Aromanticism & Amatonormativity: my difficulties with our Spring concert

I’m thinking of writing the following message (as a post in the bulletin board) to my chorus members because the amatonormative assumptions that are being made around the content of our next concert have come to be just too uncomfortable and othering for me. 

I am aromantic. Coming out as aro is often harder for me than as trans or gay. Partly because many people (even within the queer community) don’t know what it means; and partly because the messages and stories and dynamics of “romanticism” (& sex) in which our society is constantly steeped make people on the aro-ace spectra often feel like outsiders. And this is how I’m often feeling about the content of our Spring concert. I love the material musically, I really do. But I don’t relate to the lyrics: they are harder and more foreign to me than if we were singing in Greek. And the explicit as well as implicit assumptions that are often made that we “all understand” or have “all experienced” things like “infatuation”, “being crazy for someone”, “flirtatiousness”, “inventing new words because we’re so in love” are uncomfortable and othering for me. I cannot relate to most of those feelings or concepts. I do not experience “romantic feelings”. I can feel profound love and commitment and care — I do, in fact, feel profound love & care for my friends, I am loyal & and committed to them — but not in the “romantic sense”. 

Given that aro-ace people are estimated to be ~1% of the population, I might be the only person in the room at rehearsals who does not relate to the lyrics we are singing or feels uncomfortable with some assumptions — which is why I haven’t said anything until now. But given that our concerts are approaching, I feel the need to share my truth and these difficulties with you all because I really enjoy making music with you all and also hope to enjoy the upcoming shows!

Oh, sweet liberation!

Despite all the pain and anger over the past couple weeks, the strongest and most consistent feeling since ending things with the gender-expansive guy with whom I had hooked up has been that of “getting my life back”.

Something cracked, and that’s where the pain comes. But the crack is also allowing “good stuff” to fill my life again; allowing me to pour “good stuff” in & out of me again. 

As Leonard Cohen sang, 

“There is a crack, a crack in everything, 

That’s how the light gets in”. 

Saturday I finalized plans for what would seem like a wonderful Sunday: climbing outdoors for several hours in the afternoon sunshine with my closest climbing buddy and then rehearsal with the gay men’s chorus in the evening. And yet, Saturday night something woke me up and I couldn’t fall asleep again for hours. I felt anger and constriction. 

After several unsuccessful attempts at falling back asleep, I gave up: I sat up in bed, flung my pillow across the bedroom, and then decided to listen to what was coming up for me. And there it was: a little voice, small but clear, saying, “I don’t want to go to chorus rehearsal tomorrow evening”. 

“OK,” I replied, “if you don’t want to go, you don’t have to go. If I don’t want to go to rehearsal, I’m simply not going to go”. And with that, I settled down, and fell back asleep within a short while. 

In the morning, as I got ready to go climbing outdoors and shared my decision with my housemate, I was able to clarify more explicitly the reasons for this “No” that had come up for me. In reality, it had been lingering there all week, since the chorus retreat the previous weekend. There were several reasons for this “No”. One was, simply, that I had had “enough of the chorus”, or “enough closeness” with chorus members, the previous weekend at retreat and still needed to “detox” from that: an example of my “close but not too close” attitude/need. Another, related, reason was that I didn’t want to reactivate emotions and dynamics that I often experience with the chorus. The gay men’s chorus has been a wonderful “place” for me to experience new emotions and dynamics, for me to find and express new parts of myself, for me to blossom and connect in new ways — and for all this, I am very grateful to the people in the chorus. But many of those emotions and dynamics have also been very intense and confusing for me, and have taken up a lot of my time and energy and attention over the past months since September, partly also because I had been exercising less (due to injuries and winter weather). So I just felt the need for a break from all that, especially after the intensity of the chorus retreat the previous weekend. I just wanted an easy, “usual weekend day out” with my closest buddy: climbing, catching up, exchanging stories, going for beers&burgers afterwards. And I didn’t want to have to do all that in a rush: I didn’t want to cut that quality time with my buddy short. That time with him is precious to me — it’s at once easy and profound and nourishing — and yesterday I needed it more than anything. I needed that easy, profound connection with a close cis-het guy friend. And I also needed to be outdoors, in the sunshine and breeze and fresh air, without having to rush somewhere else (indoors). And I needed to feel my own “wildness” and freedom and self-determination and strength: part of that was the simple physical strength of climbing; but part of it was also the emotional or mental strength of saying “No” firmly to something that didn’t feel right to me and “Yes” fully to something that, instead, felt good and healthy and affirming to me. 

