Self-determination

There’s always something liberating for me about traveling. And also about letting go. They renew my sense of self-determination. 

This past week was really hard, a deep emotional rut. I’m not saying the fear or sense of uncertainty aren’t there anymore. But I’m feeling the other side of the same coin: the side that has to do with liberation and potential. Potential to continue becoming my own self — as scary and lonely as it may be. 

I might not be ”queer enough” but I am my own flavor of queer (and it isn’t a competition anyway). 

Some comments and conversations with friends in the past week have been helpful, almost fundamental, as I once again saw myself, or my potential self, reflected in their words and thus found the hope & courage again to continue on my own path to discovering and becoming my own self fully. 

I hadn’t seen my French climbing buddy (the friend who drove me to my gender-affirming top-surgery in January 2023) since last October 2023. I saw him again on Monday and after talking for a few minutes, he finally really looked at me, really saw me, and exclaimed how much the shape of my face, particularly my jawline, had changed. He & I met over two years ago, when I still looked quite feminine, so a comment like that from him really means a lot to me, not only because it’s very affirming but also because it effectively reminds me of how much I’ve actually, physically, changed. And this is a measure — one of the several — of how far I’ve come in my self-determination. 

On Wednesday I had a chat with my ex-housemate (who’s also a friend of mine and therapist) and was sharing about some of my recent doubts and emotional troubles. She’s known me for a little over a year and her reminder, once again, of how much she’s seen me change and grow over this time was healing. But even more so were a couple of specific comments of hers around my queer identity and sexual orientation. “You’re a non-binary gay trans-boy — it hardly gets more queer than that!”. And then her affirming encouragement to let myself go out and find validating male company and in particular community with gay guys, reminding me that she’s seen this yearning in me for as long as she’s known me and that I deserve to seek (& hopefully find) what I want, what I desire. 

I don’t know any transmasc people who identify as gay guys, so in that sense I feel lonely and confused, as I don’t have examples or specific community. But that’s what I am, a non-binary gay trans-boy, and I need to let myself be & become. So I reached out to a big local gay men’s chorus and will audition at the end of August to hopefully sing with them. This feels so right. 

And also having ended things with the transgirl and having deleted the dating apps from my phone feels so right. I did it as an almost instinctive response, last week, to my body shutting down. I trusted that physical response of mine — I’ve learned to trust them. And I’m glad I did. This summer needs to be my summer, a summer of reflection and reset. And maybe even of partial redefinition of myself as I listen to myself more deeply, as I explore and discover. And for this I need some solitude. And especially I need to be single. As scary and lonely as it may be. 

I need to find, discover, explore, and define my version of masculine, my version of queer. 

I am very drawn to the masculine world and I am an athlete. I don’t share these aspects with most of my closest trans/queer/non-binary friends. With respect to these aspects I am alone, for now. But this is me, this is who I am, this is the direction in which I want & need to grow. So I have to do it, I need to follow this path even if now it feels mostly covered in snow or hidden by overgrown jungle. 

Whether it’s visiting new friends in Salt Lake City, experiencing the last two weeks of Pride month very differently; or relaxing in my own living-room by myself; or hiking up a fourteener — it is me that I am trying to find and define. 

It is scary but it also feels right. I recognize this feeling, I’ve had it several times before: this sense of letting go of expectations, letting go of situations; this sense of embracing the unknown; this sense of finding and defining myself authentically, regardless of the difficulties. And maybe one day I’ll finally learn to integrate the feeling that I deserve to be myself and to have/find what I’m longing for and seeking. I might never get it but I deserve to seek it.