For a trans person, a robotics competition can be extremely nerve-wracking. FIRST doesn’t know much about being trans, you don’t know about room arrangements, it’s hot and stuffy, and you don’t have the opportunity to take off your binder, gaff, compression shorts, or any other items you wear. Not to mention the usual issues of passing and others’ tolerance. Combined with all of the non-trans anxiety involved in comps, it’s a lot to handle. This being my third season in FIRST, I have a few tips from experience.

During the day

1. If you’re going to bind, do it with caution. Comps are longer than 8 hour days, and while I’d love it if we were all comfortable only binding part of the day, that’s not reasonable. Instead, take time to sneak away to a bathroom to loosen your binder for a moment. Make it a habit to sit up and cough, letting fluid out of your lungs. Make sure to take a lot of deep breaths. If it hurts- yes, you have to take it off. Maybe a large sweatshirt could be big enough to hide your chest, at least for a little while so you can take a break.
   
2. Drink a lot of fluid. Binding is hot, tucking is hot, competitions are hot, sweatshirts are hot. You’re going to get dehydrated. Carry a water bottle with you and keep refilling it.
3. For tucking, it’s gonna get really uncomfortable. Try taking as many possible bathroom breaks as possible, carry painkiller meds, and putting a body powder (like Gold Bond) between your thighs! And do not use duct tape! You’ll regret it. At the end of the day, be prepared to be uncomfortable and possibly (TMI) have a bit of a rash.
4. If you have a problem with being misgendered, try to not be in a group of people that are all your birth sex. So trans guys, avoid being in all female groups, and trans girls, avoid being in all male groups. It’s unfortunate, but you can avoid a lot of being grouped as one of them if you make sure to usually be around at least one teammate of the same gender as you.
   

Hotel rooms
This topic is… difficult. Most teams are affiliated with a school, and, as such, it’s often difficult to be placed in the correct room for a lot of political reasons. As such, I’m going to be talking about ways to deal with having to be in the wrong gendered room.

1. See if you can room with other LGBT+ teammates. Even if they aren’t trans, just having the support of rooming with someone in the community can make you feel better. Plus, it can be uncomfortable to some to room with someone whose gender they’re attracted to.
2. Spread as much time as possible outside of the room. The room is only for sleeping, after all. Spend the rest of your time with other team members in an open area in the lobby until you absolutely have to be in the room.
3. Arrange to sleep by yourself. At least for my team, we have to share beds. If I’m in a room of three, I arrange to sleep alone, or if I’m in a room of four, I’ll take the couch.
4. Remember that you’re going to be in there for as little time as possible, and no one will think about it. This weekend is for robots, after all!
   

Good luck to all the trans kids out there. If anyone needs anything to talk to or needs more advice, I’m always available to DM on the Discord!
- Maddox 2197

So you’ve made it to Bag Day! It’s the stressful end of build season when you’re forced to shove your 100+lbs creation into a giant plastic bag. But congratulations! You’ve made it this far, and everyone here on the blog is proud of what you and your teams have accomplished over the last six weeks. With competitions right around the corner, we thought we should finally let you know where to find us to get official blog pins/swag, find out more about us, and offer your input for the direction this platform will take in the future. Attached is a spreadsheet with which events we’ll be attending and the reps who will be present at them. (It’s color coded because we’re dweebs.) We included brief descriptions so you can find us, but if you want to know more, feel free to contact us. Congrats again for all your hard work and successes during build, and good luck as you compete this season!

Event Attendence Info:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TqSUDY3thKjvbiU5ILh4G66Qgo52nNroIBhUuhPjs98/edit?usp=sharing

Hey y'all,
I’m a bit of a nerd *gasp* so this is a poem I wrote about dysphoria and gender queries. 
-Tristan 🌵


“Going Up in Flames”
A Photograph–
a snapshot
a moment frozen in time
a piece of my soul.


There’s a box in my closet,
filled with pictures of the person I used to be.
The life and times of a ghost.
Jigsaw puzzle pieces,
forced together in ways that don’t fit–
A mismatch of stories,
spliced to form a never-ending reel:
a documentary of my life.


I keep my shadow locked away,
in hopes you’ll never see what was.
I ripped apart the stitches
that held us together,
because there is nothing but pain for me there.
Photographs–
keeping me shackled to the past
when I should be looking towards the future.
A constant game of
before and after,
and I can’t help but feel like I never measure up.


