The Little Prince and the Fox

[Trigger warnings: panic responses, meltdown; transphobia.]

I finally dragged myself out of bed past ten thirty this morning. Part of it was simply physical exhaustion: I was unable to get to sleep until almost one in the morning and then woke up to pee shortly before six and couldn’t get back to sleep for a couple hours. But it was more than just physical tiredness or need to sleep: I literally felt the need to stay in bed, under the covers, in a safe, sheltered space to protect myself, to recover. 

Let’s look at the silver lining: I avoided a panic attack or meltdown last night, skimmed the fight/flight/freeze zone, and made it home safely. I held myself together not only for the almost four hours of meeting & rehearsal but also on the 40-mile drive home last night. But it was a tremendous effort and I’m feeling it now. 

To say that I don’t do well in crowds is putting it mildly. And I knew that already — which is probably part of the reason I was so terrified yesterday. My autistic brain and introverted nature make it hard to deal with big groups of people. My COVID trauma and still lingering post-pandemic fears make it worse for me. Put me in a crowded environment that also has some form of allosexual energy (whether implicit or explicit), which now I know triggers my asexual being, and the recipe for meltdown is complete. So the fact that I didn’t actually shut down completely last night is a miracle. I came very close to it, though, several times. Some unlucky practical incidents made it worse: I misunderstood the instructions from the artistic director and only brought about one-third of the sheet music we were going to sing (& had practiced at home only two of the dozen songs); the Big Brother that was assigned to me didn’t make it to rehearsal (all newbies are assigned a “Big Sibling” to help guide them through their first steps and throughout their first year in this chorus). So, I didn’t have my own music to count on, to almost shelter myself into while singing; and I didn’t have someone who was supposed to be literally right by my side, someone to sit with me, answer my questions, maybe chat with me or help me feel more comfortable in a sea of strangers. 

So I did what I usually do in situations like this: I keep to myself as much as I can and then I flee (often going outside) as soon as possible. 

But last night was difficult in a way that was new or different from other times, maybe one of the hardest or scariest experiences. I felt exposed. I felt vulnerable. I felt like a “girl” or a “woman” like I never had before, with a weight and a vulnerability to it that I could barely stand. I felt my female socialization and the “female parts” of my body like one of the biggest burdens and one of the most vulnerable spots that I’ve ever experienced. I felt like I had “trans” written all over me and it was almost unbearable. I literally wished I wasn’t wearing my usual wristbands, one with the trans-flag colors and one with the nonbinary colors. I felt like I was outing myself in an environment that somehow didn’t feel safe for that. 

I can hardly believe how much internalized transphobia I still have — I guess this is what this is… 

While I feel totally comfortable with my masculine/androgynous body, I still feel extremely uncomfortable with my voice and with my female socialization — both aspects that in a gay men’s chorus weigh a lot on me. And the doubts or impostor syndrome coming from my “different” voice and my different (i.e. female) socialization weigh on me so much that in such an environment even the ease I feel with(in) my masculine & muscular upper-body isn’t sufficient. 

The guy sitting on my left did introduce himself to me, which was nice. But I also felt those “sticky vibes” that make me instinctively turn away, or avoid, someone; and I felt him sort of looking at me sideways while singing, I’m not sure whether at me or at my wristbands, but it somehow felt uncomfortable, like I was being examined. I read the music with the guy on my right — or, at least, that’s what I was trying to do. When I realized I didn’t have all the sheet music with me, I asked him if I could read with him (since that’s what the artistic director said we should do) and he acquiesced, and it didn’t seem like a problem at first. But I could barely see the music because he held it right in front of himself, not the way one would hold it to share. He didn’t introduce himself to me — I asked him his name, he answered, asked me mine, and that was the end of it. And it didn’t feel like shyness on his part: instinctively to me the vibes felt hostile. My gut sensed “hostility”. And my instinct (or my internalized transphobia?) said the hostility was due to the trans & nonbinary wristbands I wear. 

