Ruby RaeD

by Ruby Rae Durand

Personal Journals

Season 2

Exploring Gender Mapping

What if everything you thought about gender… was just one version of the story? In this episode, Rae explores the concept of gender mapping — how different cultures, histories, and systems have understood gender across time — and why the modern Western binary is only one small piece of a much bigger picture. Drawing from Dr. Eli Erlick’s work and the development of the Gender Unicorn, Rae unpacks: What gender mapping actually is How cultures around the world have recognized gender diversity for centuries Why modern understandings of gender are shaped by colonial and religious frameworks The evolution of gender models from early medical theories to today How tools like the Gender Unicorn can make gender more understandable and accessible But this isn’t just theory. Rae also walks through real-life examples, including her own personal gender map, showing how identity, expression, biology, and attraction don’t always align in the ways we’ve been taught to expect. At its core, this episode is about introspection, understanding, and expanding the way we see each other. Because gender isn’t something new. It’s something we’re finally learning how to see. 🔗 Follow Rae Instagram: @firefromheat TikTok: @heatfromfire YouTube: RubyRaeD

Season 1

On Parental Communication: Respect, Boundaries, and When “Love” Isn’t Enough

In this late-night RubyRaeD reflection, Rae unpacks a thought sparked by a recent conversation on the Kaleidoscope podcast and explores something painfully common in LGBTQ+ families: the collision between a parent's pre-existing beliefs and the reality of the person they already love. When a child comes out as trans, some parents find themselves forced to reconcile two incompatible ideas: the belief that transgender people are somehow wrong, strange, or broken, and the knowledge that their child is still the same person they have always known and loved. Sometimes, instead of reconsidering the belief, the parent tries to preserve it. That can sound like: “I still love you, but I won't use that name.” “I accept that this is your decision, but I don't agree with it.” “I'll always be your parent, but I won't participate in this.” But respect isn't an optional extra in a relationship. Rae talks about how refusing to acknowledge someone's identity can become a way of denying their agency, particularly when an adult child is infantilised because a parent believes they still have greater authority over who that person is. The episode also challenges the seemingly peaceful advice to simply “let them.” Let them misgender you. Let them use your old name. Let them out you in public. Let them reshape how strangers understand you. Let them repeatedly reopen the same wound. At some point, protecting a relationship cannot mean endlessly absorbing disrespect. And when a transgender person has asked for distance, there is another boundary that deserves to be respected: silence. If you cannot yet approach your trans child, friend, or family member with genuine respect, sometimes the kindest thing you can do is leave them alone until you can. In this episode Rae discusses: Why parents of LGBTQ+ and transgender children sometimes become alienated from their own children The conflict between deeply held beliefs and personal relationships Why “I love you, but I don't respect your identity” is not a neutral position Infantilisation and the denial of an adult child's agency Why deadnaming and outing someone can have consequences beyond hurt feelings The problem with telling trans people to simply “let them” Setting boundaries with unsupportive family members Why financial support should never be used as leverage for access When no contact or limited contact may be the healthiest available boundary The difference between wanting reconciliation and being ready to reconcile Episode chapters 00:00 - Late Night Check-In 00:17 - The Conversation That Started This 01:14 - Parents, Trans Children, and Conflicting Beliefs 02:13 - How Alienation Happens 04:05 - Stop Infantilising Adult Children 05:10 - The Problem With “Just Let Them” 06:51 - Grace or Silence 08:14 - What Should a Parent Do When Their Trans Child Doesn't Want Contact? 09:17 - Closing Thoughts This RubyRaeD episode is personal, unscripted, and shaped by Rae's own experiences alongside conversations with other LGBTQ+ people. Sometimes reconciliation is possible. But reconciliation requires more than saying I love you. It requires being willing to say: I see who you are. I will listen when you tell me who you are. And I will respect you accordingly. #Transgender #TransWoman #TransFamily #LGBTQ #TransRights #FamilyEstrangement #ComingOut #TransgenderStories #RubyRaeD #TransPodcast