Photographs–
From the time that I was born,
my mother started making scrapbooks.
Page after page
of baby photos and memorabilia.
First days of school
and piano recitals,
little pink dresses
and frilly easter bonnets.
I should feel touched
that my mother spent so much of her time
trying to make me a time capsule,
but I wish it would stay buried.
I don’t want something to remember my childhood by.
The person I was then,
doesn’t even share a body
with the person I am now.


Photographs–
They’re something that should be cherished,
but I don’t even want to look at them.
They’re nothing but kindling
for a forest fire of questions
that I’m not ready for.
So I’m taking the initiative.
Bonfire at my place-
nostalgia not welcome.

FIRST and foremost, coming out is entirely up to you. Coming out doesn’t make you more LGBTQ+. If you are closeted, you are not lying to anyone. You don’t owe the details of your sexuality or gender or sex to anyone.
So, how you do know if you should come out? First, you should make sure coming out is safe for you. Will you be kicked out of home? Will you be in physical or psychological danger? If so, you have to weigh the pros and cons of coming out. Is the joy of finally being free worth the possible harm? If you’re having trouble, try looking at a physical representation of the pros and cons through a t chart. Mine looked a little like this:
 

If your chart as an equal amount of pros and cons, you can assign numbers for how likely each pro or con is to happen. Pros are positive numbers 1 to 5 and cons are negative numbers -1 to -5. Something like “I wouldn’t feel like I was hiding something” would be (in my situation) a +5 but a “My parents might be mad at me” (in my situation) would be a -4. If you add up your list and end with a net positive, then you should consider coming out. If you end up with a net negative, you should further consider the safety of coming out. Make sure to also take the value of each situation into account. How much do you care about your parents being mad at you? Could you handle the negatives? Even if you end in a net positive, make sure to think about whether or not you could handle the negative outcomes.

Of course, you don’t have to come out to everyone at once, but remember, the more people who know, the more likely the information is to spread. If you aren’t completely out, make sure you are only coming out to trustworthy people who will not “out” you to others.
Finally, no matter if you end with a positive or negative number, make sure you make a plan for the worst case scenario. If you are kicked out, do you have a place to stay? If you are forced into therapy, do you have the help of a reputable psychologist to convince your parents the idea is unsafe? If you would face physical violence, are you prepared to defend yourself? Your personal safety comes FIRST, and neither choice is wrong. Coming out is difficult and potentially dangerous, but it can also lead to so much happiness and joy. The decision is entirely up to you, so stay safe and good luck!
-Sean 5113

Hi all,
I’ve already posted an eighteen minute video, so I figure you probably don’t want to read another three hundred page essay about my TEDx talk. It was an insane opportunity to receive, to prepare for, and finally, to perform.

If you don’t have the time to watch the entire video, that’s okay! Here’s a short breakdown!

• Joining FRC 2826 Wave Robotics completely changed my life
• Women during WW2 - more women in the workforce!
  • In the aviation industry, women went from making up just 1% of the workforce to nearly 65%!
• Admiral Grace Hopper - yes, the one the field at champs is named after
  • Created the first compiler (and no one believed it)
  • Helped create COBOL
  • Coined the term “debugging”
  • Holds over 30 honorable doctorate degrees!
• Margaret Hamilton
  • Worked on code for the Apollo command module (a 70lb portable computer!)
  • Worked with only 13,024 “words”
  • Helped save men during Apollo 8
  • Basically created the field of software engineering
• I got sucked into robotics thanks to amazing mentorship and an amazing team!
• Women make up less than 25% of STEM jobs
  • Racial gap as well
  • I had like six pages of statistics but I had to edit them out
• How do we help
  • Combating implicit bias
  • Great female mentors!
  • Social relevance of STEM
  • Introducing girls earlier
  • Being a role model!
  • As a girl, keep a growth mindset!
  • Take every opportunity you are given to learn
  • Create a sense of belonging in the environment
    • One place where I felt this was an all girls competition - Indy Rage!
• Acceptance is super important!
  
• “We need not wait to see what others do”- Ghandi
  • We need to do it ourselves. We need to be the change.

I was incredibly thankful for the opportunity and I hope to keep creating change in the world - whether for this initiative or any other.

Thank you for making the world a better place with me,

Kiran L. 2826

P.S. This was the first and only time I’ve worn make-up. How do people that wear it everyday do things like drink water?!

-Kiran L. 2826