Yes, I can choose. And I chose to get my life back. 

Tu vas me manquer, dude!

[Note: This entry will be very long, and partly flow-of-consciousness. This is probably a piece that will eventually, hopefully, go into my memoir. So please read with sympathy and feel free to comment as long as it’s gentle & constructive feedback.]

“Elle parle Français et beaucoup d’autres langues!” my French buddy cried after the pair who had just exclaimed to me, “Oh, so you are French!” 

“Maybe I misheard him”, I thought to myself. But then he repeated it in English, probably realizing that the other people hadn’t understood his exclamation in French – “She speaks, like, five languages!” 

This time, I certainly hadn’t misheard. So I stared at him and then half asked, half exclaimed, “She?! With this face?!?”. And as his glazed eyes focused on me again, regaining more control from whatever substances were making him a little high, he looked at me, appalled at himself, exclaimed, “Oh my god, I’m so sorry! I can’t believe that happened!?!” And he hid his face in his hands.

I was on my way out, leaving my French climbing buddy’s farewell party. And I teared up. And, of course, he thought I was tearing up because of the misgendering. But no, that didn’t really upset me. I was tearing up because I’ll miss him. Because, even though we rarely got a chance to climb together or even hang out in the past couple years, he is particularly dear and special to me. 

He is the first friend I made here in Colorado, meeting him within a month of when I had moved out here three years ago. It was a cold but sunny day in February. I was having my first symptoms of what later turned out to be thyroiditis. I still had my old car — the first car I had ever owned and the vehicle that had brought me to Colorado from California through a couple of snowstorms a month prior. Once I got here, within a week I was already reaching out to make new climbing buddies, mainly using a WhatsApp group from the gym as a way of finding new climbing partners. And I was taking many leaps of faith, going on several “blind climbing dates”, so to speak. This one Saturday (or Sunday?), I had agreed to meet one guy and two friends of his to climb up in the local canyon. 

As I drove up the canyon, the engine temperature dial on the dashboard started showing the temperature rising beyond safe levels. This had happened once already, crossing a pass a month prior, on my way out from California to Colorado. So I did my homework: turned the heat on as high as I could and kept going, while keeping an eye on the dial. The temperature rise slowed down but didn’t stop. So I had to stop. I waited several minutes at a pull-out and then, determined to go climbing, kept driving up the canyon. I made it to the pull-out of the crag where I was supposed to meet the other three (unknown) climbers. Just in time: the engine was steaming (partly also because of the outside near-freezing temperatures). I stepped out of my parked car to assess the situation. And as I did, a cute, friendly-looking, tall, blond guy with a strong French accent came up and asked me, “Do you need help?”

“Yes”, I replied, as I realized that I was going to have to call for a tow but that there was no cell-phone reception in this part of the canyon. “Can you drive me a little further up to where I have reception so I can call for road-side assistance?”

“Sure!”

And so we hopped into his car, he & I sitting in the front and his friend who was visiting him for a few days in the back seat. 

They were both very friendly and we got chatting quickly, so I asked them, “Vous-êtes français?” 

“Oui! Tu parles Français?”

“Oui”.

I think that’s what jump-started our friendship. That and the fact, that came out almost immediately, that we both ride motorcycles. And that, apart from climbing, we both love back-country skiing. And that we had both, literally, just moved to Colorado from California. 

After we had been chatting for a while, it came out that they were actually “the friends” of “the guy” with whom I was supposed to climb at the crag that day! So once we got somewhere where we had reception, while I made phone calls for my car issue, he handled the communication with our “common climbing buddy”. 