I was able to avoid shutting down completely — i.e. I was able to avoid the “complete freeze mode” — but as the rehearsal went on, I felt my throat constricting more and more often, notes unable to come out of my mouth, and my brain going blank repeatedly as I fought back thoughts like “you sound different, your voice isn’t male, you don’t belong here”. 

The fact — the true, real, proven fact — that I was one of the only six baritones who was accepted out of dozens of baritones who auditioned doesn’t sink in, it’s somehow not enough. It’s not even enough that the artistic director actually told us all, the whole chorus, last night that picking the baritones was the hardest part because most of the auditionees were baritones so it came down to an extremely competitive choice. That should probably tell me that I did well, that I actually can sing. But it doesn’t: what I hear in my head is a voice that says that maybe I was picked “just because I’m trans”, as a sort of “reverse discrimination”, sort of a “DEI move” for the chorus to look inclusive (I used to have this kind of thought also when I applied for positions in science/academia as a “woman”). The other voice in my head says that since I was, in fact, picked, now I have to work extra hard to prove that I really deserved it despite my voice “not sounding male”. The transphobic contortionism of these thoughts is clear to me rationally but I still cannot get them out of my head and it was all I could do last night to keep them in check enough to neither go totally mute nor burst into tears. 

And then, on the other hand, the battle to keep my “flight mode” under control. I couldn’t run away, which I would have gladly done within half an hour of when we started singing. I had to stay three more hours. But once rehearsal was over and I had done my due diligence of putting my chair away, I fled with hardly a word to anyone, avoiding the post-rehearsal social time at the food&drink place across the street where almost everyone went and which apparently is a tradition for the chorus members. I fled to the relative safety of my car, sat for nearly twenty minutes to pull myself together to be able to drive safely, and headed home. I also had a couple of “flight mode” moments during rehearsal when we had breaks: during the first ten-minute break, I just headed outside and hung out by myself in the parking-lot; during the second break, I needed to pee so I walked into the men’s room (something I’m quite used to doing at this point) only to find it more crowded than I could handle (I should have expected it, I guess). I instinctively headed for the stall, which usually is free and sort of my “safe haven” in men’s rooms, only to find it occupied by a guy peeing with the door unlocked. So I fled, I literally fled. Without looking around, I rushed downstairs where, according to signs, there were additional bathrooms, and went right into the first one I found (which, ironically, was labeled “Ladies”).  

I expected it to be difficult yesterday but not so difficult, so overwhelming and, in some ways, so crushing.

My climbing buddy & super close friend with whom I hung out before going to choir yesterday made a very insightful remark: “You’re intimidated by gay men”. Yes, I guess I am (not by each one of them individually but, rather, by them as a group). So why am I doing this?

The main feeling I have as a first impression after my first rehearsal with the gay men’s chorus is that I’m not a gay guy after all. 

Gay men seem to be so strongly defined by their sexuality, or sexual orientation — allosexual and gay. 

I, instead, feel more defined by my transmasculinity, i.e. by my transmasculine gender-identity. 

And my sexuality, or sexual orientation, feels more strongly ace now. 

The way I feel is that I am a sex-positive ace transguy who enjoys being around other guys, which is not the same as a gay guy. And my identification as an ace transguy who likes to be around other guys explains why I feel so comfortable and safe around straight men: precisely because they are straight and I’m a guy, so I will be safe in my ace sexuality/identity around them and can have uncomplicated close friendships with them.

I don’t know what it is, I cannot pinpoint it, but my voice is different from that of cis-men. I hit the notes of baritones, I get them right, and I can even go as low as many basses, but something is different: I sing the same notes as cis-male-baritones but it sounds different somehow. 

And probably this is why I still get misgendered by people if the only cue they have is my voice… somehow, it’s not a male voice. 

And probably it will never be.

Today’s the big day: my first rehearsal with the gay men’s chorus! 

