I'm transgender, and transitioning has made me a better parent - Insider

With this unexpected surgery, I was given anesthesia and pain medication that I did not want to pass down to my child through milk and ended up discontinuing chestfeeding the day of my surgery.

We also talked about polyamory and both started dating additional people; we feel hopeful of the possibilities this new path holds for our child, the potential for being raised by a community of people who love and care for them as parents.

As a queer, trans, and disabled person, I've spent years trying to hide from shame, and I'm still working to understand that it's something placed onto me by others.

I am not what many think of when they imagine the perfect parent; those people often arrive at judgments about how my identity influences the health of my child, but those conclusions don't have anything to do with my relationship with my child. .

Finding resources created by parents like me has been so important, as has reading books where I can see transness represented in parenthood.

As is the case for many people, I've spent the past few years largely interacting with folks online.

When I started sharing my story of going through pregnancy and parenthood, I found many other queer and trans parents going through similar struggles.

Creating the family I want has also meant cutting off those in my life who aren't willing to respect boundaries and show up in ways that feel supportive.

This has happened in a number of ways: I've had family members blatantly refuse to correctly gender me, disregard my parenting choices such as using gender-neutral language to refer to my child until they're capable of communicating their experience, and put me in unsafe situations near people who are harmful to me.

When I started intentionally cutting off those family members, I was made to feel bad for upholding those necessary boundaries.

Sometimes it means finding safe spaces around town where folks will be respectful and excited about our queer family, like the local library.