He waited for what was probably an hour for me to get a tow arranged. Then he drove us back to the crag and tried to insist on waiting for the tow with me, but I insisted in turn that they should all just go climbing. He took care of me that day and checked in on me a few days later. And then we started climbing together. I met his girlfriend. He met the nonbinary person who at the time was a “special friend” for me. He took me on my first free solo adventure. We gave each other rides when one of us didn’t have a functioning vehicle. 

Then we both moved out of the town where we had both been living, to different towns. I got a new job. His girlfriend moved out here and in with him. We had different schedules and often different goals, or styles, for our climbing. So we climbed and hung out less often, but the friendship remained. We kept in touch. We invited each other to birthdays & house-warming parties. We got lunch or coffee together. 

And eventually, in January 2023, almost a whole year after we had met, he was the person who drove me to & home from my gender-affirming top-surgery. He took complete care of me for almost two full days in one of the most vulnerable and important moments of my life. 

When he & I met in February 2022, I still looked like a girl. An adventurous, athletic and androgynous girl, but “female” nonetheless. I was already using “they” pronouns at the time, which he respected, but in his native French he probably defaulted to the feminine “elle”. But he never made me feel “like a girl”. He was always very affirming and validating of who I was as a person. 

As my first friend here in Colorado, he was also one of the first people to start seeing, in person, the effects of gender-affirming hormone therapy on me, and he marveled and rejoiced at the changes with me. 

And our dynamics shifted because of my shifting looks: as I started looking and sounding more and more masculine, he instinctively started treating me more like a “bro” or a “buddy” in ways that were affirming, validating, endearing. And given that we saw each other every few months, the changes in me were more evident, or startling, to him than to myself or to friends who saw me more often; so every time he & I hung out, it was like a new discovery and celebration of the boy I was turning into on the outside.  

When I arrived at his farewell party last night, after not having seen each other in over six months, it was the same enthusiastic welcome: exclamations of “dude” and “bro” and “buddy”; hugs with a pat on the back or shoulder; and, maybe above all, the admiration of the changes in my face – the jaw-line, the facial hair. 

This is why his misgendering me three hours later, when he was a little drunk, didn’t upset me. He has really seen the “girl in me”. I looked like a girl the first time we met; I looked like a girl for many months that were the building blocks, or corner stones, of our friendship. Yet he never “made me feel like a girl”, on the contrary, he has always seen, encouraged, celebrated, affirmed, validated, and even supported practically the boy that I am. 

This is why I’ll miss him, this is why I’m sad that he is leaving, even though we got to see each other so rarely in the end. 

I shall miss him being here. I’m sad that he won’t be an hour’s drive away from me, because he is, arguably, one of the most important people in my life. 

And I won’t miss only his affirming, enthusiastic support of me in my gender-journey. I shall also miss the enthusiasm he puts into things, into life. Something that we share – maybe the very thing that really brought us close that first time we met and kept us close beyond/despite our diverging goals or mismatching schedules. He goes into things – activities, relationships, dreams, projects, life – enthusiastically, whole-heartedly, with openness, with generosity, with full dedication to the other person(s) involved and with a resounding “Yes” (if he can). His “yes” are full, simple “yes”, not “yes, but”.  

And that’s the type of person that I want to have in my life. That’s the kind of person that I want to surround myself with and fill my life with. Not people who give in a stingy way. 

So yes, I shall miss my French (climbing/adventure) buddy very much. 

“Tu vas me manquer, dude”. 

“when you have forgotten Sunday: the love story”

“

—And when you have forgotten the bright bedclothes on a Wednesday and a Saturday,

And most especially when you have forgotten Sunday—

When you have forgotten Sunday halves in bed,

Or me sitting on the front-room radiator in the limping afternoon

Looking off down the long street

To nowhere,

Hugged by my plain old wrapper of no-expectation

And nothing-I-have-to-do and I’m-happy-why?