And I’m feeling positively terrified. 

These next couple days will be an immersion in masculinity in different, and diverse, ways: this afternoon I’ll be cross-training at the gym with my closest climbing buddy and then we’ll get food together, to have some of our “bro-time” while we’re both nursing injuries; then, this evening I have my first rehearsal with the gay men’s choir; and on Tuesday I’ll be leading an inclusive climbing event centered around healthy & diverse masculinity at my local climbing gym (& to that end I’ve been rereading bell hook’s book on “men, masculinity, and love”, The will to change).

I have been immersing myself in masculinity for months now: it was partly intentional but partly also just happened to be that way, with most of the people I’ve been engaging with over this relatively solitary (& somewhat lonely) summer being men. 

But today and Tuesday feel different — really monumental — maybe because they’re events, or milestones, towards which I worked and put effort into for months and are doors into a broader experience of masculinity for me, not limited to myself with my buddies but opening up in a more visible way to more people, including many strangers. 

Since getting the news of having passed the audition and been accepted in the gay men’s chorus, I have been counting the hours to my first rehearsal with them today. I couldn’t wait to start. I still am feeling impatient to start. But I’m also feeling terrified. I’m not simply nervous: I’m positively scared in a way that I rarely feel. 

Why am I so scared? 

Because it’s a world — that of gay men — that I really don’t know. 

As a nonbinary transguy who is in some way gay but also aro & ace, I feel totally safe and comfortable around my straight cis-male friends: I know exactly where the boundaries are; I know we can get close and intimate with no sexual or romantic implications. But what about in a group of over a hundred gay men? How do they interact with each other? What do those interactions mean? How will they interact with me? How should I respond? What if I don’t look masculine enough? What, especially, if I don’t sound masculine enough? After all, even though my singing voice is officially a baritone, I still get misgendered and called “m’am” on the phone sometimes — the latest incident being just a couple days ago… What if my voice cracks while I’m singing??? 

I’m in such a “teenager panic” mode over my first rehearsal tonight that I don’t even know what to wear…!!! 

I’m telling myself that this is just a group of people with voices in the lower range who enjoy singing together and sharing a community: nothing more and nothing threatening. I will be assigned a “Big Brother” to help me in this initial phase, so I won’t be alone in navigating it all by myself in a sea of strangers. The few people in the choir with whom I’ve already interacted are positively lovely. And I have been practicing some signing most of this week and my voice has been just fine. All that really matters is that I can sing baritone — focus on that!

But still, I wish I had someone holding my hand in this big step I’ll be taking tonight. Because it is a huge step for me. I wish my dad could hold my hand, lead me up to the door of the rehearsal venue, pat me on the shoulder and reassure me, “You’ll be fine, kiddo — You’ll be fine, son”. 

There are three main types of wounds or traumas or causes for pain that are mentioned in relationships: rejection, abandonment, and neglect.  

Rejection and abandonment are often the “two loud siblings” in this trio of poisons: they are usually the ones that are easier to see, easier to detect; they can literally be loud and/or violent, vocal, clear, blatant. They can feel like a slap in the face, or a push away. Very painful, but also easy to detect and therefore easier to name. 

When I was younger, I experienced plenty of the first two, probably rejection being the most recurring and blatant to me. Fortunately, I’m experiencing much less rejection and abandonment in my life now, partly thanks to finding people who accept me and like me and even love me just as I am. 

Neglect is more of a “quiet killer”. But it’s by no means less painful, or less fatal, than rejection or abandonment. 

I have often been able to point to and/or name and/or call out situations in which I’ve felt rejected or abandoned. But it wasn’t until this morning, after a painful night of rumination, that I was actually able to name the neglect that has been pervasive throughout my life and that still causes so much pain for me even in many of my current, closest relationships now. It was hard for me to say it out loud to myself, hard for me even to write here, now: “This is neglect”. Mixed in with the actual pain of being neglected, I’m also feeling the additional “arrows” of guilt and/or shame in naming this. I feel guilty about saying that my friends neglect me, almost as if I were blaming them and shouldn’t do it; and I feel ashamed because if I’m being neglected, then it means I’m not worthy, not lovable. 

