Today’s an important day — actually, both yesterday and today, two days marking important recurrences for me.
One year ago today I got the letter confirming the courthouse approval of my legal name change. Although the courthouse issued the approval on October 21st, 2022, I didn’t get the letter until October 26th, 2022, so in some way both dates mark the anniversary of the legalization of my chosen name and, as such, one of my “birthdays” (along with my “biological” birthday in November and my “gender-affirming” birthday in January). So today marks the first anniversary of the legal approval of my name change, of my chosen name becoming “real” not only to myself but also to the world — and that feels good!
Today’s also the nine-month mark from my masculinizing mastectomy.
And yesterday evening I went climbing with my French buddy who actually drove me to & back from my surgery nine months ago!
We hadn’t seen each other in nine months, since the day he drove me home, and sat with me for hours until my housemate’s return, after my surgery. Since he lived much closer to the clinic where I was going to get my surgery done early on the morning of January 26th, my French buddy came to pick me up at my place the evening before and drove me to his place, where I spent a relaxing evening coddled by him. The next day, he took care of me before & after my surgery. A few days later, he left for months of travels from which he just came back this past weekend. So it felt wonderfully serendipitous to go climbing with him again yesterday evening, exactly nine months from the last time we had seen each other around such an important event. We climbed together, we went out for dinner together, and we even changed in the men’s locker-room at the gym together! There we were, in the men’s locker-room, chatting away in French, like it was the most natural thing in the world — and really, it was! I didn’t even think about it until later that it was the first time I had been actually talking in a men’s changing-room: my voice still leads to my being misgendered quite often so for me to actually talk, to be heard, in a men’s changing room is extremely vulnerable. But I was in there with a buddy last night so I felt comfortable and safe(r). It also felt good, though, how my French buddy acknowledged my feelings when I said to him “Il faut du courage” (“It takes courage”) about being in that space.
I cannot say it enough, how validating and nourishing and profoundly important these interactions with my cis-male buddies are. And I do recognize that I am blessed by being surrounded by so many of these guys — straight, white, well-educated cis-males — people who have almost all the privileges and yet don’t abuse them, on the contrary, are among some of the most sensitive, emotionally connected, understanding, open-minded, and supportive persons I know. My interactions with them throughout my life have helped me be, and survive as, who I am even when I was being forced into a “feminine form” by society. And the in-person interactions with the ones who live here in Colorado have helped me, particularly in these past, very difficult, months, maintain and rediscover one of my main identities: the wild, bold boy in me, and the climber that I am.
Yesterday was important for me also from the professional viewpoint. For the first time in ages I once again gave a long talk, a proper seminar, about my current research work. I gave it at another university from where I work, so for a morning I was a “visiting researcher” there. My talk spurred huge interests in faculty and students at the other institution, I got many insightful questions. But maybe most importantly, giving that talk yesterday switched something back on inside me: it turned a professional side of me, one of my main identities, back on. The researcher, the scientist, the professor, the public speaker in me — all this came alive again yesterday with a force, an enthusiasm, a spontaneous & glowing passion, and even with a confidence, that I hadn’t known in ages. I found another part of myself again — another part of myself has come alive again.
The difficult emotions from the losses and grief from this summer aren’t gone, I can still feel them under the surface. But these buoyant emotions, these nourishing events are good and important — albeit overwhelming — for me now.
The Little Prince and the Fox 