My internalized transphobia

I had another awful afternoon & evening at the gay men’s chorus’ rehearsal. Gone was all the euphoric gender-bending of the past few days; back was the internalized transphobia in all its visciousness.

Since the second week I have been going to rehearsals without wearing my two “statement wristbands” (the nonbinary-flag colors & trans-flag colors) and this has helped me feel less exposed. But today that wasn’t enough. 

Before rehearsal, this afternoon the dance audition was held and I tried out for that. I love to dance. I really do. It’s one of the activities that gives me the most joy — an authentic, non-performative/non-competitive, youthful, childish joy full of liveliness and glee and sensuality. When I dance, it’s one of the few times that I can really let go and not think, and really go beyond all genders, also tapping into (my) femininity with joy and pride. I enjoy dancing and I’ve been told time and again that I am a good dancer (& that often I look like a gay boy dancing). So I was expecting the dance audition to, at least, be fun for me. Instead, it was torture and I eventually left early — I actually fled. 

The dance audition was organized so that the dancers (ten of us showed up to try out) had to perform a choreography that was given to us then and there by a dance instructor. We had to learn it all together and then perform it to the instructor and chorus director in small groups. 

The feeling of not belonging started gnawing at me almost from the very first moment: I was the only newbie auditioning for dance and everyone else knew each other, not only from the chorus but also the dance instructor. So I was the only newbie, the only one who didn’t know the rest of the folks there, and the only trans person. The other auditionees were all of the more flamboyant feminine cis gay type and as we danced, instead of being able to tap into my own natural femininity, I felt (& probably looked) like I had swallowed a broom. Movements that are usually natural and fun for me when I dance, movements that I’m usually good at with music, like hip-swaying and arm-waving, just felt impossible to me. And it got harder and harder as we proceeded. Instead of loosening up, I tightened up more and more, feeling the panic rise within me, that sense of not belonging, of being different, of not being capable to do this. Two-thirds into the group audition, during a short break before starting to perform the second piece that I just couldn’t get my body to do, I left. I just couldn’t do it anymore, I couldn’t force myself any more — I had tried but it just wasn’t enough, it wasn’t coming to me. 

The transphobia is there, always laying ready in the shadows to pounce upon me and crush me. Or paralyze me. I felt like a deer in the headlights —  and reacted like one, too: first I froze (i.e. was unable to dance), and then I eventually fled (literally leaving the building and coming back an hour later for the normal singing rehearsal). 

The transphobia is there even if people are nice to me. During a little break we were given in the audition, some of the other guys who were closer to me introduced themselves to me and asked my name and included me in their conversation about the weekend (to which I was anyway unable to participate, my throat constricting and refusing to cooperate). They were nice, I could sense their genuine interest or willingness to include me. But during introductions, when I said my name, one of them asked me if I used “he” or “they” pronouns: a great question, a very appropriate question that should be the norm everywhere, a question that I usually wish people would ask everyone. And yet, there, it hurt me tremendously: I didn’t hear it as an appropriate question; I didn’t even register that he put the “he” pronoun first. What I registered was that he made the hypothesis that I might “be a ‘they’” and in my head that implied that he could tell that I am trans. And then the story in my head continued: if I’m trans, I don’t belong; they don’t like me because I’m trans; I’m unable to make friends here because I’m trans. And on and on and on…

Generally, in most environments and situations, I am open and explicit and proud of being trans, I don’t hide it, I often show it through the wristbands and even some T-shirts I wear. But here, I try to hide it at all costs. Here, in this gay men’s chorus, all I want is for people to think I’m cis or not know that I’m trans. Here, I’m constantly afraid that they might look at me, or hear me, and realize that I’m trans — and therefore not like me, not accept me completely. Here, I have a constant fear that the reason for my not making friends is that I’m trans. And that I’m too shy, that I’m unable to connect — like today, when a few of them tried to connect with me during the short break in the dance audition and I shut down, I couldn’t manage to really enter the conversation despite the interest they showed. I eventually fled. Will that forfeit my making any friends in this chorus for the rest of the season?

And especially: how can I endure the rest of the season this way, with this constant up-and-down of emotions, this constant fear inside me, this constant impostor syndrome and internalized transphobia gnawing at me, eating me up, shutting down my brain, freezing my body even to the point of constricting my throat so that on days like today I can hardly sing? 

