Bodies in Transition

What My Trans Teen Son’s Journey is Teaching Me About Accepting and Embracing My Aging Disabled Body

// #HotGirlSummer Boudoir shoot to capture my sexy disabled GenX body with Image description: Brown woman posed provocatively in lingerie on her walker

I remember the exact moment my son told me he was a boy. Colchester, England. May 2018. He was 13, and until that point, was named Abigael, and my daughter.

As a mother of the #OneAndDone club, I used to joke that I “got it right the first time” when people queried why I only had one child. Being a Mom, and rearing a caring, intelligent, bold, daughter with autism was a large part of my identity. Hearing my son explain to me that he no longer wanted to be identified as female confused and shocked the hell out of me.

I identify as queer, femme, fat, disabled, Black, Southern, progressive, and sex-positive. I’m a 40’s GenXer on the cusp of Millenial. Tech has been in my life since I was in elementary school, after receiving my first computer in elementary school in the 1980s. In college, I met my son’s father online in 1995. Early adoption of technology, enabling connection with folks worldwide, shaped my life and thinking in ways…