enough sleep, that you've eaten food, that you've taken those meds, that you've hydrated before you can even think about taking care of another person in your life. And the best way to do this is just have good communication and make sure that one of

you tells the other person what you need. Like, hey, I'm having a really bad brain day. Can you help me wash the dishes hey i'm having a really bad brain day can you let me sit

Alexand play pokemon go on my phone i wonder who you're talking about there let's just keep going with the therapy questions um was transitioning or thinking about gender sex ever something that was suggested to you in therapy um again before for me yes it was How about you?

MattieNo, only because.

AlexOh, what?

MattieYeah, well, only because I for I want to say like a solid eight years only focused on mental illness and addiction because that's what ran in my family. So it was at first a really hard and fast focus on mental illness. And then once I got a little more stable, hard and fast focus on alcoholism. And then once that all got settled, my therapist was like, hey, so this gender thing. So it's definitely a long journey to get to that part.

AlexHow has making this podcast and being so publicly candid been good for you?

MattieOr I would say, has it been good for us? I would say, heck yeah. It has been nothing but positive to me because I wear my heart on my sleeve. I am very open about who I am. So I did not have any anxiety going into this other than, I guess, editing and making sure that I could keep up with being a content creator and like push myself to stay creative and not fall away from it or let the project die because it's our baby.

It's my baby. And I really wanted to keep making it to help people. So for me, it feels like it's really therapeutic. And great, because I get to work with my spouse and my best friend.

AlexI think for me, being able to say what I've known to be true out loud has been a lot more powerful than I expected. Just hearing myself say, like, I'm non-binary and hearing people's responses to that has made me feel less alone and it makes it feel more real.

MattieWhat would your advice be to a guy who has a little bit of dysphoria about his penis, but is otherwise fine with his masculinity?

AlexOh boy. Well, neither of us have penises. So, first of all, I think you, again, like you cannot go around asking people, hey, I see that you're trans and you also have a penis. How you doing? But if you're okay with your masculinity, you might want to try looking into body dysmorphia, which is a little bit different than dysphoria.

So, you know, you might have some body issues and not necessarily some gender issues because sometimes they go hand in hand and sometimes they don't. But hey, good luck and thank you for reaching out. Do you ever feel something like trans imposter syndrome?

MattieHell yeah. I mean, yes. Every queer trans person I feel has that moment where they're like, fuck, am I trans enough? I see this all the time, all over the internet, all over the YouTubes, all over the trans and queer communities where it's like.

AlexAnd on the opposite side of your couch.

Mattieand on the opposite side of my couch ah funny because because that's the patreon show that's

Alexthat's the patreon show and i am the one on the opposite side of the couch yes i used to ask

Mattiemyself this all the time until i went into gender therapy it's am i trans enough why am i transitioning so late in life was this a thing like oh all the time so to get over it honestly i just had to talk about it a lot because I think it was a big anxiety of mine and always like looming in the back of my mind. But since I've started hormones and started transitioning and I'm basically done with my social transition and I don't really question it or feel that anymore. How about you,

AlexAlex? For me, obviously, the answer is also yes. But doing this podcast has been a part of me addressing this as well as, you know, hopefully me getting into gender therapy and realizing that it's okay, I'm fine, this is a normal thing for me to feel.

MattieLooks like this one is for you. When someone non-binary asked me to use they them pronoun instead of he him or she her, should I continue to use the grammatical singular, i.e. they is, or is it correct to use the grammatical plural they are even if it's only one person it is correct

Alexagain correct in quotes there uh to use they are think about it as how you would use they if you didn't know the person's gender um i don't know why this example is always referenced like it's the umbrella you know it's like when you say oh they left their umbrella here or they are going out and they went out they must have gone out into the rain like just you don't say they is

going out into the rain yeah yeah so uh honestly just go with your gut and don't be a dick next one is for you how long ago did matt come out to alex and to matt's family what was matt's experience coming out to his family oh boy i came out to alex back in september of 2017 wait only two years ago yeah wow wow yeah and you can hear all about that in our first

episode. But how did it go when you came out to your family? I also came out to my family over

Mattietext. Clearly, I am great. You did not learn your lesson. Clearly, I am great at in-person confrontation, if you didn't notice. But I waited until I was nine months on hormones. And I did it over text when we were in another country. I do not recommend that to anyone. But it eventually went well. I could say in the long run that it went really well because I still have a great relationship with my parents and I didn't get disowned by my family. So overall, it went well.

AlexWhat does good queer and particularly trans media representation look like?

MattieI am so happy for this question.

AlexWell, the answer is back our pain. We are always talking about this in our bonus show on our Patreon called Opposite Sides of the Couch. And I would say that, you know, there are a lot of ways to positively present queer people in media. but mostly right now I'm just happy when they get rid of stereotypes like the lesbians don't

always die and you know there's not just a token gay best friend stuff like that their whole identity

Mattieis not I am the queer and that's just their character or it's not like the big reveal that

Alexthe person is gay oh yes oh my god so pose pose pose pose watch pose oh and work in progress progress too my new favorite show one of my pose and work in progress both like oh wow i just

Mattiebut in the show notes we should put a list of books because i feel like we have a bigger list of positive trans and queer books. Hey Alex, how do you identify your gender?

I'm sorry, did that question make you highly uncomfortable?

AlexWell that's, you know, only what this show is about. I recently did a talk, or I did a media piece, I don't know, I did this thing talking about how I don't know really how to identify my gender, which is why I just say I'm genderqueer or I'm non-binary because I'm like, dude, I don't know. That's, that is my answer really is I know I am not a man or a traditionally feminine woman. I've never felt that way. I am, I know I'm a

broken record on this topic and I'm figuring it out. Here's one for both of us. How do you both identify your sexual orientation now? Has it changed since Matt coming out as trans?