Love vs. Romance

There’s a quote in a book on asexuality (by Caterina Appia) that I can relate to very deeply, a quote by Michela Murgia about what could be considered aromanticism. While Michela Murgia didn’t openly identify as an aro person, so neither the author of the book nor I want to describe her as aromantic, I can relate to Murgia’s words (from an interview for Vanity Fair) in my own aro perspective, i.e. her words seem to express very well how I feel as an aro person: 

Interviewer: “You never fell in love again?”

M. Murgia: “What does this word mean?”

Interviewer: “You tell me.”

M. Murgia: “If you mean that lightning bolt that makes your heart beat [faster], that makes everything else go blurry and focus only on that person, no, because I believe it to be a form of psycosis. I love a lot. But I don’t fall in love.”

For me, Michela Murgia’s words from that interview express — probably better than I ever could — what it means to me to be a “romance-averse” aro person (with absolutely no judgement towards people who feel differently from me).

My way of deconstructing gender

Yesterday, I had a difficult but necessary and helpful conversation with one of my dearest friends here who is a nonbinary AFAB person. Being nonbinary AFAB people is one of the things that drew us close two years ago (although I was already openly transmasculine then, too) and among other things yesterday they mentioned how my further shift towards masculinity and, especially, my explicit emphasis on the importance of “male” friendships has felt discounting towards them. 

This pained me immensely. The realization that my getting closer to my own gender identity, or my own exploration of gender and relationships, had hurt a dear friend pained me very deeply: on the one hand, because the thought of discounting this, or any other, friend and/or relationship was the farthest thing from my mind, it would never be my intention; on the other, because my own self-determination is very important to me and losing people in the process of “becoming ourself” is painful (at least, it has been and is for me). 

First and foremost, celebrating or yearning “male closeness” does in no way, for me, mean that I discount or devalue whatever is different from “male closeness”. It does not mean that the friends & relationships I had in the past and still have now that are of a different type mean less to me. Fro instance, I will never consider the “fun girls trip” I had here in Colorado in the summer of 2019 with my cis-woman runner friend from North Carolina less valuable because I use “he/they” pronouns now: that will always be our wonderful (& in many ways life-saving) “fun girls trip” together. Even if my gender expression is very different from when she & I met in Spain a decade ago, even if we’ve made different life choices, that takes nothing away from our friendship or the affection I feel for her or the genuine interest I have in her pregnancy despite that being something I would never want  for myself. And similar examples hold for other AFAB or fem friends of mine. 

My draw towards masculinity that has been deepening or increasing over the past year or two is part of my own internal journey and has nothing to do with the value I give to people or relationships in my life. It stems from an inner need of my own, a lot of it coming from grief: it’s my own grief coming from the sense of loss for having been denied an important part of myself for decades as femininity was imposed on me against my will. 

My draw towards masculinity, which has been present my entire life, is one part of a bigger puzzle or picture, that has also been present my entire life: i.e., my desire or will to deconstruct gender norms altogether. As I claim masculinity for myself and seek closer or more authentic relationships with people on the masculine side of the spectrum (incl. cis-men), I am actually trying to deconstruct the gender norms that have been given us, imposed on us. In (re)claiming my masculinity, I am also (re)claiming my own femininity (I actually wore a skirt to go out these past two evenings!) and trying to go beyond gender, gender norms, gender stereotypes altogether — for example with the inclusive climbing event centered around a “joyful, respectful, diverse, and non-competitive masculinity” that I have started at the gym and that was joined also by an AFAB person who uses “she/they” pronouns and just gave birth to their baby. 

I was forced into the “female box” for over three decades. I don’t want to put myself in the “male box” now nor do I want to restrict my relationships to people who “fit in the male box”. I want to open those boxes, explore those boxes, deconstruct those boxes, ideally eliminate those boxes or redefine those boxes — preferably transform them from boxes into soft, fluid, open containers. I’m doing so while following, or pursuing, my own (gender) journey, maybe because that’s the only way I know — and hopefully along the way I won’t hurt or alienate the people I love.

Close but not too close and often not close enough

Once again the topic of male closeness. 

Yesterday, I finally climbed again with my first climbing partner from Colorado. We met almost two & a half years ago, through my Italian climbing buddy.

