Gabe | What to Expect When He's Expecting

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Note: Due to issues of connectivity, the interview switches between audio and video recording. Additionally, there were several interruptions which have been edited out of the final interview video.

Transcript

[Start Interview]

Vann: Let’s jump right in!

Gabe: Okay!

Vann: Please introduce yourself: What is your name, and how would you describe yourself and the various identities you may hold that you would like to share?

Gabe: My name is Gabe. Do you need my last name too, or is it just like, whatever?

Vann: Whatever—

Gabe: [Baby babbling in background] My name is Gabe and I am a trans man. I identify as gay and male and a dad now! [Laughs]

Vann: So go ahead and tell me, how many children do you have, and how did they come about existing?

Gabe: I just have this one [baby babbling in background] that is trying to tell you stuff right now. [Laughs] I just have one, I had them in February as I said, and I have a husband who is cis. We identify as a gay couple and we just decided to— when we got together, we both agreed that we wanted at least one kid and to see how that went, and we decided to see if we could just do it the easy and cheap way without any medical intervention in the conception process. So that’s what we did, and it worked out after a little bit.

Vann: Just for a little background— and again, feel free to say as much as you feel comfortable with— but were you in the process already of transition [baby babbling] by the time you decided to have your child, or was this pre-transition?

Gabe: Yes. I’ve been, what I would consider, fully transitioned for probably about fifteen years and was on T for most of that time. When we started trying for a baby, I was off T probably for about a year. And once my cycle came back, we started trying for a baby which took about six months.

Vann: That’s relatively short, congratulations! That’s—

Gabe: Yeah, it was a miracle! And I’m old, too, so! [Laughs] It was extra exciting!

Vann: So awesome! That’s great, it kind of leads me into my next question. Did you ever experience any difficulties when you were in the process of conception, in terms of either insurance or coverage or medical care. Did you ever run into any barriers when trying to seek anything related to your pregnancy at a doctor?

Gabe: Well, in the process of conception there was no need for medical intervention at all. That was just “natural” process. Once we actually conceived, there was a lot of hiccups, and good and bad. You know, like, we had good providers, we didn’t have any that were too terrible. But we did have some glitches with insurance and with my work, and specifically how I was listed in my insurance with my work. So that was the first hurdle. Because, as I said, all my documents and everything were changed to male. So that’s when I started asking my insurance— so I worked with a midwife— [to baby] oh no, you can’t touch the keyboard. [Laughs]

So I tried to work with a midwife, and luckily because they deal with billing issues all the time, she was able to walk me through and say, like, “You need to call your insurance, ask for this code, what’s covered,” very very specifically. So I was able to call and check on that, ’cause I wanted to make sure that the way we wanted to do it was all covered by my insurance. And I have good insurance, so I was pretty sure that it was covered in general, but, for me specifically. So I was able to call insurance and basically they had me listed as male, so I had to try and explain to them what was happening, and they didn’t really get it. I talked to a few insurance people, you know, representatives and stuff, and I think what happened in the end— ’cause I went back and forth a few times, and I was lucky enough to be working with a midwife who had a billing person who could sort of go back and forth with me instead of just outright deny it, which is what happens a lot of the time with more corporate places. But, she basically said, “Just keep bothering them and they’ll figure it out.” Eventually what happened, I think— and I’m still not sure— is I think I just got a trans-friendly person on the phone who kind of said— at first I was trying to explain what I was doing, and that male was correct but I needed to be covered for this “female stuff.” She was basically like, “We don’t really have any way to process that,” and kind of pretended to be confused, I think is what it was. Where she was like, “Oh, I don’t really understand, so I’m just gonna put you as ‘Female.'” So that’s what happened on their end. And I have a feeling that that was deliberate, it was just somebody who worked there and knew the loophole of just clocking that— [to baby] what are you doing? Are you trying to stand up next to the computer so you can see it? [Laughs]

Sorry! So, we got through that. Once I was in the system as ‘Female’ I believe, it was— everything was covered as it was supposed to be. We ended up having some complications, which meant that we had to give birth in the hospital. We had to go for check-ups with a more standard medical system. As far as I know, everything went through fine once those changes were made for the insurance. So that was a pain in the butt. I really had to advocate for myself in that way. I think a lot of people would have— I know that my husband doesn’t have the patience for that, so he would’ve given up. [Laughs] You know, a lot of people wouldn’t be able to do that or feel confident enough to do that, but I’ve been going through this process for many years now, I kind of knew— had the confidence to stick to it.

Vann: I think anyone who really braves it out and goes through the whole process of getting testosterone just has that backbone. Like, “I could not be defeated by the medical establishment. I’m gonna get what I need.” And that’s just, kind of like, trained us in advocacy for ourselves I think.

Gabe: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it helps I’m on the board of the LGBT board at work, which is a big deal in advocacy stuff. So it also helped that I knew exactly what our insurance covered and how to process that, ’cause I could speak that language. ‘Cause we’ve had to make reports about it and stuff about it. I was in a good position to test out that system, I think. As much as it was annoying.

