Last night I went to the movie theatre (for the first time since COVID!) with one of my fellow baritone singers from the gay men’s chorus and his partner (both cis-men) and a cis-woman friend of theirs. After initial introductions and small talk, we went to get drinks & food for the show and while we were chatting the woman said to me, “Sorry for crashing your boys night out!”
I guess a comment like that totally makes sense: her friends, the other two gay guys, are cis-men she knows and I, the newcomer, was introduced as a chorus member and I look like a man much more than I’m still able to realize. So she just made the assumption that I was a man and, probably, a gay man.
Did she go as far as assuming that I’m cis? But maybe that doesn’t matter… it really shouldn’t: if I feel like a man, it doesn’t matter whether I’m cis or trans.
Her playful comment, which was the clear indicator of an assumption based on looks & situation, baffled me for a brief moment: it still is disconcerting to me that the world may see me like a man without putting it in doubt, without me having to do anything to assert it or “prove” it. But then, past the momentary surprise, what I felt was a deep, extreme (albeit still partly incredulous) validation.
It’s funny how validations can come in different flavors. There’s the ones from my trans/nonbinary/genderqueer friends; the ones from other close cis friends who know me well and see me as me; the ones from my beloved & loving “adventure buddies” (cis-het men); the ones from old friends (all of them but a few also cis-het) who have accepted my “new” gender identity without any problem or doubt whatsoever; the ones coming from strangers and the “outside world”. And then there are the validations coming specifically from the environment of gay men. The latter are the newest and least familiar to me. But they are just as important to me as the other ones because they validate a profound and essential part of my identity, i.e. the gay man in me.
This other baritone & I aren’t close friends, yet, but he is one of the half dozen people with whom I have some form of connection beyond choir, e.g. he & his partner came to my birthday party a couple months ago. Whatever we want to call this relationship between us — acquaintance, loose friendship — it is a new kind of relationship for me with new dynamics. With old friends I have safe, established, affectionate dynamics that go beyond our gender identities and/or sexual orientations. With my trans/nonbinary/genderqueer friends there’s the lovely, deep connection of our non-cis gender journey. With my buddies/cis-het men friends there’s a beautiful camaraderie and tonic male intimacy. The feelings, the dynamics in all of these relationships are wonderful, rich, fun, profound. And yet they are different from the dynamics I experienced last night at the movie theatre with two other gay men or what I experience with the chorus at large most Sunday evenings: the gay man in me is always there, in all my relationships, but it’s mirrored only when I’m out with the guys from the gay men’s chorus — which, I guess, makes sense! When I’m with folks from the gay men’s chorus I’m one of the gay guys, not “the gay guy among cis-het guys” nor the “gay boy in a group of pansexual genderqueer people”.
All of my close friendships are extremely precious to me; I value and need and enjoy all of the different feelings or dynamics they involve — and they feel very familiar. But the ones with these gay men are still new to me, like a treasure chest to which I’ve only just found the key and of which I’m only starting to get a glimpse… and yet in there there are little mirrors, or fragments of mirrors, that can reflect back to me the gay man that I am in a light that may be different from what I’ve known so far.
The Little Prince and the Fox 