I’m not sure what to make of J. or of our relationship. 

The first time we met, we were the two only people from a group climbing chat who could climb on the given day and we headed out into the canyon despite having never climbed together, or even seen each other, before. It was May, I hadn’t started GAHT yet and I had only just finalized my decision of getting gender-affirming top-surgery that coming winter. Although I was regularly using “they” pronouns by then and telling people to use “he” pronouns if “they” was too difficult, I still looked and sounded quite feminine — still had breasts and climbed in my sports bra when it was warm — probably coming across like a strong, lean, athletic “woman”. J. was a “no-vaxxer” and that sort of prejudiced me against him on our very first outing. I was feeling anxious for my own unexplained reasons that day and when we got to the spot at the creek where we should have crossed on the Tyrolean (something I had never done before), I froze and said I couldn’t do it: we hadn’t even gotten to the crag yet and I had to bail on him. My headspace just wasn’t ready for climbing that day and I had to back off. I felt awful. He took it totally in stride, actually thanking me for my honesty and awareness that would keep us both safe. I drove us back into town, dropped him off, and thought I would never see him again. It was actually thanks to my Italian climbing buddy that we met again as we all three went on a hike and then for beers & burgers together a couple of months later. My Italian climbing buddy eventually returned to Europe but J. & I finally started climbing together. It’s been sporadic and not as frequent or regular as I would like but it has allowed us to get to know each other better, finding and focusing on our commonalities rather than our differences, like the fact that both of us have been going through a major life change in our late thirties & early forties, at an age where many people are well settled in their lives/ways. He’s seen me change — the first time we went for a dip in the creek together, two summers ago, I was wearing a sports bra, this summer he saw me enjoy the cold water on my bare chest; and once we were in the men’s locker-room together at the climbing gym and I was bare-chested, he smiled and asked me, “How does it feel?”. As my looks have changed, and probably also as we’ve gotten closer, he’s been treating me more and more “as a guy” in a sweet, validating way: like my closest climbing buddy (whom I also met a little over two years ago when I still looked “feminine”), despite not being at all queer, he not only takes me as I am but also affirms me in my masculine identity. He freely comments on how “jacked” I am and we share tips on exercise & nutrition in the typical way male climbers do with each other, in a way that to me feels like fun and healthy and affirming “bro-time”. But we also talk a bit about feelings, emotions, relationships, in ways that are not that common or typical or easy among cis-men. Granted, we do this while climbing, not sitting down for a chat, which is very “stereotypically male”, but it’s something. 

It’s something but somehow it’s not enough or it’s confusing for me. 

In some ways it’s similar to how I used to feel (& sometimes still feel) with my closest climbing buddy: like we want to get closer, open up more with each other, but don’t know how to. They, as straight cis-men, don’t know how to because of how they were socialized and because of the normative circles they still live in; I, as a gay trans-guy, because I’m afraid of crossing a boundary and scaring these straight cis-men away. J. & I have tried to organize a couple of climbing trips together but they have never worked out for scheduling reasons; now we’re trying to organize a short climbing trip in a couple weeks; every time we discuss this topic, I get the feeling that he’d really like to do this with me but that he also feels a little scared or uncomfortable about going just the two of us — is that because I’m trans? On the other hand, the fact that I am trans, i.e. was socialized as a “woman”, is probably one of the reasons he can actually open up and talk emotions with me… The other day as we were texting to plan our climb for yesterday, I wrote “Looking forward to climbing with you again!” I wasn’t expecting a reply but it came immediately: “Me too, dude”. And then yesterday, after I let him in to the gym for free on one of my guest passes, he offered to buy me chai (something we both enjoy) after our session: he had done this once before but the difference yesterday was that we sat outside the coffee shop together for almost half an hour chatting. And he actually talked a lot, shared a lot of emotions with me: it felt beautiful, like a magical yet delicate moment, something super fragile, and while I enjoyed it, I could also feel the fear in me of it breaking, of doing or saying something that might break the spell. On the one hand, I can feel the desire in these straight cis-men to open up, to get closer, probably sensing a “non-threatening masculinity” in me; on the other hand, I can also sense their fear of opening up, their fear of getting closer lest it be “too close”. 

