Logan Adams (he/his/him) - A disabled queer transgender man

I first showed signs of being trans back when I was about five or six years old and my mom wanted me to start wearing shirts. I was convinced that I was just like my brother and therefore I shouldn’t have to wear shirts. But I didn’t have the language to express my trans identity until I was much older, around 15 or 16. Back then I was still figuring my gender out and I thought I might be genderfluid or nonbinary. I came out to my mom a little bit at that time, I took a baby step out of the closet. But I pretty quickly went back in. I was out as nonbinary to some close friends and came out as nonbinary to my partner Ross when I met them. They were the first and only partner I had ever come out to about my gender. I finally fully came out as a trans man to everyone and my family when I was 21 and started my medical transition at 22.

Question 2: When did you decide to transition? Tell us about the process emotionally and physically

When I first came out it was as nonbinary trans masc and I didn’t know if I wanted to medically transition. But over the course of about a year I realized that I was a trans man. I had seen a lot of transitions online and I knew that taking testosterone was what I needed to do to feel more at home in my body. The changes came slowly at first, although my doctor has told me that I got results faster than most of his patients, and the more I changed the more confident I felt. The first thing to change was the way my body distributed fat. I was very skinny and didn’t have much fat to begin with so when I gained a lot of weight really quickly on T, it all went to masculine places. My face blew up, T makes your face fat for a few months and it definitely gave me some pretty round cheeks. Once I hit around 6 months is when my face was noticeably more masculine and I had started growing my little dirt stache. Now I’m over a year on T and absolutely in love with all the changes. At first I wasn’t sure if I wanted top surgery either, but that was for medical reasons. I have fibromyalgia, a disease that makes everything more painful, so I wasn’t sure if I should get surgery because I didn’t know how much pain it would put me in. But eventually, the dysphoria won and I had top surgery almost four months ago. Since starting my medical transition, my depression screening scores have gone from severe to mild, that’s the biggest change in my life. I’ve never had just mild depression before. I’m so much happier than I’ve ever been.

Question 3: Have you faced any adversity or challenges as a transgender man? 

I’m very fortunate and privileged in that I haven’t faced too much adversity. My sister and her husband had a hard time with the idea of me being an uncle to their daughter and they still won’t use he/him pronouns, but they call me Logan so I guess that’s a start. When I first came out my sister hated the idea, and I'm pretty sure she still does, but she's gotten nicer about it. She's stopped telling me that I'm a woman and nothing will change that, even though I'm positive that's still how she feels. Civility is better than hostility. I work for a school district as a teacher aide teaching English as a new language and when I came out at work they changed all the staff bathrooms to gender neutral bathrooms and implemented gender diversity training, and there was only one instance of transphobia that came from that. A couple of intoxicated coworkers went on a rant about genitals at a work party, but my HR department handled that really well. They've had my back through all of this. In fact, my first ID with my real name on it was my work ID. And they went to me for resources for the gender diversity training. 

Question 4: As you have grown, how has your family taken everything?  Have you been supported?

While my sister isn't supportive of my transition, the rest of my family is. My parents are conservative Catholics so it was a learning curve, but they were very open to learning. My parents are honestly thrilled for me because for so many years they had a child who was struggling. I was always angry and so depressed, they could hardly have a relationship with me. Now they have a son who is confident and happier than they've ever seen so they can't really argue that it was the wrong move. I'm sort of their living proof that transgender people are who they say they are. And my brother is so supportive too, he's very happy to have a brother. He's always wanted one since he was little and my parents kept bringing home sisters. The swap to calling me Logan and he/him was nothing for him honestly. 

Question 5: We are a company that supports LGBTQ+ weddings so we have to dive in here a little bit.  When planning for your wedding was it important to have professionals who were either LGBTQ+ friendly or a part of the community?

Yes, absolutely. For one thing, it's really important to me that what I do supports oppressed communities. Big wedding corporations have enough money, the wedding industry is super inflated and full of privilege. It's important to me that LGBTQ organizations get the attention they're due. Not to mention knowing that the companies I'm using support my love, it just makes my day all the more special. 

Question 6: Have you come across any discrimination or negativity during the planning process?

Not yet! We're getting married in a family member's backyard so we haven't faced any discrimination from a venue. And we're using Dash of Pride for save the dates and invitations so I know I won't face any issues there. I'm not really expecting many issues to be honest, I live in New York and it's pretty accepting here. The only negativity I've received so far were some hateful comments on my beautiful engagement photos. 

Question 7: Talk to us about being disabled. You have created your own sweatshirts that say “disabled is not a dirty word.”  What do you want people to know?

For a long time, I was worried about coming out as trans because I felt like that would be asking too much of people, to accommodate my disabilities and gender me correctly. I had some internalized ableism to fight through to learn that being disabled isn't asking anything of anyone besides respect, and all humans are worthy of respect. Some of my merch (I also have a trans pride shirt) says "disabled is not a dirty word" because so often non-disabled people will use other words to describe disability because disability makes them uncomfortable. They think of being disabled as a bad thing so they'll say things like "you're not disabled, you're differently abled" to try and make themselves more comfortable with it. The fact is that I'm disabled, and that's not a bad thing. In fact, I'm very proud to be disabled. I'm proud of the person my disabilities has made me. 

Question 8: I saw a post you wrote about how to address someone in a wheelchair.  Can you talk about this?  It’s important that we all learn how to respect one another.

Yes! So you'll get some different preferences from different people, but the general consensus is to just talk to us normally. Crouching down or getting on the floor to talk to us is infantilizing, it's similar to how you would talk to a child. Personally it makes me feel very awkward and uncomfortable. The only time someone should be getting on my level to talk to me is when it's loud in the room and they need to be closer so I can hear. On a similar note, the way you speak to us is also very important. I've had people baby talk to me like I'm a toddler, or talk to the person I'm with instead of me. Some of the common infantilizing phrases I'll hear are "woah, you got a license for that thing?" Or "hey there big guy". I've had a grown woman who was a professor at college call me a "brave baby angel" while baby talking me, just for wheeling through the snow. 

Question 9: On Instagram you have a great presence - what are your goals as an influencer on social media?

Honestly my goal was never to have a huge presence or anything, I just wanted to give my perspective of being trans and disabled because I hadn't seen that represented too much. I'm just hoping to be a resource for people to learn about unique human experiences. I feel like I've opened some eyes in the trans community to accessibility issues and I've helped some people in the disabled community learn about trans lives. That's all I've ever really wanted to accomplish with social media. 

Question 10: What does Pride mean to you?

Pride to me is a celebration. Being LGBTQ has a history of being seen as something shameful, so shameful that the world just stood aside and let a plague nearly wipe out an entire generation of queer people. Families will kick out their queer children because they think it's something shameful. Being LGBTQ is beautiful, celebrating loving one another and loving ourselves is so important in a world that has such a massive history of hating us. The world wants us to hate ourselves so being proud in the face of that is a beautiful, wonderful thing. 

Question 11: What does it mean to be a part of the Dash of Pride Champions Community?

It means, to me at least, that I am making the difference I hope to make. It means voices like mine get to be heard when they've almost never been a priority. I think a lot of trans people think of themselves as unloveable, and I know a lot of disabled people see themselves that way. Showing that a disabled trans person can find love and happiness is so important in a world that's stacked against them.

Check out more on Logan:

• Instagram: @trans_onwheels