One of my closest nonbinary friends says gender is a social construct.
So much of our identities in general depend on the social messaging that we get from the day we’re born.
I was definitely given lots of toxic messaging as I was growing into myself — not simply for not being allowed to live in my true gender but also being taught in various ways that I wasn’t really worthy or lovable just as a human being but had to “earn love” and other such harmful messaging. But I also received a lot of positive, nurturing, supportive messaging: I was fortunate to meet many people along my path who saw & valued me, saw the real me, and supported me, nurtured me, encouraged me with unconditional love, thus teaching me to somehow value myself and find myself.
As I step into my new year’s resolution to allow myself to be my own version of a man, I’m realizing that this is a very delicate phase for me: from my own boyhood to my own manhood. The messaging I give myself and receive from the outer world now, especially after such an emotionally hard surgery as the one I had a couple weeks ago, is crucial.
In the past few years, as my gender journey has deepened and broadened and I have become more explicitly myself, I have been surrounded and supported by encouraging, loving friends and acquaintances who see me as I am and also see the potential me: having these parts of me reflected back to me by these living mirrors has been fundamental for me in gaining confidence to become & express who I really am as a whole. These people have not only reflected back to me the boy, the nonbinary transguy, the athlete, the scientist that I am: they have also reflected back to me the sense that I am worthy as a human being, as a whole.
Generally, I have nothing against hookups or fuck-buddies: I’ve had that type of relationship a few times in my life when it was the right moment for me (& for the other persons involved). But now, as I slowly allow myself to be a man and, on top of that, as I learn to navigate the world of gay men that is still so new to me, I have to tread carefully around relationships. With my old friends and cis-het climbing or running buddies there’s a sense of safety, partly because we’ve known each other for a long time, and partly because I already know that type of interactions (platonic, athletic, intellectual, emotional). Whereas being seen not only as a man but as a handsome gay man by other gay men is totally new to me: I’m still in a boyhood phase there and the messaging I get from people in that world is going to be crucial for me now. So in this phase, in that world, relationships or prolonged interactions that give (the boy in) me the message “you’re hot” can be very toxic for me because they can make me feel objectified. The occasional comment, flirtatious or not, “you’re hot” is OK: it’s harmless and might be flattering for a fleeting moment or even affirming once in a while. But a comment of that type in the context of hooking up or being fuck-buddies risks building in me the image of myself as a sexual object with no further value, and that’s not OK for me now.
(There’s no moral judgement here on hooking up or being fuck-buddies or feeling OK with being seen as a sexual object: there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with any of that, but it’s important to understand and respect if/when it feels OK for us, or not.)
Here’s where the man that is already in me needs to step up to protect the boy: here’s where I, as my own father, need to protect that boy in me as he slowly, gradually, vulnerably steps into his own manhood.
The Little Prince and the Fox 