Later yesterday evening, I found a text message from this climbing buddy asking if I wanted to join him at a fund-raiser at a micro-brewery in town. Unfortunately, I was already back home in a different town so I had to decline but I added that I would be happy to take a rain-check on something similar sometime soon. And while we were chatting over chai yesterday afternoon, since we had mentioned how we’re both in between jobs with relatively flexible schedules and in need of some structure now, I suggested we pencil in a regular climbing session together one day a week, e.g. every Thursday, and he said that sounded like a good idea. But will he take me up on that? And if so, will he do half of the work of reaching out and keeping in touch instead of leaving it mostly up to me? 

Are J. & I slowly building a friendship here or was his a random “social mood” yesterday and/or was he in need of company/talking and I just happened to be around? 

And what am I really looking for when I’m seeking out closer, yet platonic, connections with these (straight) cis-men? Why do I crave these connections, this specific type of camaraderie, this closeness to “males”? Why does it feel to me that we get close but never really “close enough” as if they were afraid of getting “too close”? And is it possible for me to have an open, direct conversation with these straight cis-men about our relationships without scaring them away and/or without making it awkward?

Joy in male closeness

The rehearsals with the gay men’s chorus keep getting better and are starting to become an actual source of joy for me. I still feel extremely anxious for hours before the rehearsal and very shy when I’m there, and I still escape to be outside by myself during our 10-minute break halfway through practice. But overall these rehearsals and the small interactions I am starting to have with other members of the choir are brining me joy. Joy — like the title of one of the songs we are practicing and that we sung beautifully, all together, last night (it was so beautiful, it gave me goosebumps). 

I think a big part of it is that some things are shifting in me. On the one hand, I am finding new & old confidence in my own masculinity partly from getting my injuries under control and being more physically active (& thus physically stronger) again, partly from reconnecting with my cis-male climbing buddies, and partly from the success of the inclusive masculinity event I organized/led at the climbing gym and which will be repeated. On the other hand, though, it also has to do with a different approach, on my side, to this gay men’s chorus, to this group of people. I’m starting — or learning — to really see them, hopefully to see them as they are: not at all a homogenous group, but actually a wonderfully varied mix of persons with low voices, most of whom are on the masculine side of the gender-spectrum and most of whom, I assume, are attracted to men/masculinity. A very diverse mix of people who share the love of music/singing and maybe have some other things in common but are also very different from one another in many ways, and yet find common ground in being part of a gay men’s chorus. Find common ground in being comfortable in the closeness, even physical, to other men/males/masculine persons. Find common ground in wanting some closeness, even physical, with other men/males/masculine persons (and not in a creepy or aggressive way). This is huge. It really hit me, clearly, last night. Maybe because I finally loosened up and was able to allow more physical closeness with some of the chorus members.

It is huge because male closeness is taboo in our patriarchal society. As bell hooks, Terrence Real and others have pointed out, part of “becoming/being a man” entails precisely separation: physical and/or emotional separation, distance from other humans, and especially from other “males”. Socialized as an AFAB person I remember how “natural” it was considered that “girls” and even adult “women” could be close and/or affectionate to each other, even physically. In the “male world” and/or presenting as a masculine person, this closeness is taken away: when I presented female and lived in masculine environments, I had to keep a distance, even when I didn’t want it, to ensure there would be no sexual/romantic misunderstandings; since presenting more masculine, I have to keep a distance from female-presenting persons (especially cis-women) to ensure I don’t come across as a “creepy guy” and I have to maintain some distance from male-presenting persons (especially cis-men who look or are straight) to avoid triggering homophobic biases. There are environments where it’s less so, like the camaraderie & intimacy between climbing buddies and/or the intimacy among folks who practice acro-yoga. But in general, there’s always this sense, if you present masculine, that you have to maintain physical (& emotional) distance. In this gay men’s choir we sit very close to one another and it’s almost inevitable for arms to accidentally, unintentionally brush against each other while turning pages or moving in our seats. But it doesn’t feel uncomfortable: it’s neither “creepy” (i.e. nobody is doing it as a “sexual move” on someone) nor something for which someone feels the need to apologize or explain or justify. And then there’s a general sense of closeness, of wanting to be close, even physically, to one another — like the spontaneous hugs or standing very close when talking to each other. It’s not “creepy” or “aggressive” or “making moves on people”: it’s just a desire for closeness that these guys, these persons, including myself, are able to express in this safe space. I hadn’t realized how much this meant to me, how important this is to me. Subconsciously, I knew it and it’s probably one of the reasons I wanted to join this chorus because it fills a need for me that neither my straight cis-male buddies nor my AFAB/nonbinary/fem friends can fill: a shared desire for closeness, including physical, among masculine people. This is the sense in which I am “gay”: yes, I am aromantic; yes, I am asexual/grey-A; but I also enjoy and want and need closeness to other masculine people who enjoy and want and need that closeness, too. A closeness that can be physical and can also be mental, emotional, or in the type of humor we share: even if I was socialized as a woman, now that I am loosening up I can enjoy the “very gay” jokes they crack among each other and the gay double-entendres in the lyrics of some of the songs we are singing. With these gay jokes and gay double-entendres we’re acting silly and boyish but as gay boys, not straight boys, and there’s something very precious and very important in that, because it’s part of reclaiming and owning something that was taken away from us or made hard for us in other environments/circumstances. This is a safe space for us as “gay boys” in whatever way we define our “gay boy” or “gay man” identity. And even if I’m AFAB and aro-ace, I can still revel in — and find joy and affirmation from — this beautiful, shared and explicit desire of closeness to other “male beings”.