Vann: So speaking a little later about your pregnancy, how did you decide to deliver your child? And what factors and experiences influenced your decisions on how you would go about giving birth?

Gabe: So we really wanted to do a home birth with a midwife. As you may or may not know, that’s in a lot of places not covered by insurance, or it’s [baby babbles] covered in a weird way, or, you know, has to be exactly under [baby babbles] code. Basically, what we had was our midwife sort of knew the system [baby babbles] and was like, “Don’t mention home birth. Just ask about these codes, and things should be fine.” So that happens [baby babbles] for everyone that she deal with, I think. We really wanted to— aside from neither of us [baby babbles] really trusting the medical establishment—

[Interruption]

Gabe: [Laughs] We didn’t want to be a part of the medical establishment. [Baby babbles] You know, being trans makes me not particularly trust that system. My husband is black, so of course he doesn’t trust that system. In the end, we— what they would call— “risked out” of the home birth process. So we went to see a midwife for, basically, the first two trimesters, and then the third trimester I had cholestasis, and [unclear] [baby babbles] [to baby] You’re frustrated that you can’t climb that. Try that!

Those are potentially dangerous things. I understand the science, and I wanted to be able to be as safe as we could about it. So we had to sort of give up, and that was really an emotional shitty process where we had to revise our vision of what it was going to be like and what it was going to look like. With cholestasis, you have to be induced early, generally, for both my and baby’s safety. There’s no way to do that in a non-hospital setting. The people that we worked with were very— the midwife recommended specifically an obstetrician, an OBGYN, that she knew would be okay with queer folks. ‘Cause she had a bunch of queer folks— she hadn’t had anyone trans in her practice, but for the most part people didn’t glitch. It was helpful that is was during a pandemic and we were wearing masks and people were kind of distanced a little bit, so when we would go for visits— in the end we had to go like, twice a week for sonograms and stuff— so, you know, we would wear masks, the places we were going weren’t super crowded or anything, so that was helpful. What else? When we went to the hospital, we had a long list of ideal birth requests, and we understood that that usually goes out the window. But one of the requests was being clear about my gender and my husband’s gender and that we didn’t want the baby gendered at all. So when we went for sonograms and stuff, they ask if you want to know the sex of the baby and stuff like that, and we didn’t really care one way or the other so we said “Yes, tell us what it is.” But we didn’t really tell anybody else, and we told people that we didn’t ask. And that actually went pretty well. It was a big note on our chart when we were at the hospitals, not gender the baby, even after they were born, and they did pretty well with that. The rest of the hospital experience was traumatic in a medical way, but not in a gendered way. For the most part.

Vann: So when you went in to give birth, did you know any of the doctors that were there the day of? Were you familiar with the team, or were they strangers?

Gabe: No, almost all of them were strangers. There was one doctor there that we had worked with before and had done some of our sonograms, [baby babbling] but we ended up having to go to Mount Sinai West which is a huge, well-funded hospital in New York. We made that choice, partially because of the gender stuff, we felt like it would be a safe place for that. But also, because I felt like with the amount of funding that they have, that they would have some top of the line stuff. Equipment, and whatever, and doctors. But it’s also a teaching hospital, so it meant that— we were there over three days, or we were there four days. The birth was three days, the birth process I guess. We didn’t see the same people more than twice that whole time. There was just new people in and out all the time, between nurses and doctors and trainees and interns and all of that, and that was not pleasant. That was something that we were specifically trying to avoid with both the midwife thing and with our notes to the hospital.

Vann: Were you ever misgendered at any point by any of the staff during your birth, or was it pretty respectful?

Gabe: The younger staff seemed to get it more. I don’t think there was misgendering that was deliberate from anyone, which was nice. And I have a feeling that— I looked over our notes, the notes that some of the nurses printed out for themselves, which is what we sent to them. We sent it to the doctor to begin with, and then they forwarded it. [To baby] Are you pooping? I think you’re pooping. [Laughs] We’ll deal with that later.

Basically, the gender stuff was in all caps, underlined twice kind of thing. My suspicion was that they didn’t want to get sued, and they made a point of telling everybody that. They were like, “We don’t care about the other shit.” Like, we made requests about what kind of medication I wanted to prioritize, or things like that. Not have a back birth. And all of that went out the window, but they all abided by the gender stuff. ‘Cause I think it was just drove into them that New York State would give me the option to sue them [laughs] if they seemed to be discriminating based on that.

Vann: It’s sad that they had to be driven by the point of law and being sued, but I’m glad that you didn’t have any especially negative experiences with staff members during birth. Because I’ve heard of other transmasc people who have been misgendered in the process of giving birth, and I just cannot imagine the emotional turmoil of being deliberately misgendered in the thralls of having your baby. That just sounds stressful.

Gabe: I mean, to be fair, at the point of actually having the baby. I mean, I don’t know if other people feel this way, but like, I really didn’t give a shit what other people were saying to me. It was just kind of like, “Do what you go to do. Be an asshole, I don’t care.”

Vann: As long as the baby’s okay!

Gabe: Yeah.