And if-Monday-never-had-to-come—

When you have forgotten that, I say,

And how you swore, if somebody beeped the bell,

And how my heart played hopscotch if the telephone rang;

And how we finally went in to Sunday dinner,

That is to say, went across the front room floor to the ink-spotted table in the southwest corner

To Sunday dinner, which was always chicken and noodles

Or chicken and rice

And salad and rye bread and tea

And chocolate chip cookies—

I say, when you have forgotten that,

When you have forgotten my little presentiment

That the war would be over before they got to you;

And how we finally undressed and whipped out the light and flowed into bed,

And lay loose-limbed for a moment in the week-end

Bright bedclothes,

Then gently folded into each other—

When you have, I say, forgotten all that,

Then you may tell,

Then I may believe

You have forgotten me well.

”

[poem when you have forgotten Sunday: the love story by Gwendolyn Brooks]

Relational ablation

“Ablation” (definition/meaning, e.g. Merriam-Webster dictionary): a) surgical removal; b) loss or removal of a part (such as ice from a glacier or the outside of a nose cone)[…].

In their support of my difficulties at the retreat due to the recent ending of the relationship with the gender-expansive gay guy with whom I had hooked up, one of my closest nonbinary friends asked me if my decision to end that relationship felt empowering to me. 

At first, I couldn’t find an answer. 

Now, the best way I can explain how it feels is by comparing it to the ablation I had a little over two months ago. 

The decision I made about not pursuing the friendship with the gender-expansive gay guy with whom I had hooked up is internal: I came to that conclusion within myself, over the course of weeks, and put it into effect, practically, last Monday; but I did so in a way that is explicit or clear only to myself (& my close friends) — in the clarifying (for me also final) conversation he & I had last Monday, I did not say, “I don’t want to be friends with you anymore”. 

In our clarifying (& for me also final) conversation, we each stated what we would like from our friendship: and there’s a mismatch. On his part, he’d be happy to continue seeing each other as we have been, while also acknowledging that he’d have to put more effort into reaching out & initiating things, but without “benefits”. So theoretically, we could keep hanging out platonically every couple of weeks. But I don’t want that anymore and I’m definitely done with reaching out to initiate things with him. But I didn’t say that explicitly to him. My decision stands and is as solid as ever, but it is my own, it is internal: I have processed it and prepared myself for weeks for this; I have shared it with my close friends; I have deleted his contact info from my phone; I know it’s necessary and healthy for me; and I am determined to never reach out to him to hang out again — and I know I will hold true to this decisions of mine. 

While being very clear on the inside, though, this decisions is not evident on the outside: he probably doesn’t realize, or know about it, yet. 

And in this sense it’s like my ablation. The procedure was performed in mid-December. Technically, my body (specifically, my uterus) changed immediately on the inside. But nothing showed on the outside. An ablation doesn’t leave scars on the outside (the scars on my belly are from the salpingectomy). And the practical, long-term effects of an ablation can really be seen only months down the road: it will only be once I start “skipping my period” for several months in a row that I will eventually, finally, realize what I got done in December. All I could feel in December, after the procedure, was pain. The decision of having the procedure done in the first place was a determined, rational, practical decision for something that I knew was, or would be, necessary and healthy for me. But the relief and/or sense of liberation or empowerment will come later down the road, once an “old pattern” is finally broken or no longer repeated.

For me, the recent ending of the relationship with the gender-expansive gay guy with whom I had hooked up feels similar: for now, nothing “shows on the outside”, and on the inside I mostly feel pain. It will take weeks of the “old pattern” being finally broken or no longer repeated for me (& probably him) to actually realize that this relationship is over. 

And only then will I finally feel the full sense of liberation and empowerment from this decision of mine.

Finding “my people”

This weekend’s retreat with the gay men’s chorus was a lot. 

Overall, it wasn’t as difficult or as emotionally overwhelming or upsetting to me as the first one had been, in October, when I was still a complete newbie and really struggling socially with this group of people that was still so foreign to me. 

This time it was very intense — as all these retreats are bound to be, for all of us there — and in many ways “experimental” and/or “exploratory” for me.  

Firstly, on the one hand, there’s the fact that I myself am a very different person, and at a different stage of my life, now with respect to six months ago when I had just joined this chorus and went on the first retreat.  On the other hand, the environment in which this retreat took place was different from the one in October: in the fall, we went to a place that was new for the chorus, thus unfamiliar to everyone; this weekend, instead, we went back to a venue where this chorus has been for years, that feels comfortable and familiar to most of the chorus members, thus enabling habits, activities, and dynamics (beyond the singing practice) that are long-established within this group of people. 

