Maëlys McArdle

Author: Maëlys McArdle

Transition, Two Years Later
It’s been almost two years since I made the following comment:

I’m currently spending lots of my time questioning how I see myself, in particular in relation to my body. I identify as male, that lines up with my sex, I use male pronouns, and have a mostly masculine gender expression. I don’t expect that to change. Nevertheless, there are parts of me that really don’t jive with that. So I’m exploring.

If I divulged that on this blog, it means that I had been thinking something for a while and I thought it might go somewhere. Of the three main digital platforms I write about myself in, this blog is the most sanitized. Prospective employers read this, for instance, so anything too personal is usually omitted. For me to then talk about gender incongruity was a big step.

A little while I made that first comment above, I informed you that I was pursuing hormone replacement therapy. Then that my name was now Maëlys and that my pronouns were she/her. I later disclosed that I was self-administering hormone replacement therapy, frustrated of having waited on legitimate channels for a year to no avail.

I documented by evolution in 2013 with the following explicit selfie essay:
- January: Tucking whenever my crotch is visible.
- February: Realize that while I strongly dislike using my own junk, I’m really fine with using a strap-on.
- April: Start to bind. Can’t explain why at the time.
- August: First bra.
- August: First bra bought without having someone there with me.
- August: First skirt. Ignore the stain.
- August: First public outing in girl mode. Photo credit goes to Eliot Waddingham.
- September: Start shaving legs, then eventually arms.
- September: First gaff.
- December: First time in women’s washroom.
That I’m topless in most of these has to do with my never having been comfortable with my body before this point and finally embracing it. Part of that had to do with my body-image issues around weight, but also the dysphoria I hadn’t been aware that I was carrying until it started to dissolve with transition.

Through this two-year stretch I legally changed my name, changed my sex marker on my driver’s license and health card (still waiting for those in the mail), moved twice, dropped out of school, quit a suffocating job and went to work for a start-up, came out to my immediate family, my friends, and to work. I froze my sperm. I nuked my Facebook and Tumblr profiles. I went low-contact with my parents and as it stands they do not know where I live.

I eventually started hormone-replacement therapy. It’s been five months now and there’s been noticeable changes. Breast growth – I’m perhaps an A now. My hair isn’t greasy in the morning anymore. I’m no longer producing semen. I’m still exclusively read as male in public, but my comfort with my body has grown to heights I never thought were possible.

The last two years in particular have opened my eyes. I thought I understood what transphobia looked like. I went to a trans march three years before I came out. As it turns out, I had no idea. It wasn’t these overt display of hostilities, so much as the constant grinding away of people by those with power over them. I became interested in communicating part of those difficulties to the sexist/transphobic/homophobic eighteen year old me. I wrote a few pieces.

I also made the comic below. It doesn’t speak to the institutional difficulties, because I’ve been lucky. My friends have dealt with schools refusing to change their name, causing them to be outed to their class and not wanting to be there. They’ve dealt with provinces that said they couldn’t change their ID without undergoing surgery – even if there is no medical need for that surgery and they don’t want it. Not being able to change their ID means that they’re outed every time they show it. That makes getting jobs that deal with vulnerable peoples, which is what they went to school for, impossible. Being outed still means being treated very poorly in so many fields. There are so many stories of them turning to higher ups in each of these institutions for assistance, only to be met with resistance and things not changing.

Anyways here’s that comic, my latest attempt to communicate my thoughts on tranphobia:
January 18, 2015
Radical Queer

Author’s Note: This post was in my drafts and never published. Putting it up now, some two years later.

I identify as a radical queer. “Radical” is a big scary word, so I thought I’d go into what that means.

In contemporary North American culture there exists people whom I call “the othered.” These are people whose rejection from society is actively encouraged. In that group there are trans people, who are under constant attack from propaganda dehumanizing them. There are non-binary people whose existence defies society’s very narrow tolerance for departing from gender conventions. There are polyamorous people, asexual folk, intersex people, sexually active women, sex workers, fat women, seropositive individuals, victims of sexual assault, and so many more who are ridiculed and rejected by society.