Steps in the grief cycle

[Trigger warnings: grief, loss; compulsory-sexuality mentality.]

The guy on my left during the second part of last week’s rehearsal with the gay men’s chorus had a tattoo on his inner left forearm that read: “Acceptance is the answer”. 

I wonder if I’ll ever get there. 

I’m definitely still in the stormy and painful part of the grief cycle with respect to my aro-ace identity. 

It was a great relief to be able to talk about it, to pour my heart out, to someone — one of the few people I know in person — who really knows what I’m talking about. Not just a good friend who’ll ask me to explain it to them, but actually someone who knows first-hand what aro & ace mean, someone who really practices relationship anarchy and might even be able to point me to local aro-ace communities and/or resources if/when I’m ready for it. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to sit and talk about this to someone who really gets it — like I did with my nonbinary friend visiting me from Europe a month and a half ago. On Thursday afternoon, I was finally overwhelmed, got under the covers and sobbed: it was such a relief, albeit a lonely and painful relief, to be able to cry for what feels like a huge loss to me. And then yesterday afternoon, it was somewhat healing to sit and vent with this acquaintance/friend, as they just sat and listened, sat with me in my grief, in my pain, in my despair, in my anger. 

I’m not sure the phases of the “grief cycle” (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) are linear or progress separately from one to the other. I’m pretty sure I had a denial phase (although I wasn’t aware of it at the time) that has ended. And I’m not quite fully at the acceptance stage yet (& wonder whether I’ll ever achieve that). But the anger, bargaining, and depression phases seem a little mixed up to me, as if I were still shifting back and forth between them. A lot of my bargaining seems to be drawing on my being a sex-favorable ace and having a relatively high libido; it’s as if I had a voice in my head saying, “OK, I cannot and don’t want to do things like bars and datings apps and I struggle connecting to people on a level of sexual or romantic intimacy, but given the right circumstances I can have and even enjoy sex so I might still be able to connect with some persons on that level” — as if I were trying to salvage something or prove to myself that I’m not hopeless, not “completely broken”. Which is probably part of the reason I was (still am?) obsessing over the guy I like(d) at the gym: if I can feel sexual attraction towards someone, even if it happens just once in a decade, then maybe I can still feel that “spark” sometimes. I guess this is the bargaining: and bargaining induced by allosexual & compulsory sexuality brainwashing, so it would probably be healthier for me to get out of it as soon as I can. 

All of the sadness and loneliness I’ve been feeling, along with the tears I was finally able to shed this week are definitely the depression stage of the grief cycle. But there’s also a lot of anger still. I still rage, “I don’t want to be this way! I’m OK with being nonbinary & trans but I really wish I weren’t aro-ace!” And, as my acquaintance/friend pointed out yesterday afternoon and my nonbinary European friend has also observed, this anger that people like me, like us, feel is due to how society functions around us: we’re not inherently wrong or “broken” or “to be fixed”, but society functions in a way that makes it seem that way and it is society that needs to change — not us — to be more equitable and inclusive for everyone. 