So in some ways this was the first retreat for me where I really plunged into this chorus’ social bubble. And I pushed my comfort-zone a lot. 

After the liberating, empowering, joyful experience of gender-bending at the fundraiser dance party the chorus had last Thursday, where I wore a gold flapper dress and danced all night, I took another gender-bending leap and wore another flamboyant femme outfit at the retreat dinner on Saturday night. And again, while a little scary and definitely still out of my comfort-zone, it also felt liberating, empowering, and joyful. It feels like a reclaiming of myself, of parts of my identity, while also showing myself more to this group of people. 

Then, later Saturday night, I joined the pool party, wearing only my Speedo-like swimsuit. 

The pool party was rough. There was (for me) an uncomfortable, almost painful element of awkwardness because of the recent ending of the relationship between me & the gender-expansive gay guy with whom I had hooked up. But beyond, or besides that, there was also a renewed sense of not belonging fully. As my baritone friend with whom I ended up spending most fo the time at the pool party said, “there was a lot going on in that pool…”! And as I said to my baritone friend, I could tell that there was “a lot going on” but I was also confused by it — aware that there was “a lot going on” while also aware that I didn’t “get” or want to partake in what was “going on”. 

My ace/aro orientation, and maybe even my autistic brain, constitute a barrier that to some extent in unsurmountable, to my being fully part of this group of people. I will always be an outsider, at least to a certain extent. And this feels painful to me. 

However, I do believe that part of the pain can be assuaged by “finding my people” within this group of people. At large, this is already “my people”, in the sense that it is a loving, accepting, safe, supportive community. But it is also a very diverse group of people. One could say that there are “a hundred shades of gay” within this chorus. I can respect and accept and love and support everyone in this chorus but I don’t necessarily have to like, or really connect with, everyone — on the contrary. For instance, the gender-expansive gay guy with whom I had hooked up is not a good choice for me as someone with whom to pursue anything, nor are most of the people closer to him in the chorus. Nor is my chorus-assigned Big Sibling. Nor are the guys who are — as far as my ace/autistic brain can tell — being flirty with me.

My people are probably those who say to me, “You’re a wonderful person!” (as opposed to “You’re hot”); or those who say about themselves & me, “I don’t get social cues — that’s why he & I get along so well”, accepting me and liking me not only despite, but because of, my difficulties with “in-between-the-lines” social cues; or those who, without my needing to say anything, somehow understand that I need a hug or support, and come over, ask how I’m doing, and offer me that hug and hold me; or those who, seeing that I’m on the verge of a meltdown because at the end of a long day socializing my hotel-room reservation has somehow been canceled, help me by reconfirming that reservation for me. 

These are “my people” — not the gender-expansive gay guy with whom I had hooked up. The experience with the latter was fun and affirming, to a certain extent. An experiment in my journey. A taste of something new to me, which was good in the moment but needs to be left behind. 

Finding “my people” within this larger group of people is probably going to take time, maybe more time than I would like or expect. It’s also going to take some internal clarifying on my part, within myself, of what I really want, or need, from this chorus and from people within this group. It might take a while and it might be hard, or confusing, and it will require me to “give space” — give space to myself, my needs, my desires, and also give space to other persons, to new relationships. 

As I wrote last week, I guess, “a hole is a space I can fill”. And maybe, hopefully, eventually I can fill it with “my people”.

A hole is a space you can fill

On Monday evening, a relationship that I cared about, or hoped for, ended. In reality, in my own head & heart, that relationship had ended already the previous week. In fact, on Sunday, foreseeing a difficult conversation with the gender-expansive gay guy from the chorus and ensuing “emotional wreck” state for me, I reached out to a few of my closest friends to ask for support, including the availability to talk on the phone to help me self-regulate, on Monday night. 

As I made my lunch before driving into the city on Monday, I couldn’t help telling myself, “This is the end. It’s over. Today’s the last time. But you’ll be fine”. 

