Gender Hacks: The Transition Toolkit
Does Everybody Know What Time It Is??
There is a much-rumored second part of transition. The problem is that in order to get through it, you gotta have the right tools.
This is the part of your transition that comes if you stick with it and cultivate your authentic self. You finally — FINALLY — experience existence as yours was meant to be. You learn not just how to find relief from pain, but how to cultivate joy.
You’ll need two essential toolkits.
- First Aid Toolkit
- Euphoria Toolkit
Tool Time=Transition Time
In the phenomenal book You And Your Gender Identity: A Workbook, the non-binary gender identity therapist Dara Hoffman-Fox walks readers through how to build a First Aid Toolkit.
DARA’S TOOLKIT TIPS
1) Make it something you can actually hold in your hands (i.e., not just a list of ideas you keep somewhere). 2) Organize your toolkit before something happens that wounds you — that way it is ready for you if and when you need it. 3) Add to your toolkit as you continue to learn more about what it is that helps you feel better after you’ve been emotionally and/ or mentally injured. You And Your Gender Identity: a Workbook By Dara Hoffman-Fox (Page 201)
It’s just what you need in the early days of your transition. For physical wounds, we know to reach for bandaids. Ointments. Herbs. But for transition wounds?
You need stuff that helps you heal the wounds you suffered before you found gender-affirming treatment. Stuff that keeps you healthy if (when?!) you get hurt again.
Stuff you’re gonna need in the roughest parts of your transition.
The First Aid Toolkit
“The system tells us to build up our armor. Be resilient. When what they really mean is, be tough. And the armor we build, while it may make us tough, is perhaps the opposite of true resilience. The toughness gets in the way of resilience.” — Jennifer Lycette, “How Toughness Is Setup For Burnout” (offsite link)
Our health is a kind of First Aid Kit in itself. Holistic healthcare — as my favorite doctor friend and medical thriller author Jennifer Lycette points out — is as much about cultivating health as it is with treating disease.
It’s about being present for yourself and those around you. The joy of the struggle, the struggle of the joy.
Lean, as they say, into the poetry of it all.
You have your First Aid Toolkit ready. Now it’s time to cultivate some Euphoria.
The Euphoria Toolkit
Here’s just a few items, reminders, and behaviors you can put inside your Euphoria Toolkit.
- Film a video of yourself saying affirmations to the you who will be listening
2. Learn the language that describes your existence (which may not be words, eg music, pictures, sounds, dance)
3. Keep a page of what you were taught about gender vs. who you are discovering you actually are
4. Write a card to yourself saying “Who I Already Am Will Always Be Trans Enough”
5. Keep a Rubik’s Cube in your pocket to assess where you currently are on the gender continuum
6. Write in a journal when you find phrases, behaviors, and situations that make you feel validated as your gender
7. Listen to music
8. Sing in the car/shower/Karaoke
9. Play an instrument
10. Engage in physical activity as able (suggestions: yoga/pilates, walking, Tai chi, stretching, weight lifting, running, martial arts, Zumba, cycling, hiking, dancing, internet trolling)
11. Meditation
12. Light a candle or incense
13. Cook or bake for yourself
14. Cook or bake for others
15. Watch a favorite TV show
16. Watch an old favorite movie
17. Watch a new movie
18. Your favorite book/movie/video game
19. A bottle of nail polish (just looking at it can be enough in a tough spot)
20. A bath bomb (just smelling it can be enough in a tough spot)
21. Volunteer at a community center
22. Knit/Sew/Crochet
23. Take a nap
24. Eat a snack
25. Take photographs
26. Do puzzles/brain games
27. Tarot cards
28. Take a deep breath, drop your shoulders as you exhale
29. Make a music mix
30. Write code (nerds unite)
31. Listen to comedy (no TERFs allowed)
32. Cry
33. Perform a sacred religious ceremony
34. Clean your living space
Vulnerability Cultivates Visibility
What my patient had, I remember thinking, was the true definition of resilience. From the beginning, they’d been open with their diagnosis and treatment. They’d allowed all these people to be a part of their journey. To see their struggle. They didn’t try to hide what they were going through — to “tough it out.” — Jennifer Lycette, “How Toughness Is Setup For Burnout” (offsite link)
In the most crucial steps of our transition, we aren’t merely enduring until we feel pain again. A wholehearted life teaches us how to let go of compulsive relief so that we can cultivate deliberate joy.
Running from pain will always results in addiction — at least when our lives are dedicated only to relief from dysphoria.
We deserve to run toward joy, too. We deserve a breath that may only come because we give it to ourselves when no one else will.
To put it simply, we all deserve a little Tool Time.
NOTE: This article was written with reference to the workbook that proved essential in my transition: You and Your Gender Identity: A Guide to Discovery — primarily pages xxxi, xxxii, 95 — by non-binary gender identity therapist Dara Hoffman-Fox (offsite to Amazon)