Vann: So after the birth, were you able to be marked as your child’s father on their birth certificate. Or did you ever have any issues with custody of your child?

Gabe: On the birth certificate of New York State, it does ‘Parent One’ and ‘Parent Two,’ which is what we have. So I’m ‘Parent One,’ my husband is ‘Parent Two.’ We did make sure that we got married right before they arrived. You know, we got legally married to make sure that there were no custody questions. But that was a step that we wouldn’t have taken otherwise, because it was like— I mean, when we got married, I was like, seven months pregnant. You know, we didn’t have— we still want to have a big party at some point. But it wasn’t like that, it was very— go to city hall, fill out the paperwork.

Vann: So you wouldn’t have gotten married otherwise, if not for concern over custody of your child? Is that kind of what you were—

Gabe: We probably would have gotten married otherwise, but we wouldn’t have rushed it. We wouldn’t have done the paperwork part first, and then, you know, had a big party and stuff later. ‘Cause we know we’re not gonna have a party for like— a wedding where we invite friends and stuff— until the baby is old enough to bring us the rings, I guess. [Laughs] Probably! We would have waited on that if there weren’t questions of whether custody would be respected and things like that.

Vann: So I’m assuming you’ve yet to have your ceremony yet?

Gabe: We had a little ceremony, we just— you know, our two witnesses and our officiant. We took pictures, we exchanged vows— did that kind of thing. But we didn’t invite friends or family.

Vann: Hopefully post-pandemic someday, when things are looking a little better—

Gabe: Someday, yeah! [To baby] You want to watch?

Vann: Hi! [Waving to baby] So my next question is a little broader, but, if you could change one thing about the medical system in order to help transmasculine individuals be more included in reproductive health care, what would you change?

Gabe: I mean, like, everything. The thing that I was surprised by in the process, especially the birth process, but even just the medical stuff leading up to it was that [baby babbles] what is considered “Women’s Health Care” is so atrocious. On like, every count. We were in a great city, in a time when people are pretty aware of stuff, and we still had a shitty traumatic experience with the whole process. With the whole medical system. [Baby babbles] And I think I actually got better care, than like, ninety nine percent of the world, but like, ninety percent of the country, because of where I am and who I am. And the fact that they were a little bit, I think, more careful about the gender stuff meant that they were more careful about some other stuff, too. Like our midwife told us— or our doula told us that like— that’s the other thing, we had a doula which was super helpful for advocacy and things like that. She made sure everybody was gendering properly and everything, ’cause she was able to come to the hospital with us. Our doula basically said, “I’ve never seen that hospital, like, let you be in labor for three days.” Because that was our request, that we didn’t want to rush the process. She was like, “That never ever happens. They usually try and get it done so they can all go home, and I think that they did that because you were so clear about your requests and stuff like that, and because they knew that they might be on the hook for discrimination.” I think, what I would say to make it friendlier to trans people, is just to make it friendlier to everyone. ‘Cause it is not friendly [laughs] to anyone! I mean, I assume it’s a lot less friendly to people of color, and people with different handicaps, and things like that. We do better for everyone, we do better for us, too.

Vann: There’s definitely a lot of discrimination out there, and people that fall at the interlaps of these different identities always have it the hardest, and I see what you’re saying about how it’s all connected. We help everybody, we help everybody, that’s just it.

Gabe: Right. I mean, specifically gender stuff, it would be nice to have any and all options for birth certificates, and have any and all options for insurance. Basically, what we came up against for insurance, and for my work, actually, is just that people telling us, like, “Oh the computer won’t do it.” Which, even the most understanding person that I talked to was like, “The computer won’t do it.” And my attitude, because I was used to advocating myself, you know, was like— this baby is happening. No matter what. No matter whether the computer says it can or not. So you figure it out.

Vann: My next question is a little different, but somewhat related. How did you choose to tell the people in your life that you were pregnant? How did these people react? Your family, friends— later on when your child is in school— parents, at school, or parents that know your child. I’m assuming— your baby is how old? One or two?

Gabe: No, they’re just nine months now.

Vann: Oh nine months! They’re not even— oh, they’re little!

Gabe: Not even a year! [Laughs]

Vann: Aw! Oh, Geez. Okay, so no school yet. So just, family and parents then.

Gabe: Most of our chosen family is queer people, so they were onboard with it. Most of them were really surprised that I would choose that. Partly because of my age, but also it had never occurred to them. I do have a few other friends— other transmasculine friends who have had kids, at least two of them. So that helped a lot, ’cause as soon as we found out, we went to visit one of them and were able to talk with him about his process. [To baby] Oops!

