Vodka Yonic features a rotating cast of women and nonbinary writers from around the world sharing stories that are alternately humorous, sobering, intellectual, erotic, religious or painfully personal. You never know what you’ll find in this column, but we hope this potent mix of stories encourages conversation.
“Mom, is this progesterone?”
The smooth, tan, oval pills gleamed in the fluorescent lights of her hospital room. I had been fishing through my mother’s purse to find her regular medication, one of the small reminders of life outside the sterile walls of this beeping purgatory. We had found ourselves there after a pain in her neck suddenly morphed into an almost incomprehensible nightmare: stage IV liver cancer.
I recognized the progesterone. It had been added to my regimen of hormone replacement therapy around six months earlier in addition to my daily anti-androgen and my weekly injectable estrogen. As the conversation unfolded, I came to learn that she also used synthetic estrogen as a part of her ongoing routine of care. We have both used these medicines to feel like ourselves in our bodies, and yet only one of us has become a political punching bag because of it.
Receiving the news of my mother’s cancer diagnosis in this particular hospital was especially fraught with complicated emotions. When I was 10 years old, my father had been in this same building for an extended stay that began with a kidney transplant. He had been so fatigued in the years leading up to the surgery that I barely have any memories of him being conscious. Although the process ultimately led to many wonderful years ahead, he suffered significant and unexpected complications that could have cost him his life. I remember my mother on the phone coordinating care for me, fielding calls from doctors and still going to work. I imagine she still carries it all in her shoulders. Her voice is tense and firm, yet kind.
My own daughter is almost 10. Like my mother before me, I find myself stretched between caring for a loved one and for my own children, and although history isn’t repeating, it certainly loves a defined rhyme scheme. I see a tapestry of womanhood woven through the generations. My mind wanders into the distant past — to foremothers I never knew who also were well-acquainted with the expectation of caring for those around them — of the emotional and physical gymnastics it demands.
This is what I feel is so easily lost in the current politicized conversation about trans identities. The mechanics of transition are dissected and debated — the binders, bras and pills; the policies and procedures. What is so often overlooked is the deep alignment and satisfaction that comes with moving toward wholeness in your body and soul. I have found that with every step I take toward becoming myself in the body that I desire, there is a spiritual resonance at the core of my being.
The start of this journey for me was a faint curiosity about how it would feel to have fabric dance around my ankles in the breeze. I leaned into giving myself permission to dream about who I could become. This transformed into a small yearning, then a full-bodied acknowledgement of the dissonant hum I had come to accept as part of my life. Like the seventh note on a scale, I felt no resolution but a yearning to be complete. I could not imagine the path forward.
Now, nearly two years into the process of transitioning, the symphony has shifted into a new movement — a crescendo of resolution with an always-deepening impact. As new ways of exploring, cherishing and presenting my femininity emerge, new themes and harmonies intertwine. At the center of it all, I am discovering my power as its conductor, honing my attentiveness to the various aspects of the ensemble, drawing out the beauty and complexity of my being. This is how womanhood has enveloped me — with musicality and wonder.
I found this same wonder echoing through the halls of the hospital — in brushing my mother’s hair in her hospital bed, holding her hand in moments that felt too heavy for words, listening to her breath come and go as she slept. In these moments, my awareness of her presence and care over the years was amplified and brought sharply into focus — a clarity that came through refinement by fire.
And so I will keep going, keep stretching, keep blooming — conscious of the lineage of womanhood I share and that I will pass on.