Reflections on Dysphoria 6 Weeks Post Op

The Performance Is Not the Identity I’m back after gender confirmation surgery, and I’m still working through what it means to finally be on this side of something I spent years moving toward. This episode isn’t really about the surgery itself. It’s about what happened when one enormous source of dysphoria suddenly became quiet. What happens to the rest of your dysphoria when that happens? And how much of what we call dysphoria belongs entirely to us? I talk about imposter syndrome, passing, beauty standards, gender performance, capitalism, and the uncomfortable overlap between genuine gender dysphoria and the expectations society places on women. Gender confirmation surgery brought me enormous relief. But once that source of dysphoria became quieter, the masculine features I perceive in my face sometimes felt more immediate. They hadn’t become worse. They simply weren’t competing with something else anymore. That leads to a bigger question: is wanting to pass problematic? I don’t think it is. Passing can mean safety, comfort, and simply moving through the world without every interaction becoming a discussion about your gender. But the desire to pass also exists inside a society that teaches women what femininity is supposedly meant to look like. For trans women, those pressures can become tangled with dysphoria in ways that are incredibly difficult to separate. I also talk about why I deliberately pursued gender confirmation surgery before facial feminization surgery, despite my facial dysphoria often being more visible and immediate. Transition doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Money, employment, healthcare, geography, safety, family, politics and visibility can all affect how and when someone transitions. Sometimes becoming more comfortable in your body requires remaining uncomfortable long enough to afford the next step. Then there’s capitalism. Gender-affirming healthcare and the beauty industry are not the same thing, but they exist in the same world. Trans women grow up surrounded by the same advertising, edited faces, impossible bodies and messages about femininity as other women. When dysphoria already exists, those messages can attach themselves to it. At what point does dysphoria become tangled with dysmorphia? And how do you tell the difference between wanting your body to reflect your gender and believing you must achieve an impossible standard before you are finally “woman enough”? Ultimately, I keep coming back to one idea: The performance is not the identity. A dress is not womanhood. Makeup is not womanhood. Passing is not womanhood. Those things can be symbols, tools and social shorthand, but the identity underneath them remains. Transition, for me, has been one of the most profound expressions of rejecting the template I was handed and moving closer to myself. But transition isn’t the only way people do that. There isn’t one correct leap. There are billions of them. In this episode • Life after gender confirmation surgery • Dysphoria and imposter syndrome • Passing, safety and social perception • Facial feminization and surgery order • Dysphoria versus dysmorphia • Capitalism and beauty standards • The performance of femininity • Transition as an act of choosing yourself Content note: This episode discusses gender dysphoria, gender confirmation surgery, facial feminization surgery, body image and medical transition. These are my personal experiences. There is no single correct way to be transgender, no requirement to medically transition, and no requirement to pass for your identity to be valid. #Transgender #TransWoman #GenderDysphoria #TransPodcast #Transition #Passing #GenderIdentity

A Trans Woman's Transition Regrets Days Before Surgery

Fifteen days before her gender confirmation surgery, Rae opens up about transition regret in a way that moves beyond fearmongering, panic, and anti-trans talking points. In this deeply personal episode, Rae reflects on what she actually regrets as a South African trans woman living in Asia: being outed, losing family relationships, losing agency over her own story, spending years performing masculinity, and not recognizing safe love and support sooner. But she is also clear about what she does not regret. She does not regret transitioning. She does not regret the epiphany. She does not regret choosing herself, even when she had to swim alone while others stood on the shore calling their rejection “concern.” This episode explores grief, family fallout, bodily autonomy, self-actualization, transphobia, emotional vulnerability, and the difference between regretting transition and grieving the damage done around it. For trans people, questioning people, and families trying to understand, this is a raw and honest conversation about what love, respect, and support should actually look like. RubyRaeD is where Rae shares her thoughts, feelings, experiences, and opinions about life as a trans woman living abroad. Follow Rae: YouTube: RubyRaeD Instagram: @firefromheat TikTok: @heatfromfire #TransitionRegret #TransWoman #GenderConfirmationSurgery #Transgender #GenderEuphoria