So that was super helpful, he gave us tips on dealing with insurance, and keeping at harassing them until they get it right. [Yawns] My mom, she’s had like fifteen years to get used to me. She wasn’t super onboard at first, but she’s fine now. We have a good relationship. She was very confused [laughs]. ‘Cause she had given up on that idea. I think as soon as I transitioned, she had given up on the idea of having grandkids, and that transitioning meant that I didn’t want kids, and that knowing me, she felt like I didn’t want kids. Which wasn’t really the case, it was just that, I didn’t feel like it could happen for me. Or that I wouldn’t be with someone that I wanted to do that with, or whatever. Whatever her process was, she was very confused. I told her— my husband and I sat down with her, and were like, “We are expecting a baby,” or, “We’re gonna be dads,” is how we phrased it most of the time. And she was like, “Oh. How?” [Laughs] And I said, “I’m gonna have the baby. I’m gonna carry the baby,” and she said— like, it took some explaining. I don’t think she realized that that was a physical possibility, and she definitely didn’t think that it was something that I would want to do. But once that happened, she was onboard, and she figured it out. The same thing kind of happened with his family, where he explained that I was trans and that we were having a baby together and stuff like that, and that— he likes to say he had to get out the whiteboard a few times. To be like, “These are the parts, and this is how a baby is made.” All of that stuff. And they’ve only known me— we haven’t been together for that long before the baby came, so they’ve only known me as male. They didn’t really know that I was trans before that. I don’t know that he would’ve necessarily told them, ’cause it’s not really their business, as far as he’s concerned. [To baby] Good standing up! [Laughs] [baby babbling] Look, there’s one!

For the most part, it was very chill. No one gave us a hard time about it. I think my mom had the hardest time explaining to her friends, ’cause she’s old and all of her friends are old. [Laughs] And I know some of her friends, and they know us as a gay couple. She also had to get out the whiteboard a few times.

Vann: It sounds like you really should just carry around a whiteboard on you most of the time in case things pop up like this!

Gabe: That is what it felt like, yeah. I mean, it was more of a thing when I was pregnant and especially— you know, my mom wanted to have support when I was actually expecting the baby, and she was worried about us and stuff. So she needed to tell her friends, and I respect that. But now that we have the baby, everybody just sort of accepts it, and I feel like most people have just forgotten about this process. Except the baby looks like both of us, so depending on who is with them, [baby babbles] like, if we’re both out with them, people seem to be a little bit confused sometimes, like they’re trying to figure that out. If we’re out with them separately, they say the baby looks like us. Or that we’re obviously the dad. [To baby] Oh, I just spilled your snacks. So it’s a free-for-all.

Vann: Baby thunderdome!

Gabe: Yeah, [laughs] I’ve been doling out little yogurt drops, like, one at a time. But now they’re all on the floor. It’s all yours. [To baby] Here, love. Look at all these snacks! Look! [Laughs] They just want to look at the screen. Here you go. [Laughs] Say hi! Hi! [Laughs] Okay, no more video. We’re gonna kill the internet.

Vann: Thank you, this is just making my morning. Thank you so much! So, I wanted to ask a question about one of the points you brought up, that being that it seems like a lot of people just aren’t prepared for transmasc people to want to be pregnant? Where do you think this comes from? The idea that trans people don’t want children, or that that’s just something outside of our capacity. ‘Cause it seems like, what you said with your mom, that she just expected you to not want it because you’re trans. Where does this happen?

Gabe: [Baby babbling] I think, what I realized, especially being with a cis guy, [baby babbles] and being in a gay relationship, I think people do not expect men to want kids at all. Any kind of men. My husband has always wanted kids, he’s from a big family and that’s important to him. I wasn’t sold on it until I was a little bit older, and for my age— I was forty-three when I was pregnant with them— so I felt like it was a last chance, [baby babbles] going out of business sale! So after that, I was like, I would kind of regret it if I didn’t give it a shot. But in general, even when we’re out— if we’re out with them by ourselves, people always make comments about how like, “Oh, it’s dad’s day of the week,” or “Dad only has to take care of their kid for one day a week,” or “Aren’t you excited to be out with dad, or with papa,” or whatever, like it’s not something that happens every day. You know, people have said, “Oh are you giving your wife a break [laughs] today?” or whatever. Where like— there is no wife, what are you talking about? [Baby babbling] I think that that has more to do with it than anything else. I mean, as far as other trans people and other queer people, we’ve been told for so long that it would make us sterile. I never really considered that it was an option until I saw other people doing it. [Baby babbling]

Vann: So how would you describe your experience postpartum? Were you able to have a lot of time with your baby once they were first born? Were you able to get paid time off? How was the process for you?

Gabe: My work is great about that. It’s not a common setup, but I was able to get four months paid off, which was interesting [baby babbles] because they go by European standards. He was able— this is, again, a New York state thing— my husband was able to take five months off? Because it was a combination of his job and New York State leave, where he got partially paid for some of it, and— I don’t really understand how it worked out, but it did. [Baby babbles] [laughs] Actually, my work is changing their system so that the birth parent will get an extra month. Which would mean that, if they pass that in the next two months, I’ll be able to take an extra month with them. That’s another thing, where I told work, “I’m taking this time off, whether you figure out how to make the computer understand it or not.” They’ve been— however they’ve needed to shuffle that— I think they needed to make me ‘Female’ in the system temporarily, and then switch me back when they were done doing the paperwork, is what they did. But it’s all— it’s like another “Computer says no” situation.