MattieI mean, kind of, sort of, yes and no. We don't go around saying we're big, giant lesbians anymore.

Alexwe never did i mean we kind of did no i mean not in a serious not in yeah not in a serious way i i would say that like um well that's the thing is you are you're bi and i you know i mostly liked girls and continue to mostly like girls but i i just say that i'm queer because they're you

MattieWe both just say we're queer.

AlexYeah, because I've been attracted to trans women. I've been attracted to trans men. I'm honestly not attracted to most cis white men.

MattieGee, I wonder why.

AlexI wonder why. I have many types. Actually, no, I have one type, and it's a Mattie. That's not just to flatter Mattie. It's that.

MattieI am their aesthetic.

AlexYou are. You are my aesthetic. How can you respect the privacy slash right to disclose to a trans acquaintance that hasn't come out to you that you know they're trans and you're okay with it? The reason I'm saying this is because even as a gay man, whenever I talk to him, I talk to him as a man, but we ended up talking about childhood. The conversation clearly was uncomfortable since it was before his transition.

It is much easier now after we added each other on Instagram and clearly stated that he is trans, but for reference for future trans friends slash acquaintances. Okay, it seems like your friend is an out trans man. You know what I mean? It feels like you just happen to have an awkward interaction, which is OK. Like, I honestly don't think that this was because of gender. I think it was just because maybe they thought you were making an assumption or you thought that they thought you were making an assumption.

Like it I mean, one, if they're not out publicly there, don't make any assumptions. Like if you think that they're trans or because you said like you knew they were trans, don't. Don't assume anything.

MattieYeah, that's terrible. Don't say I know you're trans. That is a horrible thing to say.

AlexI know you're trans, but I'm okay with it. No, like if.

MattieThat's not okay.

AlexWhy? Unless someone expresses something to you, you know, like you might want to ask yourself, Why do you need to tell somebody that you're okay with trans people? That should be the default.

MattieActions speak louder than words. Trans people are just people. We don't want to be identified as that trans person.

AlexThis is a tough question. What advice do you have for a doctor in training who treats kids? It often screws up the flow of interviews to ask everyone about pronouns when you get a lot of huh. And I find myself having to gauge do I think this person might be on the spectrum and appreciate the question. But that also feels like I'm stereotyping patients.

MattieI a lot of medical forms now have an option to write down your preferred name or your preferred pronouns. I see that more and more, even just like going to the regular doctor's office or a clinic. They say like preferred name, preferred pronouns. So I would make sure you like look that over.

AlexI also think just like the teacher who asked this question, similar, you know, question, the fact that you're just aware of this is huge. And, you know, you said doctor and training, and you might not have a lot of power right now, but think about the power that you will eventually have to put those standards in place in case there isn't, you know, a form asking what pronouns a person is using or what their gender is.

MattieDid you get married knowing that math through transitioning was a possibility?

Alexyes but i don't think you knew that i knew that that is correct as i've talked about before on the show i had an inkling that you had some gender stuff going on um because i knew i had some gender stuff going on but it wasn't my place to talk about it with you yet and i don't think you needed to talk about it with me yet? Like, I just wanted it to happen in your own time.

What do you think would be useful things to consider for others in queer relationships when one finds that they need to transition? Honestly, I think communicating about it

Mattieright away. I would say don't do what I did and hide it and ask everyone except your partner what they think. I would say try to go, if you're doing your own gender exploration and need to do that to feel comfortable before you come out to your partner, that's really cool. But be direct and straightforward and talk about it with your partner and have an open dialogue. And hopefully they'll understand and they won't shut down right away. But I mean, that could happen. So I would say

give them space and time if that does. If the worst scenario happens and they shut down, give them space and time. But ultimately, just try to have an open line of communication and

Alexdiscuss it. I agree. It can be really hard. And I know that some people don't agree with this. But I think that if you are coming out to your partner, you should sort of give them some slack. like think about how hard it was for you and think about how you know it's not that it's more difficult for them but it's you know they don't know what you're thinking they can't read your mind so even though I had some I had an idea that you were exploring your gender I you know I I

didn't know what what that was going to mean or what that was going to look like also you could

Mattiehave been like thinking about it for months and months and had this whole idea solidified in your head but they've only been thinking about it for those like 30 seconds after you've come out so definitely time and space

Alexwhere did the nickname matchy come from do you know Mattie it came from alex messing up my name on Dubai Friday. So if folks haven't noticed, I have a bit of a stammer a lot. It's not so much a stutter. Well, except what I did right there. But I tend to stammer and stumble over my words

a lot. And I don't always like to edit it out because it's just part of my speech patterns. and I was talking really quickly about you and I guess I said Matchy and my co-hosts were like, who's Matchy? And they were kind of teasing me. Bastards. No, but it was just a cute nickname and it kind of stuck.

MattieAnd now they call me Matchy.

AlexAll right, last question.

MattieThis is a deep one. It's very hard.

AlexYep.

MattieDoes each vagina taste different?

AlexYes. We really appreciate you checking out this episode of Two Headed Girl and sending in all of your questions. If you're enjoying the show, share it with a friend or leave us a review. We're not sure how it helps people find the show, but it definitely does. You can also find us at patreon.com slash twoheadedgirlfm, which directly supports the show and our trans health care costs.

Find us on Instagram or Twitter at twoheadedgirlfm or email us at twoheadedgirlfm at gmail.com. If you'd like to hear more, head on over to twoheadedgirl.fm or subscribe anywhere you find your podcasts, including our favorite independent app, Overcast, made by Marco Arment, who has amazing taste in bottled water.

Thank you.

8. Constant Grind: Q&A 0:00 / 00:49:50