Marcy's Musings

One of my favorite parts of my job are the opportunities I have to teach and train. One of the first aspects of therapy I teach people I supervise is the difference between content and process. Content is the overt subject of the conversation. For example, a patient/client might complain that they are always doing things for their partner and their partner never seems to reciprocate the kindness. Paying attention to the content only, I might provide some validation and sympathy. “That sounds so hard, you must resent them.” This is great if you are someone’s friend but it is not entirely therapeutic. A good therapist attends to the what is going on in the background. What are the needs being met by this behavior? What patterns are being repeated? For example, a good therapist might ask questions to see if there is some co-dependance in the relationship. One might explore what unspoken expectations this individual has and perhaps work with them on assertiveness. Perhaps they do not feel ...

Throughout this series I have discussed a wide range of philosophies and attempted to create a framework of intellectual humility in which faith and science could co-exist as separate things. There is a certain bit of the practicality of the matter that I feel has been left untouched. My initial goal of starting this blog and this particular series was to stop debating anti-trans folks online and channel my thoughts and energies into something more worthwhile. In the time since I started, I have made a determination that as a trans academic, I am the very opposite of what the anti-trans crowd respects and listens to. In fact, I am the very embodiment of the woke groomer they fear. I also find that engaging in this type of “debate” is too emotionally draining.  Trans denialists and endorsers of “conversion therapy” end up looking at me and accusing me of being “too angry” or “overly emotional.” There is a primary difference between me and them. For them, a “debate” is an intellectua...

  My frustrations with gendered restrooms started long before my transition. To be more precise, they started with parenthood. As a male presenting parent, who was determined to be involved with my children, I quickly became aware of an of an odd form of sexism: changing tables. For some odd reason, most men’s rooms are not equipped with facilities for changing babies’ diapers.   Apparently, women are the only ones that need those. This left me as an engaged “father” with a few limited choices. Either make my wife change all the diapers when we were in public or kneel down on dirty bathroom floors and hope my child did not wiggle off the changing pad I had brought. This led to a parenting experience that me and wife laugh about …now in retrospect. My 10-month-old child had a massive blow out in a fast-food restaurant. We are talking kid goo everywhere all over my kid and all over the wooden high chair and down to the tile floors. So, we had to divide and concur. My wife cleane...