If you want a concise list just turn to Cards Against Humanity or even Apples to Apples and look at the options there. You’ll notice that the people they let you pick on are the same ones that everyone already picks on. Ready to ridicule midgets, trannies, or the homeless again?

Which brings me to the current rights narrative. When you look to the end goal for gay rights organizations, and increasingly trans rights organizations, they are not interested in having a society in which everyone is valued equally as a participant. What they want is for them to be in on the joke. Remove their card from the Cards Against Humanity deck, but keep all those others in there.

What ends up happening is that the lobbying by professional rights organizations advocate for those from “the othered” who are the best candidates for assimilation within society. “We’re just like you!” Those organizations never end up advocating for the others. Professional gay rights lobbied for marriage and adoption, but then was all but silent for the elderly queers, young homeless queers, queers who are victims of assault from inside their communities, disabled queers, and pretty much everyone else except for a small sliver of people. Which not coincidentally in order to be accepted by society had to be “good gays” : affluent, monogamous, working age, middle class, able-bodied, and white. There is always less tolerance for diversity in the newly assimilated others – they have to be homogeneous in other ways. The gay thing has to be the exception.

As a radical, I don’t believe in cherry picking. I want everyone to be regarded in society as fully-fledged people. That’s the “radical” part of my beliefs. That also means that I view the entire structure of society, which at every level enforces this rejection of people, as flawed. That goes from newspapers, to who gets elected, to what goes into movies. The end goal I see is change at every one of these levels.

December 27, 2014
Witnessing Life Be Stolen From The Wonderful

I’m scared that some of the most wonderful people I’ve come to know won’t be here in five years.

They share stories of abuse and I bear witness to a creeping apathy to life. I see them become numb to the words of kindness from those who love them. I see those who love them feel so small because they know they lack the power to make it right.

Life is slowly bled out through mundane interactions, each seemingly too insignificant to act upon.

Simple tasks are hindered at every step. Walking outside. Attending school. Going to work. Seeing family. Hanging out with friends. Shopping for clothes. Going to the washroom. Interacting on social media.

Looking between myself and my friends in the last year, there’s been regular street harassment, multiple assaults, continued parental non-acceptance, denied medical care, denied access to education and employment discrimination. I live in a world that hurts some of the sweetest most gentle people I’ve ever known because of the minority to whom they belong.

You don’t have to know my friends to know this is going on. Just look at the environment we live in. Our government likens us to sexual predators. Both national newspapers blast our acceptance. Multiple provinces force trans people to undergo sterilization. Our local publicly funded schools ban projects that talk about us. Our religious leaders publicly admonish tolerance of our existence. Entertainment ridicules us regularly; I see transphobic remarks in television and film about every two weeks. This is all right now in 2014 and it informs how people are to treat us. The result, the predictable outcome of life being made impossible to live, is that we’re dying in large numbers in Canada.

I’m tired. I’m tired of seeing individuals use their authority to encourage this violence towards us. Not that they’d even recognize it as such. Our gender was never real to them so any harm that comes to us from undermining that is seen as self-inflicted. I’m tired of these actors being so quick to wish hardships on others that they’ve never known themselves. I’m tired of all the fellow party members, editors, family members, administrative staff along the way who could have stopped them but chose not to. An action unto itself.

I’m tired of seeing them spew their deadly vitriol under the pretense of fair debate and religious freedoms and find everyone be seemingly satisfied by these empty arguments. I’m tired of all those who stand silent now knowing they will one day turn around and insist that they stood with my friends all along. Who will believe it’s coincidence that they only spoke out once it became fashionable and a boost to their social standing to do so.

We’re taught to expect evil to be draped in hate. It’s not. It’s far more banal. Those who do this evil to us don’t hate us. They don’t even know us. All they’re running on is this image they’ve made up of us. Their prejudice is such that they have no interest in amending that image with reality. When conservatives want to find out about trans people, they don’t attend trans community events, consult those who work with trans people, or ask trans people about their lives. They turn to known hate groups who don’t know anything about trans people other than their own unrealized fears. They act against this imaginary foe. The fictitious nature of their opponent leaves no place to appreciate how real people are then harmed. They continue to engage in evil because imaginary foes never go away. Imaginary foes are always strong and immune to harm, not the weakened gentle souls of my friends.