Vann: Were you able to spend a lot of time together in the first few days? ‘Cause I know you said that you were having issues that brought you to the hospital in the first place. Were you able to—

Gabe: Yes. So we were in the hospital for one day after the birth. It ended up being a C-section. They put us— I mean, I’m still not sure if this was due to insurance or due to COVID in general— but they put us in a suite by ourselves, which was really nice. Nice for what it could be [laughs]. We were there for a day and a half after the birth, and we were able to be there together. Our doula was not allowed to be there, as soon as the birth happened, which was shitty, and just is general shitty policy. She was allowed to be in the operating room for the C-section, but they kicked her out immediately after, which was crappy ’cause then we just didn’t see her ever again [laughs] essentially. Like, this person who had helped us through all these traumatic things. We circled back with her later, but she just had to disappear. After that, once we got home everything was fine. We were just trying to get home as fast as possible. It was uncomfortable, there are people in and out. There was some misgendering, I think my husband noticed it more ’cause he was able to go out to the nurse’s station and say like, “Oh I need such and such in room whatever,” and they’ll say, “Oh, is the mother doing this?” or like “How is the mother feeling?” or whatever. And he would have to correct them, but I wouldn’t have to see any of that, ’cause I was just in the room. [Yawns] Then afterwards, we had like a medical thing— I had an infection in the incision, which was miserable. That happened like a week later, so we had to sort of make an emergency call to two of our friends to come over and take care of the baby while we went to the hospital together. So we were there overnight while they took care of the baby, that was like, only seven days old at that point. But that didn’t really have anything to deal with hospitals or gender, just that they do kind of a shitty job with women in general, and C-sections, and bigger people, and all of that stuff. [Baby babbles] [laughs]

Vann: I can’t imagine how stressful that must have been, to only have a week with your baby and have to be emergency rushed off. That sounds very stressful.

Gabe: Yeah, that was awful. That was super traumatic, and we’ve both had to talk to our therapists about it. But, everything’s okay now. There was a long recovery period afterwards because of that infection that was basically like two months of me not being fully functional as far as being able to get up and do stuff. So we had to call in friends a lot. Our family wasn’t really around, and we didn’t really want our family there in the newborn phase anyway ’cause we didn’t fully trust them with taking care of a newborn, [laughs] we trust our friends more. That was a lot of juggling, and a lot of people being really good to us as far as friends go.

Vann: Well, they are like your family pretty much, right? You already said, they’re your found family. So—

Gabe: [Baby babbles] Yeah, they’re my chosen family.

Vann: So, and you kind of touched on this a little bit throughout, but I wanted to ask about how you navigate gender and gender roles in your family. I know that your child’s not necessarily at the age yet where you can talk about gender, but you’ve already kind of explained that you wanted to use gender neutral pronouns, and things like that. So how did you decide to navigate gender in terms of what you call your child, and how you dress your child, and all of those sort of things.

Gabe: So, even before the birth, we talked about not gendering them, and we’ve kind of stuck to it. I didn’t realize quite how important it was to my husband to not do that. Like, I was thinking— the other people that we’ve known, the other trans men that we’ve known that have had kids, basically made a birth announcement that said, “Were being gender neutral, but this is their sex assigned at birth.” ‘Cause people are gonna ask that. So I kind of assumed that we’d use that sort of template when we announce it, or when we talked to family and stuff like that. But my husband didn’t want to do even that, he didn’t want to tell anyone their sex assigned at birth, he didn’t want to tell anyone, give them any clues. As far as, like, how we dress them and things like that, at this stage they— my feeling was always sort of like, clothes are clothes. We’ll put them in whatever. And most of the clothes and stuff that we’ve gotten by this time are hand-me-downs anyway. So, it wasn’t super important to me. We have noticed that— I know that my husband does not like when they’re dressed in frilly-er things. He likes the color pink, but he’ll only put them in pink if he’s wearing pink to show that it’s not a gendered color. I’m less picky about it because I feel like clothes are clothes, and I also have had to have that annoying conversation too many times in my life where I’m like, correcting people about gender. And I just didn’t really wanna deal with it with my kid. But he was really insistent about correcting people and saying that, “They don’t have a gender yet,” and “They’re just a baby,” and stuff like that. And having very gender neutral clothes, but gender neutral clothes are boy’s clothes for kids. Which is another separate messed up thing [laughs]. And the hand-me-downs that we’ve gotten, we’ve gotten boys clothes and girls clothes, and even their— they haven’t gotten to clothes that are above a size one, so they’re not choosing anything themselves. [Yawns] But even at that stage, we got a bag of clothes from someone that was mostly like, half and half. But a lot of the girl’s clothes were basically the boy’s clothes but with little bows on them, and we had to sit around and cut all the bows off, ’cause it was ridiculous. Or like, they’ll have ruffles on something for no reason on something that’s gonna get filthy anyway. It’s just a bunch of stupid shit. Even the pajamas, the girl’s pajamas— like, the zipper is on the opposite side based on gender, like they do with shirts and things— button up shirts. And girl’s pajamas are tighter, like, footie pajamas are tighter for girls, which is super creepy. And like, we notice all of that stuff.

