I belong

I love this feeling of belonging. Of belonging here, here and now. 

I belonged in the Acroyoga class on Monday night where, although I’ve been there only a couple times, some people remembered me from the previous two times I had gone — and it’s just a warm, welcoming, respectful, and affectionate community anyway. 

I belonged at the climbing gym to which I returned on Tuesday afternoon after many months of absence. When I walked in, the gym manager happened to be there: she’s a lovely woman whom I had “bugged” a lot last summer and fall about getting gender-neutral changing-rooms/bathrooms in the building, as other gyms have. We talked a lot last summer and fall, she explained the reasons she couldn’t get such gender-neutral spaces in that specific gym in the short term, but she also listened to me and tried to find options and solutions that could help me (& other persons) feel more comfortable. Among other things, she got signs put up outside all the binary restrooms & changing-rooms, right under the signs that say “Men” or “Women”: signs that say explicitly that whoever can use those restrooms & changing-rooms, based on how they feel. She also got sanitary pads placed both in the men’s bathrooms, by the sink, upstairs and in the men’s changing-room downstairs: sanitary pads in a little basket with a note saying, “Please don’t remove. These items belong here and are important here for some members of our community”. I am one of those “members of our community”: a climber, but also a queer, non-binary, trans-masculine climber. On Tuesday, when I walked into this specific climbing gym and the manager was there, her delight in seeing me again after so long was very apparent and genuine. She welcomed me very warmly, gave me a tight bear hug (after having asked for permission), and encouraged me to please give her any feedback I wanted to share about how I felt using the spaces there. Which is probably one of the things that helped give me courage, together with the various signs and items in the changing-rooms, to actually venture into the men’s changing-room for the first time (at least, for the first time since doing it with my guy-friends as a teenager).

I belonged at the end-of-semester celebrations in my department on Tuesday evening, where I received a warm welcome when I showed up after a week or two of absence. 

I belonged in the transgender choir when I finally joined rehearsal again on Tuesday night, after having had to skip for several weeks in a row. 

I belonged last night: accepting my housemate’s invitation to join her & her transmasculine partner (who is the founder of the transgender choir in which we all sing) for dinner and then to go out dancing all three of us together. 

This isn’t the first time, or period of my life, that I’ve felt I belong. I felt a deep sense of belonging in several sailing groups, with my peers in grad school, partly even at the university where I taught for several years in California. The strongest sense of belonging that I have felt in recent years has been with the climbing community, which is one of the reasons I suffered so much during the pandemic and lockdown when that connection was severed for months. 

But the sense of belonging I’m feeling now, here and now, is stronger, deeper. And I think it is stronger and deeper here & now because I am finally embracing, embodying, and fully experiencing a more authentic sense of belonging with(in) myself. 

I belong in this body: in this non-binary, trans body. 

When I walk into a space now, I walk into it with a completely different self-awareness and even self-confidence. 

When I walk into a climbing gym or up to a climbing crag, I know — I feel — that I am a climber, a true climber with/in my heart, with/in my head, with/in my body.    

When I walk on campus now I am finally regaining my confidence as a scientist, as a professional. 

And in all of these spaces I also walk as a queer person — sometimes scared or shy or worried, other times confident and proud — anyhow, always authentic. 

Like last night, on the dance floor, so evidently, obviously queer, so apparently non-binary. In fact, my two queer friends & I immediately attracted the attention of a group of lesbian women who were also at the dance venue for a celebration of their own. And it felt so good to be seen, to be recognized almost immediately as queer by other queer people. But it also felt good to be seen by all the other people there — so many of them staring but also so many of them genuinely appreciative. 

I am often getting overwhelmed by the attention I am receiving and even by all the warmth, the wonderful and yet new and often still unexpected welcomes. But it is lovely to feel that one belongs and, especially, to feel that one belongs just as one is, as one’s true, authentic self. To be seen, accepted, embraced, appreciated, even admired as one’s true self without having to hide or camouflage. 

I belong, here and now. I belong in this body, I belong in these communities, I belong in these spaces. I belong, just as I am.