But it is the truth. Even once the second or third arrows of pain coming from guilt and/or shame are removed, the painful truth remains: this is neglect. I am still experiencing neglect in my life and I am experiencing it very often. I’ve learned to numb myself to it and/or to put up with it, but the pain is there and it’s a constant trickle and this trickle is devastatingly erosive — “gutta cavat lapidem”. 

When friends disappear from my life for a while or always wait for me to reach out to them, and then apologize for it, my response is usually: “Don’t worry, I understand”. And I mean it: I do understand. I also go incommunicado sometimes (although I am learning to let friends know beforehand); I also get super busy and/or overwhelmed by life and need radio silence or just time off. So I really do understand. And if a friend comes to me after a period of radio silence due to pains/struggles of their own, of course I’m going to offer support to them and not burden them even more with my own pain from not having heard from them for a long time. But that pain of mine is real and it is valid. And this thing has a name: it is neglect. And I hurt because I am, effectively, being neglected. 

Most of us have layers, or circles, of relationships, from closer to less close. When we’re doing well, it’s easier for us to keep them all up. In difficult moments, in periods of reduced bandwidth, our attention shrinks to those closer to us. For most people, the closest persons are romantic/sexual/nesting partners and/or biological family. Even in the hardest moments, most people still keep up some communication and/or connection with romantic/sexual/nesting partners and/or biological family. And I know for a fact that my closest friends do that, even in their periods of busyness and/or stress and/or overwhelm when they’re unable to keep in touch with me. I know that they keep up their regular dates and/or weekends with romantic/sexual/nesting partners or connections to biological family. I.e. I’m the ball they let fall; I’m the one who’s taken off the plate when the plate is too full; I am the one they don’t call, don’t hang out with. I am the one who gets neglected. 

This is neglect. 

I need to say it. It’s maybe one of the most painful things I’ve ever written, to name it so explicitly, but it has to be done. Because this is the truth. This is real. 

There is a handful of people in my life who for me have the importance that usually is given to romantic/sexual/nesting partners and/or biological family. As an aro ace person, I don’t experience romantic feelings or sexual attraction; but I still do feel deeply committed to people and I love intensely. Call them “friends”, call them “buddies”, call them “queerplatonic partners”: the love and commitment I feel for this handful of people is of the same level or depth (although probably not of the same type) as they feel for their romantic/sexual/nesting partners and/or or biological family. But I don’t think it’s mutual. These important people in my life know I’m aro & ace so they know, theoretically, how I feel and/or function in relationships. But I don’t think they really get how I feel, I don’t think they really understand how devastatingly painful the neglect is for me. Part of their lack of understanding is due to the fact that they aren’t aro or ace: so the way I cannot really understand the romantic or sexual feelings they experience, they cannot understand my way of feeling. Part of it is due to the way we’re all socialized to function, conditioned into amatonormativity. But part of it is probably also due to my own lack of saying to this handful of people more clearly, more directly: “For me, my relationship with you has the same level of depth or importance as your relationship with your romantic/sexual/nesting partners and/or biological family. So if we’re out of touch for long periods of time, or if you cannot make time to do things with me, or if I always have to be the one reaching out to you, for me it hurts as much as it would for you if your romantic/sexual/nesting partner(s) behaved that way with you.” 

That’s a hard and possibly awkward conversation to have. But this recurrent trickle of neglect is erosive and devastating for me. I’m tired of being the one who is put on hold. I’m tired of being the one who has to reach out first and ask to be included. I’m tired of not having partners with whom to do fun things (e.g. trips, concerts, adventures) on a more regular, shared, mutual, and almost expected basis. 