Transition Has Endings: Surgery Prep, Legal Progress & Becoming Myself

Episode Summary In this life update, Rae reflects on the overwhelming middle of transition: preparing for gender confirmation surgery, handling legal transition paperwork, balancing teaching responsibilities, running a daily trans history countdown, and trying to stay grounded through it all. This episode is about the reality behind transition milestones. Life does not pause for surgery prep, document changes, work deadlines, emotional check-ins, or dysphoria. Rae talks openly about nervousness, support, self-evaluation, and the difference between doubt and healthy fear before a major life-changing step. She also reflects on erasure, why trans history matters, and the strange emotional weight of realizing that some parts of transition are not endless. Some forms get submitted. Some documents change. Some appointments happen. Some chapters close. This is transition in real life: messy, practical, emotional, exhausting, and worth it. Full Episode Notes Hello internet, Rae is checking in. In this episode, Rae talks about reaching a point in transition where everything feels like it is happening at once. She is balancing school, daily content, surgery preparation, business plans, and legal transition paperwork, while also trying to pause and ask: How am I actually doing? She reflects on how her daily countdown series began as a simple idea while walking her dog, Tesla, but quickly became something much deeper. What started as quick trans facts has grown into research-heavy, emotionally demanding work that aims to respect trans history, resist erasure, and create something people can return to later. Rae also discusses the pressure of doing this while still working full-time as a teacher. Exams, marking, review materials, and daily responsibilities do not stop just because transition milestones are approaching. This leads into one of the central ideas of the episode: transition is often imagined as a sequence of dramatic moments, but real life keeps moving around those moments. The episode then moves into surgery preparation. Rae talks through the documents, appointments, travel plans, pet care, financial logistics, recovery planning, and emotional reality of preparing for gender confirmation surgery. She reflects on excitement, nervousness, fear-mongering, expectations, intimacy, depth, surgical outcomes, and why being scared does not mean being unsure. A major part of the episode focuses on self-evaluation. Rae asks what has changed in her body, dysphoria, emotions, social life, empathy, and relationship with herself. She talks about feeling more grounded, while still allowing space for complicated emotions. She also emphasizes the importance of therapy, psychiatric evaluation, and support systems before surgery. There is also a legal transition update. After months of calling the South African Department of Home Affairs, Rae shares that her case has finally been escalated, the needed documents have been clarified, and the responsibility has shifted away from her for now. It is not fully over, but it is progress. The final section turns toward erasure. Rae connects her daily trans history work to larger patterns of historical, legal, medical, linguistic, family, scholastic, and cultural erasure. She reflects on how these systems can make trans people invisible not only to society, but also to themselves. The episode closes with a realization: some parts of transition are lifelong, but some parts end. Documents get changed. Forms get submitted. Surgeries happen. Chapters close. Not every battle lasts forever. Transition is not always cinematic. Sometimes it is paperwork, phone calls, lesson planning, medical prep, and exhaustion. But underneath all of it, Rae is becoming. Follow Rae / RubyRaeD: YouTube: RubyRaeD TikTok: @heatfromfire Instagram: @firefromheat