We notice that dinosaurs have a gender for kid’s clothes. Like, carnivores are boy’s clothes, herbivores are girl’s clothes. Like boy’s clothes have T-rexes and triceratops, and girl’s clothes have brontosaurus, and— what’s the other one— stegosaurus. It’s just everywhere, and it’s so unnecessary. Especially at this age, they’re not— they don’t have a sense of any of that yet. So that’s been consistently annoying to us in trying to navigate being non gendered. ‘Cause if we take them out with something will frills on it or a little bow, people say “She.” I mean, people say sort of whatever they decide at that moment, and we kind of just run with it if it’s just a general interaction, like supermarket randos or whatever. They’ll say, “Oh what’s his name?” or “Oh what’s here name?” and we’ll just tell them, ’cause it’s a non-gendered name really to begin with. [Yawns] But if we’re getting to know somebody, or at the pediatrician we have to tell them right away and stuff like that, and people have been pretty good about it. Some of our older relatives especially have a hard time with it, ’cause they’re not used to using non-gendered pronouns at all for anything. But we’re getting there. I’m concerned that once they’re older and sort of more understanding of language, they’re gonna feel like they have to correct people, or be confused themselves. ‘Cause I’ve had to deal with that, and that’s just exhausting. But, we’ll see how they do. [To baby] You still working on those snacks? [Laughs]

Vann: I’m assuming kind of what you’re saying is you’re going to be as gender neutral as possible, and then when they’re a little older, just kind of leave it up to them to decide what they like or what they want to be called? Is that kind of your hope?

Gabe: Yeah, that’s the hope. And I have a feeling that they’re— I’m sure that it will change several times [baby babbling] like for anything with kids, but I think that kids in general know long before anybody else does, and they have an internal sense of it. And once they figure out how to express that, then you just can roll with it.

Vann: I have this really funny video, actually, from when I was like two years old I think? And it’s a video of me and my older brother— and my older brother asked me, “Is your name Savannah?” Because that’s my dead name. And I straight up, as a two year old, replied, “No!” And—

Gabe: [Laughs]

Vann: And I really think kids be knowing! From a young age, people don’t think that they have that awareness, but I really think they do. Do you remember what age you started to think about your gender and how you wanted to present?

[Interruption]

Gabe: Yes, go ahead.

Vann: Oh, hi little one! Oh, hi! Hi!

Gabe: [Laughs]

Vann: Hi! Oh, they’re so happy!

Gabe: Hi! They love seeing people on screens. [Laughs] We don’t know if that’s good or bad, but—

Vann: Oh, I think that’s a good thing. They’re very social already!

Gabe: [Laughs] You know, right from the beginning we have video calls with grandparents and stuff like that. So I think they assume that if somebody is talking on a TV or on a computer screen that it’s an actual person that they know. ‘Cause a few times we’ve been out at restaurants and stuff and they see newscasters and stuff and they’re super excited, ’cause they’re probably thinking, “Which one of my relatives is this?”

Vann: Oh my gosh, they just think that they’re related to everyone on TV?

Gabe: Yes! [Laughs]

Vann: Oh, that is so cute. Before we cut out, I was asking about what age do you think we were when you started thinking about gender, and what you identify— or how you wanted to present yourself?

Gabe: I’m sure I was thinking about it early. I just didn’t have any sense of that being an option. There was no media around that, like in the 80s when I was growing up. I didn’t really start knowing about trans people, definitely not trans men, until I was at least late late teens, early twenties, when I started hanging out with more queer folks. I identified as gay when I was in high school— as a lesbian when I was in high school. I knew something was different and that I didn’t subscribe to the usuals. [Baby babbles] And I was happy with that— with my identity for a long time. Then after a lot of working things out for myself, I decided to transition, and that was a whole new deal. But as a kid— yeah, my mom tried to keep things a little bit gender neutral, ’cause she could tell that I was not super into super girly stuff. But you know, I grew up Catholic so we had a communion when I was in second grade, and had a big flowy white wedding dress type thing [laughs]. My husband saw that picture and he said that it was like I was about to be sacrificed in a cult. But, yeah, that kind of stuff. And I didn’t mind— like I liked dressing up, I liked playing dress up. But it felt like playing dress up. Like, it felt like wearing fancy clothes for fun. And in general, I remember being a kid— and because I went to Catholic school when I was real little— so I must’ve been in second grade, and the girls had to wear little dresses. Like, skirts. And I must’ve somehow lobbied to not wear a dress, because they— like, for super cold days in the winter, they allowed the girls to wear pants, [laughs] but they were a special type of pants, or like a plaid print pant. Which I think would be awesome to have now, but I obviously lobbied to be able to wear the pants more often than the skirt, even when it wasn’t a super cold winter day. I don’t know, it was there, I just didn’t have any language for it, for sure.

Vann: I wanted to ask, do you feel like any of your experiences of being gendered early in your life influenced how you decided to raise your child?