I’m tired of being neglected.  

I honestly didn’t think this day would ever come: the day I would think of myself as a “man”. I still am, and feel, trans and nonbinary and gender-nonconforming. I always will be all that. But today I can pair those adjectives, or labels, together with the word “man” to describe myself: no longer just a “boy”, not only a “guy”, somehow a “man”. My own version of “man”: a trans, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming man.  

This feeling is bringing tears to my eyes — ironic, since “men” are not supposed, or allowed, to cry. I guess that’s one aspect of it being my own version of “man”, a nonbinary, gender-nonconforming man. 

I wonder from where this shift has come… 

I think it’s partly internal and partly external. 

The internal part is that I’ve grown. I’ve grown immensely. I’m solid (despite my feelings of falling apart, which are also real). I’m mature, I’m an adult. Part of me is still a boy — and hopefully always will be — but I’m an adult now: the boy has, mostly, grown up. And I haven’t grown up into a “human”: somehow, I have grown up more specifically into a “man”. My own version of “man”, with a nonbinary body and a nonbinary, gender-nonconforming history. 

Part of it is also external, though. The world perceives me as a “man”. Probably as a gay man more often than not. Sometimes as a transman. But I am walking in the world feeling perceived as an “adult human male” and feeling the weight, the pressure, of that along with the affirming beauty of it. 

At the outdoor swimming-pool on Sunday one of the young male life-guards said to me, “I like your tattoos, man”. Yesterday morning, climbing with a cis-man coach, after I shared my frustration about being two-thirds through my life already, he replied to me, “You’re not even half-way through your life, man!” Then, yesterday afternoon, while doing physical therapy for my right shoulder with my cis-male trainer, we were talking about having to be careful to not comment on people’s form at the gym, especially with persons who appear/present female, because of being afraid of coming across as “creepy guys” or “patronizing guys”. Both the climbing coach and the PT/trainer are nice guys, people I can definitely add to my list of “good men”. All of these three interactions were very validating to me and I really like how I feel around my climbing coach and my PT/trainer, I like the “guy-vibes” that are almost buddy-like between us. 

This is the beautiful part, for me, of being (perceived as) a man. 

But there are also burdens. Burdens that sometimes feel huge, really heavy. Burdens due to the patriarchal conditioning/brainwashing we all get, due to the polluted waters of patriarchy in which we all live. 

One of them is the risk (or reality) of being perceived as a “creepy guy”. At the outdoor swimming-pool this past weekend a young woman probably in her late twenties asked to share the lane with me. Once I was done with my workout, I stopped at the top of the lane and she starting chatting me up. We talked for about five minutes, she even asked me my name and whether I lived locally. It was all very pleasant and friendly — something I would have taken as totally “normal”, almost expected, when I presented female. What was shocking to me the other day was that all this was happening despite my masculine look. I kept thinking to myself, “Oh my gosh, I don’t look like a creepy guy!” and it felt so incredible but at the same time so fragile. Walking around the world looking like a guy I’m almost constantly concerned about coming across as “creepy”: with people presenting female, for fear of scaring them; with people presenting male, for fear of homophobia.

The other burden is the weight of hiding our deeper emotions. It’s less extreme than it used to be for men of older generations but it’s still there, it’s still real. Even when we do talk about emotions — and believe me, I do it a lot with my cis-men friends — we do it in a seemingly light, sometimes almost forcedly light-hearted, way. And always while doing something else (usually exercising, sometimes driving or having beers). 

Part of the solidity that I feel has grown and taken roots in myself over this summer comes from the outside. Part of it is certainly my own inner growth and maturity; but part of it is a solidity that comes from the sense of “having to look solid” to the outer world. And this is something I share with all men in our society: something we learned from patriarchal upbringing. I’m sure that to a certain extent my doubts about “looking enough like a man” are shared with all men in the fear of needing to look “tough enough” in the outer world. 

