A Queer Family Deals with Cancer

In a series of posts on ReThink Breast Cancer Beatrice discusses her cancer journey and its impact on her family, her son Sam and her wife Brett.

In The Long Stare: Being Visibly Queer in Public Beatrice reveals how cisnormativity can impact a cancer experience and how hospitals should feel like safe spaces.

The man’s widening eyes tell me what I call “the long stare” is coming: his gaze darts up and down Brett’s body, side to side to take in Sam and me, and then up and down Brett again. It’s creepy. It’s always creepy when this happens. I don’t know if people who give our family this eye treatment realize how gross and rude they are being or if they simply don’t care.

The post When Shifts in identity Converge discusses with Beatrice’s wife Brett’s transition as it coincides with her breast cancer diagnosis.

That meeting had prompted Brett to share her entire truth with me because being face to face with a loved one’s mortality can bring what’s most important to the surface.

In Hair Dysphoria Beatrice talks about her chemotherapy hair loss.

I would think about how I get, as much as a cis person can, what it must be like for some trans people to look in the mirror and not see their true selves. I always knew it was me with my headscarf on, but I didn’t know this weirdly ethereal creature who was completely hairless, and that’s why I never once recognized her at first glance.