But we’re still a long way from those changes and in the meantime my pain and my anger are real and I have to carry them and work through them, hopefully one day getting to the point where I can agree wholly, not just with my head but also with my heart/soul, with that guy’s tattoo: “Acceptance is the answer”… 

And in the meantime try to have clearer conversations about our relational needs with my current friends, on the one hand, and on the other, try to find other aro and/or ace people…? 

The ‘aro’ arrow

[Note: the author is claiming that the ‘aro label’ feels like a death sentence or lack or incapacity for themself, and not that aromantic people are lacking or in any way deficient!]

It’s been a week of difficult emotions. So difficult, in fact, that I haven’t even been able to write. 

Last Sunday was a day full of joy (despite some anxiety, too). This week has felt the opposite: joyless. And it’s not just the “natural ebb and flow of things”. The joylessness feels deeper, somehow more fundamental or pervasive to my existence than the joy. I latch onto the joy, I celebrate it when I feel it, because it’s in my nature to do so, or maybe because it’s survival instinct. But the joylessness feels horribly pervasive. 

These past three days have been filled with feelings of sadness, loneliness, frustration, and fiery anger. The never-ending car issues along with the constant health insurance frustrations and the several shitty behaviors of my employer’s HR department have been exhausting and infuriating. A phone call with my mother, who keeps accusing me of the worst things, was painful and also infuriating. And the loneliness I feel is profound and sad. 

I think I’m struggling more with my aromantic nature than with my asexual orientation. There have always been specific situations that trigger or upset my “ace sensitivity” but I have learned to avoid them as much as I can — e.g. by avoiding bars and dating apps. And using the ace label to define my sexual orientation has helped for many situations, e.g. with many friendships and how I feel when I go to the climbing gym. Maybe the ace label feels more like a liberation than a burden or lack or loss to me because I’m a sex-favorable ace…? When it comes to the aromanticity spectrum, instead, I think I’m on the other end of it: i.e. “romance-averse”. At the moment, I am experiencing my aromantic nature as a death sentence. Nothing has changed for me, in the sense that I’ve always felt “aromantic”, I just never had the words for it. And not having the words for it, to a certain extent, still gave me the possibility to hope: to hope that “one day I would be fixed, one day I would change, one day I would find the ‘right person(s)’ and also be able to feel like everyone else does”. But no, that day will never come. And while it’s good, healthy, a liberation, that I stop applying this “conversion therapy mentality” to my own self, it still feels like a death sentence to me, like a huge lack or incapacity I have: I cannot feel in a certain way that almost everyone else does and so I’m doomed to never have the closeness in relationships that I would like/want/need. Maybe this is one of the phases of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance… Is this the depression phase? And the past couple weeks had been the bargaining phase, as I obsessed over a guy at the gym? For the second time ever in my entire life, in the quarter-century that I’ve been having sexual experiences, I felt real sexual attraction for someone (the only other time had been a guy who was my “fuck buddy” for a while in grad school). While being mind-boggling and confusing for me, because so unexpected, it was also very clear to me now that I have a very clear understanding of the types of attraction I feel, and it was also fun: a little pearl of joy (or, at least, excitement) in what has been overall a difficult, joyless summer. But after making up my mind that I would find the courage to talk to this guy the next time I saw him at the gym, I haven’t seen him anymore. It’s a tiny incident and could be almost considered meaningless. But the disappointment I’ve felt at not running into him anymore has been out of proportion: I know this is pointing to something deeper, some deeper unhappiness, some deeper lack in me. And I think this deeper unhappiness or lack in me has to do with the grief cycle that owning the “aro label” has spurred for me…

Will I ever get to the acceptance phase?  

Embodied creature(s)

We are embodied creatures. At least, I feel this embodiment, the fact of being an embodied creature, very strongly. 

Sometimes I love, I revel in, this body of mine and the connection I have with it. And sometimes it is a profound source of anguish or suffering for me (like when I’m injured or ill and/or forced into inactivity). But while I tend to be very aware of my own self physically, I think I’m not wholly aware of much of my outwards body language and/or of how my physical self is really perceived by the outer world or what it’s communicating to others. 