I know this tendency (I have been close to men my entire life) and I’m recognizing it even closer up now. And I’m feeling the weight of it. But I’m not going to succumb to it. I’m not going to embrace aspects of “masculinity” that are unhealthy and/or expected by an unhealthy system such as patriarchy. I’m going to continue being a “boy who can cry” and live as a nonbinary, gender-nonconforming man. I’m going to continue being brave by showing my vulnerabilities and expressing my emotions — like I did yesterday, both with the climbing coach and the PT/trainer when we were talking about accepting our aging bodies and I told them honestly that while I understand what they mean and appreciate their advice, I carry an additional burden of grief coming from the fact that I wasn’t allowed to live as my true self until my mid-thirties or early forties, a type of grief that they probably don’t experience. Saying that felt very vulnerable and I almost teared up while sharing with them, but it is my truth and I’m going to speak it. I’m going to continue voicing all my emotions, including my most tender ones, even while presenting male. 

Living authentically as the nonbinary, gender-nonconforming man that I am is going to be my contribution to fighting patriarchy and redefining “masculinity” in a healthier, more wholesome way, hopefully increasing the beauties and reducing the burdens (for all). 

[Trigger warning: grief; old age, end of life, death.]

I’m falling apart. Both literally and figuratively. My body is physically falling apart which is causing my spirit to break down and my mental health to go down the drain. 

I don’t know how much longer I can go on this way. If this is the “new normal” for me, then I don’t want to go on any longer. 

And once again, the solution is not psychotherapy or counseling or drugs/meds. 

Being an intense, outdoor athlete is part of my identity. Something that I was allowed & able to come fully into only very late in life — like the alignment between my body & gender-identity — and thus I feel a strong sense of grief as well as urge around the issue. Just as for my gender identity, I was also robbed of the fuller, truer aspects of my athlete identity for most of my life and for the best years of my life. So being able to live as an intense outdoor athlete through trail running and rock climbing means the world to me, just as much as being allowed to live in the world as the nonbinary transboy that I am. But I wasn’t able to get to the point of living out these fundamental identities of mine until I was 40 and that, apparently, was too late because now my body is falling apart. I got just over a year of joy in the body that truly aligned with my soul, just over a year of doing the activities that make me feel like I’m really alive and really me — and now it’s all over, all gone. 

A finger injury in my left hand that started bothering me during the winter holidays last year flared up on my ice-climbing trip in February so I hardly climbed at all in March; now, I haven’t been climbing at all since mid-April, for three & a half months, because of the torn UCL in my left thumb. Despite the surgery on my left thumb at the end of May and the gum surgery at the beginning of July that slowed down and reduced my physical activities a lot, I still kept running with the goal of completing my first full marathon (on trail) in October, to fulfill a long-held dream of doing a full marathon (~42 km) before turning 43. But four weeks ago I sprained my left ankle and I haven’t been able to run or hike (& hardly walk at all) for over three weeks now. So not only is one of my bigger dreams crushed, my whole summer is really ruined: when I found out I wouldn’t be able to climb all summer, I consoled myself with the thoughts and plans of trail running and hiking to keep my body moving outdoors, to go exploring, to be out in nature. But now that I’ve sprained my ankle I can’t even do that. On top of it all, an old pain in my right shoulder, that I had been able to ignore for a year, has flared up again to the point that I can’t even swim — the only activity I had left that gave me some kind of reprieve, at least as long as the outdoor pool is open. So now I really have nothing left. 

All my time is spent running between doctors’ appointments and physical therapy. The only exercise I can do is stationary bike at the gym and core/strengthening as long as it’s on the floor so as not to aggravate my ankle. It’s all indoors and it’s boring as hell. It’s mental and emotional death, if not physical death. 