Gabe: Yeah, I guess all of them. Especially— I don’t know. It’s like, everywhere. It’s everything. I feel like being raised a girl affected me so early, I remember things like asking— my family was really into sports and really into baseball, and I remember having a playtime where I was like, “I’m gonna be a baseball player!” And somebody being like, “You can’t be a baseball player.” You know, or astronaut, or president, or any of those things. I was just flat out told, “Girls can’t do that.” So obviously—

[Interruption]

Gabe: Oh, was I disconnecting again? Let me try without video again.

Vann: I know, I’m so sorry we have to do the back and forth.

Gabe: There we go.

Vann: What were you saying, though? The last part cut out.

Gabe: I think that the last part was that, you know, a lot of what I was told was, “Girls can’t do this” and “Girls can’t do that,” so obviously that’s gonna affect everything that I do in terms of gendering my own kid. And also seeing the boys in my family being told that they can’t cry, or that they have to be like assholes. [Laughs] ‘Cause that’s actually my experience.

Vann: So I think I wanted to get a little bit back into some of the questions I had written out, and they’re not as much related, but I was wondering about how you chose to navigate chestfeeding. If you considered attempting to chestfeed, or if you were more interested in formula or other options?

Gabe: Right. So I had top surgery about— I had top surgery in 2008. So, a long, long time ago. During pregnancy, it’s kind of everybody’s guess what kind of tissue is there or whatever. But for myself, there was no growth or anything like that, and I had a double incision with nipple graphs. So I know that my nipples aren’t really connected to anything. So I knew that that probably wasn’t an option, and I think that that would have made me very dysphoric— that process. I do feel like, especially with COVID and with vaccinations and stuff, that [baby babbles] breast milk was conveying a good amount of immunity, especially in the first few months. I got a booster vaccination at about seven months pregnant, which they said should help with their immunity, also. [Yawns] But we also— I have a friend who gave birth about two months before me, and she is a breastfeeding advocate anyway. And she knew that she would have an oversupply ’cause it was her second kid, so she gave us a donation of breastmilk. She basically donated the first three— at least three months so that they could have breast milk on hand. And then, since then, they were able to get a COVID vaccine, and a bunch of other vaccinations by six months, so it’s a little bit less important now. But it’s also a lot cheaper than formula, and during the formula shortage it was a lot easier to find.

So we’ve pretty much kept up with donor milk, and there’s different ways of doing that. Mostly, like Facebook Marketplace— or, not Marketplace, but Facebook groups. There’s a bunch of area-specific groups for people who have extra breast milk and want to donate it, and people who need it for various reasons. Sometimes kids don’t take formula very well, [baby babbles] or like, specific needs or whatever. So we’ve been on breast milk just about nine months. We’ve started— in the past month, we’ve started using formula off and on because it’s kind of a pain in the ass to find people [baby babbles] to donate at this point, and have to go out and pick it up and have freezer space for it, and stuff like that. And I was looking for a more natural formula [yawns] so I wanted to get the Bobbie brand, which is like, I don’t know— I guess has less crap in it. But they weren’t producing enough, because they got really popular because they weren’t affected by the formula shortage. So we were able to get a subscription to them just a few weeks ago, so now we actually have about fifty/fifty formula and breast milk. And they’re starting to eat foods now, so it’s like, they’re actually consuming less of it anyway. But that’s been an amazing thing, and because we know people who are advocates about chestfeeding, we were able to be informed and navigate that, too.

Vann: In terms of feeding duties, is it sort of evenly split between you and your husband, or do you primarily do the bottle feeding?

Gabe: No, we pretty much split it evenly. What we have split is— or how we’ve worked it is, I’m a night person and he’s a morning person, so we’ve just split it time-wise. They don’t really associate feeding with either one of us, it’s just sort of like what happens at different times of the day. So, like, I’m on night shift most of the time, and he’s on the day shift most of the time. Today was his first day back at work, so we’re at a new job. So, this is the first time I’m doing a full day with them. Or one of the first times, we’ve taken vacation days and stuff.

Vann: So, how did you feel about pregnancy and parenthood before transitioning versus while on HRT? ‘Cause I remember you said that you were kind of unsure until later in life, so what do you feel like changed for you in terms of being able to see yourself as a parent?

Gabe: I think that, at least, as far as the stuff that changed later in life is knowing friends of mine and knowing other queer people who were parents. And specifically men who were not terrible [laughs]. ‘Cause my experience with my family and in media, also, is just that men are terrible parents and— one side is nothing is really expected of them as parents, but also that they’re idiots most of the time with kids [laughs]. Or, you know, in my family— or in a lot of people I know’s families— that there’s shitty abusive men in their family. So, it took a while— many, many years, I think— to [baby babbles] [laughs] see men who weren’t bad dads. And physically the idea that I could carry a kid, it wasn’t even on my radar until I started seeing other trans men who had done it. And at that point, I couldn’t really imagine it for myself, but mostly because I couldn’t imagine— like, I didn’t want to do it by myself. I didn’t really have a sense of— I didn’t really have much hope for relationships. It had less to do with parenting. Like, I didn’t wanna be single and do it, but that’s what my mom had to do. [Baby crying] You’re okay! You’re fine.