On Sunday, I finally went climbing again with my closest climbing buddy after nearly five months of not having been able to climb together. I had only climbed a couple times the previous week, doing some very easy top-rope sessions, and I was feeling not only ready but actually really eager to lead climb. Usually when we climb, I’m happy to let my partner(s) climb first and start by being the belayer myself. But on Sunday, after my buddy and I had chosen our first route, as I instinctively reached for my climbing shoes and the climber’s end of the rope, I suddenly stopped, turned to my buddy and said, “Sorry, I didn’t even ask… is it OK if I start by climbing?” And he replied, “Of course, no need to ask — your body language was pretty clear about that!” I wasn’t expecting that — maybe naïvely — I hadn’t realized how strongly my body language was saying, “I’m in charge here now, I’m picking the route for us and I’m going to climb first”… 

Then, my buddy & I went into downtown to get sandwiches sitting outside in the sunshine. We had had a very satisfying climbing session so I was feeling happy and confident. It was warm, so I was wearing shorts and a tank-top. As my buddy & I sat eating and chatting, a group of four very openly queer people went into the shop right in front of us and then, when they came back out, stood there for a few minutes casting very evident glances in my direction and mumbling among each other. They eventually left without a word to me/us, fortunately, but it did leave me wondering (& feeling quite uncomfortable): what was going on? Were they trying to decipher me, to “figure me out”? Had they noticed my three wristbands (queer pride rainbow, nonbinary colors, trans-flag colors)? 

Or the instances at the climbing gym. I present very masculine now so the “default” is that I don’t look at people very much and people don’t look at me very much — the “safe” or “appropriate” or “non-creepy” “male behavior”. But there have been a few times more recently that I’ve noticed guys looking at me. It’s been easier for me to notice because I’ve been forced to cross-train on the stationary bike and/or treadmill due to my injuries: these activities are boring (for me) so I have more occasions to look around myself but I’m also much more “evident” to others because I’m in one spot for a long time. And I cannot avoid training bare-chested on the stationary bike and treadmill because I simply sweat too much to keep a top on. So here I am, “in full display” as it feels to me, in one spot for at least half an hour, almost completely naked. Given the implicit but well known codes of gyms, I would expect guys to not look at me. And yet, I have been looked at by men more often than expected. Why? Once again, are they trying to “figure me out”? To piece together this “weird body” of mine? Is it the scars on my chest that draw the attention? [On the other hand, climbing gym culture is not like gym culture: among climbers, there’s much more ease around naked and/or bare-chested bodies.] Fortunately, though, while these instances or behaviors still confuse me, they don’t upset me like they did last year. There are actually moments, like often at the swimming pool or while I was running on the treadmill yesterday, when I feel so happy and confident and comfortable in my own body that I don’t mind them looking and I can hear a challenging voice inside me that would like to say to them, “Yes, this is a nonbinary trans body and it is beautiful!” 

And then there are the instances in the gay men’s choir (in some ways similar to my experiences at gay bars): gay men ignoring me or almost looking away. Why? Is it my body language saying something like “Stay away from me!” without my even being aware of it? Is it because they can see I’m trans and that puts them off? Or is it their own fear, their own baggage, having to fight the negative clichés of which they’ve so often been accused just because of being gay men, e.g. of being too forward and/or of coming onto people/men too aggressively?  

And maybe tinting all of these instances — underlying my doubts around the perception and performance of gender, around sex-roles, around body language — there are for me the lenses of an autistic brain and aromantic & asexual orientation. I am a very embodied creature — I experience my life and the world around me in a very embodied way — but I am also nonbinary & trans, aro-ace, and have an autistic brain. How do I put all this together?

Night & Day

Today, I had a wonderful day. Long and tiring and also stressful because I’m still having car issues — but my buddies have my back, even with my car issues. 

I finally climbed again with my closest climbing buddy and had a nice afternoon with him — and the climbing session itself was a great ego-boost for me. While keeping it easy and not overdoing things since we’re both coming back from injuries, I was actually able to lead half a dozen routs at the gym, keeping my anxiety due to the second chorus rehearsal tonight in check and focusing on the climbing, almost channeling that anxiety, and finding and expressing my own masculinity with more confidence again. 