When I say I need intense, outdoor physical activities I mean it. I mean “need”, not “want”. I need it because it’s part of my identity, part of who I am, and a part that I found so late — maybe too late — in life. I need it because for me it’s like meditating. I need it because it clears my mind, literally decluttering my brain. I think it’s also partly my neurodivergence (I have autism & ADHD) that leads me to need (& not “just want”) these intense outdoor physical activities: the chemicals that get activated through these activities, specifically being outdoors (& intense), keep me and my brain regulated and off meds/drugs. The level of stress and mental clutter and ever-present compression/pressure that I’ve been feeling this summer comes from not having access to my main regulatory mechanism, to something that I need as much as eating and sleeping. 

I cannot live this way. This summer has felt — and is still feeling — like a never-ending list of homework assignments and chores to try to fix my body with hardly any results and hardly any joy or reprieve. If this is the “new normal” for me, then I’m going to have to find a way to pull the plug because this way of living is not sustainable for me.

[Trigger warning: death, loss, grief.]

[Spoiler alert: some details about the book “Under the whispering door”.]

Two nights ago, I finished reading TJ Klune’s book Under the whispering door. 

I had to take it real slow at the end, the last 50-60 pages being extremely sensitive and possibly triggering for me. I’m still unable to dwell on it for too long, despite the “happy ending”. 

It is a beautiful book. Definitely an adult book — I know of parents who read TJ Klune’s book The house in the cerulean sea to their teenage or pre-teen kids, and I think that’s appropriate, but I believe Under the whispering door is just for adults. It’s a book about grief: death and loss and grief. And also hope and love and life, which always prevail in the end. But grief is ever-present and pervasive in this book. 

In his Acknowledgements at the end of the book, TJ Klune writes: “Under the whispering door is a deeply personal story to me; therefore, it was very hard to write. It took a lot out of me to finish, as it forced me to explore my own grief over losing someone I loved very much, more than I ever had before […].There is a catharsis to grief, though we don’t usually see that in the midst of it. I won’t say writing this book helped heal me, because that would be a lie. Instead, I’ll say that it left me feeling a bit more hopeful than before, bittersweetly so. If you live long enough to learn to love someone, you’ll know grief at one point or another.” 

I feel the same about reading his book Under the whispering door. Substitute the word “write” with “read” in the sentence above, and it could have been my own words. 

I won’t be able to do what I’ve done with the other books I’ve read by TJ Klune, i.e. go back and reread some of my favorite pages or chapters immediately. I probably won’t be able to do it for a very long time, maybe never. But this book will have a very special place in my heart and in my soul as will the two people who gave me a copy of this book and the two persons that this book reminds me of. 

—————— 

[Spoiler alert: some details about the story and characters in “Under the whispering door”.]

Among the five books by TJ Klune that I’ve read, Under the whispering door is my favorite. Apart from it being a book that feels very personal to me because of its topics, I also like the fact that three of the four main human characters (the fifth main character is a dog) are people of color — something still unusual in many books, unfortunately, even in TJ Klune’s other books. I also like that most of the story has an “ace vibe” to me: I don’t know if it’s meant to be that way, given that it’s a ghost and a living man falling in love without being able to touch each other at all; but to me, it felt “very ace” and as such very comforting, comfortable, and affirming. 

The main critique I have to this book — and to all of TJ Klune’s books that I’ve read so far — is that cis-normativity and amatonormativity are still too blatant and pervasive. I love the feeling of “warm, gay blanket” I get from these books but it’s always a little ruined by that ever-present background of cis-normativity and amatonormativity.

I’m happy — happy with a joy and a delight that I hadn’t felt in a long time.

I’m scared. I’m excited, and impatient to start. 

I hardly slept last night from the lingering jumble of emotions from yesterday.

I thought I knew how much this meant to me but maybe I wasn’t really aware of its importance until twenty-four hours ago, as I sat tight and tried to get some work done — any work done — counting the minutes until noon, until the moment it would make sense for me to check my personal email for a response from the gay men’s chorus. 