I knew it. I knew it and felt it so clearly. Yet it still hurt. 

Of course it hurt, and hurts: it’s the end of something. There’s some loss. It wasn’t a long relationship, or super deep yet, but there seemed to really be potential. And anyway, for me it was special and important because it was my first foray into the “gay men’s world”, my first relationship with a gay man as an aro/ace transman. 

So of course now there’s sadness and pain and a sense of loss. Like a hole. Monday night and most of yesterday the sense of a hole was really intense and painful. 

Last night, though, while I was half-asleep, I felt an equally intense and almost surprisingly bright sense of relief. The sense of now having more space to fill in whatever ways I want to. More space to even just think about how I want to fill it — my space, my time, my relationships. More space to really think about what, and whom, I want to bring, or invite, into my life now. 

Some of the close friends to whom I reached out on Sunday & Monday said something very similar to me: “I understand your pain, it sucks, I’m sorry for you about this loss and pain. But it also leaves space to find other relationships in your life that will fulfill you more”. I read their words, heard their words, and felt immense gratitude for them. But they didn’t sink in deep, go from my head to my heart, until last night. For some reason, they sunk in and took root and started blossoming in my soul last night.

Relief. Lightness. Freedom.

Yes, I will miss this guy because I really like(d) him. Yes, I’m sorry that the potential didn’t concretize. And yes, I am honestly afraid that I will never be able to get some of my needs met (e.g. the ones pertaining to the “gay men’s world” and the satisfaction of my sex-positive ace/aro orientation). This fear is very real for me and if I dwell on it, it’s also painful. But I won’t get these needs met by this gender-expansive gay guy from the chorus; and by freeing that space in my soul while also admitting that these needs are real (& painful) for me, I can maybe try to get them met by people who really are available to meet me there. And I can also use that space that has (re)opened in my soul to try and fulfill other needs that have been nagging at the strings of my heart in the past months, or years, such as finding more “adventure buddies” and doing things for myself that I have been postponing for a while now (e.g. getting bookshelves to finally settle into my new place; starting to do some cross-country skiing; going out dancing more; traveling more, as I used to…).

Yes, there is a hole in my soul right now, and it is painful. But a hole is a space that can be filled. A hole can be a dark place but it can also be a very light place — light because it’s empty, and light because it can be lit. 

A hole is not only the remnant of something that used to be there and is no longer present or available: a hole is also the promise of something new, a space for something else, room for invitation. And it’s up to me what or whom I invite into this space, because this space is mine to fill. 

Rejection — Punch in the stomach

Rejection feels like a punch in the stomach to me. 

Every time. It never gets easier. It hurts like hell every time, no matter how often it has happened to me, no matter how prepared I might be for it. Even when I know it’s going to hit — like I did yesterday evening — the punch in the stomach is still extremely painful. And then, afterwards, when I’m idle, a clenching in my chest — like the anxiety in a burgeoning panic attack, I think. 

The body keeps the score. 

How old, how deep is this trauma of rejection within me, in my body? 

There are some relational needs that keep going unmet for me. Some include physical touch and sexual connection within “friends with benefits” contexts. And the ongoing lack of getting those specific needs met, along with the fact that my external/bodily alignment with my inner gender-identity was something that I got so late in life and the current, extremely hostile political and social situation for trans/nonbinary/gender-nonconforming people, makes me particularly vulnerable when the rejection comes in that area of life/relationships. 

Such a rejection came for me last night and it really, really hurts.

More good news this week!

Although these aren’t the only issues at stake right now, we must celebrate the good news that we do have:

– One Colorado is reporting that The True Center and Denver Health are to reinstate gender-affirming care for youth in Colorado!!!!!!!!

(Big thanks to One Colorado and CO Attorney General Phil Weiser!)

And:

– “Democrats in Maine are fighting back against President Donald Trump’s dictate excluding transgender athletes from school sports after he called the state out in a speech on Thursday.”

[from the article “Trump made an anti-trans threat in Maine. Its Democrats are fighting back” in LGBTQ Nation]

Hell Yeah! We won’t be erased!!!