Asexual Awareness Week - Celebrate with us!

 Ace With a Place! 

Celebrate Asexual Awareness Week With Us!

Meet & Greet – Wednesday October 25, 6-9 pm

We will be meeting at OutMemphis for board games, snacks, and chats. Feel free to bring your own game and/or snacks; we will have some already if you just want to bring yourself!

Flag Raising Ceremony – Saturday October 28, 1 pm

Join us at OutMemphis as we raise the Asexual flag on the lawn, and add the flag to the other pride flags over the entrance.

What is Asexuality?

Asexuality is a sexual orientation just like homosexuality, bisexuality, and heterosexuality. People who identify as asexual typically experience a lack of sexual attraction or low or absent interest in or desire for sexual activity. It isn’t a choice like being celibate; asexuality is usually a stable identity. Asexuals may desire intimate romantic relationships that may include lots of forms of physical touch like hugging, kissing, holding hands, and cuddling. Their romantic relationships may be homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual, and they may be monogamous or polyamorous.

Why this group?

People who identify as asexual face significant societal stigma that frequently prevents them from being able to be out about their identity or to explore the possibility of being asexual. While there are groups online where asexuals can connect for support and camaraderie, there is a significant barrier to meeting other asexuals face-to-face. We want to change that by creating a group at OutMemphis that will give asexual-identifying individuals a place to go and be with other folks who understand them. We intend it to be primarily a social group, but we also want people to have a place where they can find support either dealing with or exploring the possibility of being asexual.

Use #AceMemphis to share your Ace pride and connect with others in the Mid-South area

Happy Coming Out Day! Or is it?

Recently we had National Coming Out Day, which is held annually on October 11. For folks just coming out it can serve as momentum for doing perhaps the most exciting (and scary) thing in their life. For those of us who have been out for a while, it's a day when we can reaffirm our sexuality and maybe joke about how, dang it, I don't get to come out anymore because everyone already knows.

However, for those who aren't out for fear of losing their family, friends, jobs, housing, children, lives, it can be a day that serves as a reminder that they have to continue to live a lie, one which ultimately is deleterious to their health.

If you are an LGBTQA (sexual/gender minority) child or adolescent who is stuck in the closet, please know that it will get better. There will come a time when you will be in a position to come out, even if your family will not support it. If you are an adult who feels stuck, please find ways to come out, even if it isn't in every aspect of your life. Sometimes we have to choose our families when our family of origin doesn't support us. While this is horribly unfortunate, if your family doesn't value you for who you are, please know that there are many folks who will be happy to be your chosen family, and give you the support you need to be your true self. Please don't hide your true colors, we need you in this crazy, sometimes confusing and scary, but ultimately fulfilling world of sexual and gender minorities. Please reach out to me if you want some therapeutic support in being your authentic self.

Trans Kids: Is that really a thing?

Currently we see posts online about transgender kids and adolescents - some of them are positive while others are brutally negative. The bottom line of the negative posts is typically something about kids not being able to know their gender and the dangers of allowing kids to take steps to express their gender in a way that feels right. Is it appropriate to let kids live as they experience their gender?

At this time I am working with a lot of transgender adolescents as well as some transgender kids. Not only is it appropriate to let them express their gender as it feels right to them, it is imperative that we allow them to express themselves, and not try to dictate how we think they should live.

There are two broad aspects of transitioning: social and medical. Social transitioning entails things like how we dress and cur our hair, what pronouns we want people to use to refer to us, what name we want to be called by, how we interact with the world. Medical transitioning includes hormone blockers, hormone therapy, and surgeries.

When we are talking about transgender kids and adolescents, we are talking primarily about social transitioning. There is nothing damaging about letting a child with a penis wear dresses and be referred to as she. Most of the transgender adults I work with have known from a very young age that they are trans, just as cisgender adults have basically always known they are cis. Our experience of gender is something we are aware of from a very young age, and no one except ourselves can know how we really feel. It is true that occasionally a kid expresses themselves as trans for a while, and then decides that isn't right for them. They go back to expressing themselves as their birth sex/gender, and no harm is done. For the vast majority of trans kids and adolescents however, they do not make such a decision and continue to live as a trans individual.

As far as medical transitioning for kids and adolescents, we are talking primarily about hormone blockers and occasionally about hormones (for the older ones) but never about surgery. Hormone blockers basically shut down puberty, but are completely reversible. If a child thinks they are transgender, it is appropriate to use blockers to stop the changes that happen with puberty. For biological males this prevents their voice from dropping or facial and body hair from growing, both of which are hugely problematic for transgender female adults, who then have to deal with erasing these things in order for them to pass. For biological females, blockers prevent breast development, which then eliminates a surgery later in life. If it is determined that the child no longer wants to continue with any sort of transitioning, the blockers are stopped and puberty picks right back up. No Harm Done.

For older transgender adolescents, hormones are sometimes started. This is never done without a huge amount of exploration, work with a therapist and oversight by a pediatric endocrinologist. This too is the right decision for adolescents who have lived as their experienced gender enough to know that it is the right step for them to take. Great care is taken before starting them because they do cause permanent changes, particularly for trans male (voice dropping and hair growth).

Yes, trans kids is really a thing, just a trans adults are a thing. We have the ability to take steps, both medically and socially to help kids who are transgender navigate their world in a comfortable and healthy way. These kids are some of the bravest people I know.