Vann: Are they okay?

Gabe: I think they just caught their foot on the chair when I picked them up.

Vann: The life of a baby sounds so hard, first you bonk your head! Then you—

Gabe: [Laughs] It’s so up and down! They’re little psychopaths! They’re smiling and laughing at your video now.

Vann: Aw! It’s just rapid cycle!

Gabe: It is a rapid cycle! [Baby laughing]

Vann: Oh, oh my goodness. I think this kind of falls into my last question— unless you had any more you wanted to speak to about your feelings about parenthood and transition.

Gabe: No, it kind of just wasn’t on my radar for a long time. And it wasn’t on my radar as something that was physically possible, because, I know now they tell us that— not to treat T as birth control and whatever, but I definitely did that. And I got very lucky, I assume, in not being pregnant before! ‘Cause I wasn’t not sexually active during those times.

Vann: So, my last question, and I think you’re gonna love this one ’cause you’ve got a little one right now with you, what is the best thing about being a parent for you?

Gabe: It’s all pretty cool so far! It’s hard. It’s a very different perspective on the world that I have now. It’s a different perspective on other people who have kids, especially younger people who have kids. Just seeing ’em figure stuff out, I feel super privileged that I’m in a relationship and we’re happy to be part of it equally, and that we can both see— there’s features from both of us in the baby. Which is something that I never thought was important before, and I still don’t think it’s important, just, I’m more happy about it than I realized I would be. Because I’m happy to see pieces of the person I love in their face, and vice versa. And it’s been super confusing a lot of times in queer spaces, because almost no one that we know— I don’t think anyone we know, actually— who’s queer and has kids that look like both of their parents. And I’ve had friends of mine basically say that they’re kind of jealous of that, that they can’t see their partner’s features in their kid’s face.

[Interruption]

Gabe: Sorry, yeah. We’re in the building playroom. Which we’re super lucky to have.

Vann: Oh, so like—

Gabe: So somebody was cleaning— yeah, it’s a communal thing. So somebody was cleaning the windows.

Vann: Aw! That’s sweet.

[Interruption]

Vann: So I think those are pretty much my questions. I wanted to open it up to give you space if you had anything you’d like to share? Like I said, this is an oral history project, so I’m hoping to be able to bring to light whatever you’ve gone through that you would like to share with people to help others see themselves in you, or to help just share knowledge generally about what it’s like to be a transmasc parent. Do you wanna have any final thoughts or wisdom you’d like to share?

Gabe: [Baby babbles] Make the healthcare system better! [Laughs] That’s like, for everyone’s benefit! It’s so awful! I don’t know, I’m not a super advocate of kids, especially with the world that they’re being [baby babbles] born into would be kind of shitty, in a lot of ways. But it is nice to know that they might be part of a solution to stuff, too. And that we can be an example for the world that we want. That men aren’t shitty parents, and men can have kids, and hopefully raise kids that are functional in society and helpful and good.

Vann: Amen!

Gabe: Amen! [Laughs]

Vann: I’m a hundred percent with you, I’ve definitely considered what it means to be a transmasc dad, and the thought that the kids we have grow up in a family that doesn’t really see gender the same way as the children of cis people. Just, inherently by being the child of a trans person, I feel like they kind of have like, an in to see the gender binary as not something that’s necessarily natural or biologically determined and those sort of things. And I think that that’s a really cool perspective, to be able to grow up always having that awareness of gender, to some degree. Even if it’s not something that’s spoken verbally, it’s kind of something in the back of their heads, I bet. Do you have any thoughts about that?

Gabe: Yeah, I think that that’s true, and I think I can see that already in this one. That anatomy— that they’ve noticed that we have different parts, like when we shower with them and stuff. It’s all new to them anyway, but like, [baby babbles] I can see that there’s a point at which they’re gonna be like, “Why is that different?” or “What does that mean?” or whatever. I think that they’ll just intrinsically know that the parts don’t determine gender or personality or who you are or whatever. And that’s just sort of built into the system that we’ve created. So I think that that’s going to be good and important for them.

Vann: It’s built into all those computers that the insurance people say they can’t change! [Laughs]

Gabe: Exactly! [Laughs]

Vann: Oh geez, I had another thing I was going to say— Oh, I was going to say, I would love to be able to do a follow up interview, maybe in like a couple years and see how things are going, get updates, if that’s ever something that you’re interested in, I think that would be a really cool way— not even necessarily for this project, but I just would love to hear how your family’s doing [baby laughs] and get updates on how things are going. Especially [Redacted], you’re going to be such a socialite!

Gabe: [Laughs] Yeah, I’m totally down for that, that would be really cute.

Vann: Hi baby! Oh! Hi! Hi!

Gabe: [Laughs] Yeah!

Vann: Oh, you are so cute [baby babbling]. I don’t even need therapy anymore, this is good enough!

Gabe: [Laughs] Yeah! Baby giggles are the antidote!

Vann: Yes! The serotonin I didn’t know I needed! I’m gonna go ahead and end the recording now!

[End Interview]