The Purplepaw Blog

My good friend Morgan Whitten responded to a photograph I posted to social media recently. She called me beautiful, and I had to stifle the

Recognizing you've always been 'One of Them'

Shaneel Lal, a 23-year-old activist, founded the Conversion Therapy Action Group which pushed to ban conversion therapy in

In my introduction to Internal Family Systems (IFS), I closed with Richard Schwartz's statement that there are no bad parts. That statement is at the

Previously, I compared the pressure of gender dysphoria to the Yellowstone Caldera. As I navigated the eruption that resulted in me transitioning gender, I expected

A good friend of mine - also a transgender woman, but currently unable to transition - sent me a surprising message. She apologized for not

I wrote a feminist article recently that included some information in it about makeup artists. I didn't even think about it, but one of the

I wrote previously about the responsibility transgender people bear for the rest of society. Before we transition gender and make our true selves public, we

The past weeks seem filled with incessant talking. I talked with a new friend, our conversation honest and easy. I talked long into the night

I had a discussion recently about the pain in my life - perhaps even the pain of being transgender. My friend commented I hadn't really

Over the last ten months, I published more than 70 articles detailing my experience transitioning gender from man to woman, including research on the biology,

In public discussion about gender — particularly transgender — neither side appears capable of making a compelling argument.

On the anti-LGBTQ side, the argument centers on insisting

I joke frequently about my big butt — transgender hormone therapy has been very kind to me. Typical changes from estrogen therapy include breast development and

New siding is being installed on our house this week, and I sense my life falling to pieces. Technically, only my wedding cake topper fell

As I work my way through Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way,” I continue to wonder at the simplicity of the tools: Morning Pages

In the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Flower Drum Song” lies a campy little ditty entitled “I Enjoy Being a Girl.” Laying aside the questionable social

Although I came to adulthood in the 1980s, I grew up as a child in the 1970s, with all its attendant oddities and idiosyncrasies. As

In the movie “Shrek,” Princess Fiona is cursed to change from human to ogre form when the sun sets. She lives in constant fear that

It was Summer. The house where I grew up needed the sewer rooted out, and my father did it himself. I remember standing by the

In a previous article, I discussed the Ayurvedic definition of health as “being established in oneself.” Health is not focused simply on the body. Health

I typically run about three miles around my neighborhood, which has concrete sidewalks. When people see me running barefoot, they tend to ask about it.