Rehearsal was wonderful. It was still difficult at the beginning, I still felt super shy and a little anxious despite my “Big Sibling” being there. But he seems really nice and he brought me a little gift (dark chocolate and pistachios, things I had mentioned that I liked in my intake form), which was really sweet — what a huge difference small things like that can make! It also helped that as I entered the venue I ran into the artistic director with whom I have some familiarity and trust and when he asked how I had felt after last week’s rehearsal, I told him honestly that I had been in pieces and he was genuinely concerned and supportive. I still felt awkward and somehow different during the potluck but it wasn’t as uncomfortable as last week. And I still struggled with the singing at the beginning, but not nearly as much as last week. People introduced themselves to me and many of them asked how I was feeling, how the music felt, and most of them said, “Welcome! We’re so glad you’re here”. I felt much more welcomed, or welcomed in a warmer sense this time. And I felt much less that I didn’t belong — I actually almost felt that I belonged. I was addressed as “man” and “boy” a couple of times, which felt very affirming and validating, and today I didn’t once feel like a “woman” or “girl” nor the weight of my AFAB past. Part of it was the affirmations I got from the outside (e.g. being addressed as “man” and “boy”) but part of it was also my own increased confidence in my own (version of) masculinity, which maybe also came form the inclusive climbing event I organized/led on Tuesday and the climbing session with my buddy earlier today. 

And above all, I was able to sing!!! It was still a little hard during warm-ups, partly also because I ended up sitting next to a man with a booming voice that either drowned my own voice even to myself or made me feel like my voice was “not male enough”. But after the break, we rearranged and, whether my voice had warmed up by then or having other guys at my sides made the difference, it worked: I was able to actually sing, to sing loud, almost confidently, and — mostly importantly — enjoy it. I wanted it to never stop. I enjoyed myself so much that I almost stayed, I almost thought about joining the guys who went to have food&drinks across the street after rehearsal — maybe next time. 

I can still see and feel many differences between myself and many of the cis gay men: but tonight these differences hardly weighed on me and they didn’t stop me from singing or from being able to enjoy myself.

Tonight, I found my voice and let it out. And I felt wholly like a boy — my own version of boy with my own, beautiful, version of “male voice”. 

Holding ourselves, holding each other

Yesterday I had a very stressful day. Logistically stressful because of expensive car issues and emotionally taxing because of the exit interview for my current job that ends in two weeks. 

All I wanted by the end of the day was quiet — and to be held. I would have really needed (or wanted?) somebody to just hold me, tell me everything will be alright or simply cook dinner for me, wrap me in a blanket or a hug. But nobody could do that for me last night. So I did it for myself. I’ve learned to do it for myself. I gave myself a warm bath — something that soothes me and helps me to feel held, both figuratively and literally. I cooked myself an easy but good and healthy meal. I watched a movie that would help me “feel good”. And I focused on the instances in which I’ve felt held by the people around me, my friends, recently: my nonbinary friend who came to visit me all the way from Europe and with whom we’ve been keeping in touch almost daily; one of my neighbor running buddies who came over on a Sunday night at nearly 10 o’ clock to check on me when I called fearing I was having a heat stroke this summer; the friend who let me use his car last weekend when mine didn’t feel safe enough to drive; my neighbor running buddy who’s had me over for Saturday night dinner & board-games with him & his family in these weeks that I’ve been injured and unable to run with him (& lonely); the friend for whom I’m house-sitting who’s almost always available for a phone call with me despite being away in Alaska with his wife; my friend & ex-housemate who had me over for dinner on Monday evening after my delayed meltdown from the first rehearsal with the gay men’s chorus; my friend from North Carolina who called me last Monday for a nice chat, too; the three friends who’ve offered me a room to stay in during the three weeks that I’ll be in between places from Sept. 24th to mid-October; my climbing buddy with whom we’ve been adjusting our weekend plans to be able to hang out while still nursing injuries and preparing to plan an autumn climbing trip together — this same buddy has explicitly said to me that I, along with a small handful of other people, am his family here. 

Do I still suffer in a society that has amatonormativity so ingrained into it? Yes. Would I still have liked to have someone hold me last night? Probably so. But I was able to find ways to hold and nurture myself last night and wake up restored enough in my heart/soul to not only see but actually feel the ways in which I am held by my close friends (who for me are my family) and to hold them in turn. 

It feels delicate and fragile but today my heart feels open and full of warmth, full of the capacity to feel the support and to give it back, holding others in turn.