Sometimes evil is even more mundane. It takes the form of apathy. Where people with power over our lives believe their own life experience to be universal and therefore regard any particular action on account of our differences as an unreasonable imposition. They wouldn’t have such needs, so why would we. Existing barriers consequently remain firmly in place; to employment, to education, to medical care.

I feel so powerless. After all, what can I realistically achieve. I can just pick up the pieces after the harm’s been filtered down to the realities of the every day. Console my friends, visit them in hospital, make them dinners at home, talk to already sympathetic politicians, write blog posts to the audience that needs it least, and chant in marches that only those who attend will remember.

I just love my friends so much and I’m tired of seeing them hurt over and over. I guess saying “please stop hurting these wonderful kind people” wouldn’t mean anything huh.

December 13, 2014
Peanut-Free Peanut Butter Cookies
I realize “Peanut-Free Peanut Butter Cookies” is a contradiction. I figured people wouldn’t know what to expect if I called them “Sunflower Seed Butter Cookies.” Nor would those seeking a substitute for peanut butter cookies when someone they know is allergic find this. So Peanut-Free Peanut Butter Cookies it is.

The magic ingredient here is sunflower seed butter. I find it has a very similar taste and texture to peanut butter.

Peanut-Free Peanut Butter Cookies (Original)
- 1 Cup Sugar
- 1½ Tsp Molasses
- ½ Cup Sunflower Seed Butter
- ½ Cup Butter
- 1 Large Egg
- 1½ Cup Flour
- ¾ Tsp Baking Soda
- ½ Tsp Baking Powder
- Dash Salt
- 2 Tbsp Sugar
1. Preheat the oven to 375 F.
2. In a large bowl, cream the sugar, molasses, sunflower seed butter, butter, and egg.
3. Stir in the flour, baking soda, baking powder until mixed.
4. In a small bowl, place the 2 tablespoons of sugar.
5. Make 3 cm balls with the dough and dunk in the sugar mixture. Then place on ungreased cookie sheet, about 8 cm apart.
6. With a fork, press down on each cookie ball to make a criss-cross pattern.
7. Bake 9 – 10 minutes or until light brown.
8. Let cool for at least 5 minutes before removing from cookie sheets.
Notes

They really do taste like peanut butter cookies. The base recipe is decent, but I might try to find one so they can be thicker next time.
December 13, 2014
Vegan Apple Pie Bread
Bread Dough

The bread recipe is irrelevant, the one listed below is one I’ve been working with. Pick one that works for you.
- 3 Cup Unbleached Flour
- 1¼ Cup Water
- 2 Tbsp Oil
- 2 Tbsp Sugar
- 1 Tbsp Black Sesame Seeds
- 2½ Tsp Yeast
- 1 Tsp Salt
1. Throw all the ingredients in a bread machine and put it on the ‘dough’ cycle.
2. If you don’t have a bread machine, here’s instructions on how to do it by hand. Stop at the point where it asks you to put it in the oven for a second rise.
3. Roll out the bread dough in a large rectangle.
4. Let rise for an hour. You can skip this step but the bread will be more dense.
Apple Pie Filling
- 3 Apples
- ¼ Cup Vegan Butter
- 2 Tbsp Sugar
- 1 Tbsp Molasses
- 2 Tsp Cinnamon
1. While the bread machine is working or the bread is rising, peel and dice the apples. Make small cubes.
2. Place the apples and all of the filling ingredients in a sauce pan on the stove top.
3. Set to medium heat and cook until you don’t hear a crunching sound when piercing the apples with a fork.
Putting It Together
1. Set the oven to 350 F.
2. Use a knife to cut strips along the long side of the rectangle. You want to go about a third of the way towards the center (see pictures.)
3. Place the prepared apple pie filling in the center that hasn’t been cut up. There’s going to be a melted butter mixture remaining in the sauce pan, take care to not pour it in with the filling.
4. Next fold in the strips to braid the bread. Start by folding in both ends. Then fold in each strip, alternating sides.
5. Finish off by brushing the outside of the braided bread with the melted butter mixture.
6. Bake until golden, about 15 minutes.
Apple pie bread.
November 9, 2014