I knew I was nervous, I knew I had to self-regulate or, at least, do some auto-regulation, so I did one of my 10-minute guided meditations before checking my email. But even while sitting on the cushion I could barely get my breathing to calm down and I was literally trembling when I finally logged into my email. It was all I could to read the subject line — that fortunately said “Welcome to DGMC!” — and open the email to read the confirmation: “Congratulations, A.! You’ve been accepted to join our chorus and you will be singing baritone.” 

OK, I had my answer and that was all I could handle then and there. I couldn’t believe it. I had almost brainwashed myself over the weekend that I hadn’t passed the audition this time but that it would be fine, I would take advantage of the extra free time this autumn to get outdoors more and try again for the December auditions. I was protecting myself from what could have been a huge disappointment — probably even bigger than I had realized. 

Once I got the confirmation of the wonderful news in the email, though, the joy and disbelief were too big to hold and all my intentions of self-regulations or even just auto-regulation went out the window. I had to share this wonderful, amazing news with someone who could understand, who could listen and partake of my enthusiasm. Fortunately, my nonbinary European friend who was visiting me here three weeks ago and who had helped me kick-start my musical preparation for this audition, was available to chat and we had a lovely phone call for almost an hour. 

I still cannot believe that I will be singing in a big and talented chorus of mostly gay men. My disbelief comes both from my impostor syndrome around my voice (“Am I really good enough to sing here???”) and from my self-doubts around gender (”Am I really enough of a guy??” — although this latter factor is irrelevant to the choir members since they are open to anyone who can sing tenor, baritone or bass regardless of their gender). 

I feel like I’m standing on a threshold. I actually am standing on a threshold. The threshold to a world I’ve been looking at and longing, at least explicitly, for five years. When I walk into our first rehearsal in ten days, I will be walking into that world — or a possible expression of that world — both literally and figuratively. I will be walking into a room filled with about a hundred gay men. But I will also be walking into a new phase of my personal journey, of my gender journey; because even though this choir doesn’t require people to identify as “gay men” in order to join it, I am making this statement to myself and to the persons who are closest to me. I am stating that, despite being an AFAB person, despite the lack of a penis, despite being nonbinary and aro and ace, I am a gay boy. And not only am I a gay boy, I also want to do something visibly in that specific identity of mine, sharing a passion with others who share my passion and also share my identity (or, at least, parts of it). 

I’ll be walking through a threshold (yet another!) also because I will be walking into something new and pretty much unknown to me. Which is one of the reasons I’m so scared. What is it really going to be like? What if I don’t like it? What if I misunderstood my own identity? And, from the other side: What if they don’t like me? Or what if people start hitting on me? 

Regardless, despite all these questions and doubts and fears, I know I need to do this. I both need and want to do this. It’s one of those thresholds, like my gender-affirming top-surgery, that I cannot not cross despite the fear. I need to do this to come into myself more wholly. And regardless of how it turns out in the end, I will know more about myself (& possibly the world around me) after stepping through that threshold and into that room, into that world. 

I can hardly believe it yet, but I made it! I passed the audition and am now officially a baritone in a big “gay men’s” chorus! 

My heart is a jumble of emotions at the moment, the main one still being disbelief. 

Definitely there’s a lot of excitement but even some fear. 

What if I cannot keep up with the other singers? What if the group or atmosphere is disappointing and not all I’m hoping for? 

But this piece of news coming today, after the harmful incident in the “masculinity group” last night with the blanket statement about transmasculine people all being “ex-lesbians”, feels even more like a wonderful breath of fresh air for me. For the gay boy in me. 

I will be able to be surrounded by other gay boys or gay men, including lots of cis-men. And of course it’s not going to be all perfect or all easy, but maybe it will help counterbalance the sense of stigma I often get in many queer communities (that are not gay circles), where it seems that liking or enjoying the company of cis-men is, at best, a “weird” thing and often a “sin” or something one has to justify.