Stay Alive Long Enough to Find Yourself

Content Warning This episode includes discussion of mental health, depression, suicidal ideation, dysphoria, trauma, anti-trans reactions from loved ones, and survival during early transition. Please listen with care. Crisis Support Note If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts or feel unsafe, please reach out to someone immediately: a trusted person, a local crisis line, emergency services, or a mental health professional. You deserve help from people who take your pain seriously. Episode Summary In this deeply personal episode, Rae talks about early transition, survival mode, suicidal ideation, dysphoria, and the emotional danger of being dismissed by loved ones when you are trying to stay alive. This is not an episode about giving up. It is an episode about surviving long enough to reach the other side. Rae reflects on the years before transition: financial instability, trauma, depression, masking, overperforming masculinity, career pressure, and the slow realization that the life she had built did not feel survivable if she had to keep pretending. She also speaks directly to loved ones of trans people: when someone tells you they are experiencing suicidal thoughts, that is not drama. That is not manipulation. That is not a moment to scoff, argue, moralize, or make it about your discomfort. That is a moment to listen, take them seriously, and help them get support. There is a way through. The price of becoming yourself can be heavy, but the price is worth it. Stay alive. Find your people. We are waiting for you. Topics Covered Early transition Suicidal ideation Gender dysphoria Survival mode Performing masculinity Financial independence and self-expression Trans mental health Loved ones and harmful reactions Finding affirming support Staying alive long enough to become yourself Pull Quote “The price of becoming yourself can be heavy, but the price is worth it. Find your people.” YouTube: RubyRaeD TikTok: @heatfromfire Instagram: @firefromheat

WHO NAMED US?

Trans people did not appear when modern words appeared. The experience existed first. The words changed. In this episode, Rae explores the history and evolution of transgender language through what she calls the “fossil record” of words: the old terms, the medical terms, the community terms, and the weaponized terms that have shaped how society has understood trans people over time. Starting with her love of unusual words through Foyle’s Philavery, Rae reflects on how language works as a key to recognition. Words are not just labels placed onto reality after the fact. Sometimes they help reality come into focus. That becomes especially important when talking about trans identity, dysphoria, self-understanding, and the experience of finding language for feelings that existed long before the words did. The video moves through major historical terms including sexual inversion, eonism, transvestite, transsexual, sex change, transgenderism, transgenderist, transgenderal, transgender, gender dysphoria, and gender incongruence. Each word becomes a fossil from a different era, showing what society thought it was looking at: sexuality, clothing, pathology, medicine, surgery, identity, or community. Rae also connects the history of terminology to her own experience as a trans woman, including mirror paralysis, discomfort, femininity, self-recognition, and the difference between being described by others and finding the words that finally feel true. The episode is not framed as “old word bad, new word good,” but as a more nuanced look at how words can be descriptive, liberating, outdated, medicalized, reclaimed, or weaponized depending on context, intention, and power. The episode closes by looking at modern weaponized language such as transgenderism, gender ideology, and “biological male/female,” before returning to the central thesis: the experience was there before the vocabulary. The girl was there before the word. The self was there before the sentence. Key Themes Language as recognition Words do not create trans people, but they can help people understand themselves and explain their experiences. The fossil record of terminology Every era leaves behind words that reveal what that era believed about gender, sexuality, medicine, and identity. Medicalization and access Terms like “transsexual” and “gender dysphoria” show the complicated relationship between diagnosis, stigma, and access to care. From clothing to identity The evolution from “transvestite” to “transgender” shows a shift from outward presentation to internal identity and self-determination. Weaponized language Some terms become harmful not only because of their definitions, but because of who uses them, how they are used, and what power they carry. Mentioned Terms Sexual inversion, eonism, transvestite, cross-dresser, transsexual, sex change, transition, transgenderism, transgenderist, transgenderal, transgender, gender dysphoria, gender incongruence, genderqueer, nonbinary, gender diverse, gender ideology. Mentioned People and References Foyle’s Philavery, Christopher Foyle, Chevalier d’Éon, Havelock Ellis, Magnus Hirschfeld, David Cauldwell, Harry Benjamin, John Oliven, Virginia Prince, Søren Kierkegaard, Inanna. Pull Quote “The experience was there before the vocabulary. The girl was there before the word. The self was there before the sentence. And when the right language finally arrived, it did not invent me, it found me.”

The Trans Pipeline, The Meme Pipeline, and the Myth

What actually is the “trans pipeline”? In this episode of RubyRaeD, Rae breaks down the three versions of the so-called pipeline: the affirming reality of self-discovery, the transphobic myth of “indoctrination,” and the chaotic internet memeverse pipeline built from TikToks, Reddit threads, gender-swap memes, and online culture. Through deeply personal storytelling, philosophical reflection, and internet absurdity, Rae explores childhood gender envy, fantasy and escapism, private experimentation, online personas, social transition, dysphoria, HRT, and the search for authentic selfhood while living in China. This episode is not about “becoming trans.” It’s about understanding yourself. Chapters 00:00 Welcome and Setup 00:11 Three Pipeline Types 02:19 Meme Culture Explained 03:23 Early Signs and Envy 05:57 Puberty and Secret Exploring 06:49 Stress and Survival Mode 08:15 Fantasy and Online Persona 11:08 Partners and Safe Exploration 12:41 Starting Transition Steps 14:07 Authenticity and HRT Fears 17:30 Halloween Turning Point 18:25 HRT Access and Closing Topics discussed in this episode include: trans pipeline, transgender pipeline, trans timeline, transgender experience, mtf transition, trans woman story, HRT journey, gender dysphoria, gender envy, egg memes, trans memes, transphobia debunked, rapid onset gender dysphoria, transgender identity, social transition, medical transition, estrogen, HRT in China, transgender experiences in Asia, meme culture, philosophy and gender, coming out stories, and online trans communities. Ghost Rae also makes several appearances. Unfortunately. Social Links 🎙 RubyRaeD Instagram: @firefromheat on Instagram TikTok: @heatfromfire on TikTok YouTube: RubyRaeD YouTube Channel 🎧 Kaleidoscope Podcast YouTube: Kaleidoscope Podcast on YouTube 📅 Guest Booking / Collaborations Calendly Booking Page

The source of transgender confidence

The Source of Trans Confidence: Alignment, Expression, and Thought Experiments Rae introduces her channel RubyRaeD about her life transitioning as a trans woman living in Asia and discusses what “real” confidence is, contrasting it with performative, masculinized ideas of confidence like visibility and fearlessness. She argues true confidence comes from self-alignment—expressing yourself within society’s rules while pushing against heteronormative, patriarchal expectations—and describes early transition as a period of experimentation with fashion and identity, especially for trans-feminine people discovering wider ranges of expression. Rae rejects the idea that trans women’s expression is primarily vanity or fetish, framing confidence as relief from living authentically, like breathing after drowning. She offers the “button test” (adapted from Erin in the Morning) and an “invisible self” thought experiment to explore gender feelings, expression, and the gap between who you are and who you’d be without an audience. 00:00 Channel Intro 00:45 What Is Real Confidence 02:37 Early Transition Style 05:21 Beyond Being Hot 06:30 Alignment Feels Like Breathing 07:16 Explaining It to Cis People 09:48 The Button Test 13:09 Desert Island Questions 16:51 Invisible Self Experiment 18:55 Final Thoughts and Goodbye

The Signs I Was Trans Before I Knew It (And Why I Couldn’t Say It)

What does it actually feel like to know you’re trans… before you have the language for it? In this episode, I break down the early phase of being trans that most people struggle to explain, the time before coming out, before labels, where something feels off but you can’t articulate why. I talk through real experiences, including: early signs of gender dysphoria most people miss why so many trans people overcompensate or “perform” gender what boymoding feels like in everyday life dissociation, brain fog, and the mental load of hiding how HRT changed my clarity and sense of self why coming out isn’t becoming someone new, it’s uncovering who you’ve always been This isn’t theory. It’s what it actually feels like from the inside. If you’re questioning your gender, or trying to understand someone who is, this episode gives you a grounded, real-world perspective.

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