The Little Prince and the Fox

[Trigger warning: some explicit references to body parts (incl. genitals) and body shapes.]

I wish I had been “born a boy”. 

Today this desire is almost excruciating, full of pain and of anger even (of course, I always feel angry when I’m hurt). Because I actually was born a boy but nobody saw it. Because I didn’t have a penis. 

Today, the pain and anger I feel toward society for putting labels on us based on the bodies, or body parts, that we have, are huge. (This goes well beyond gender and gender-labels, of course, into broader and deeper issues including ableism, fat-phobia, etc. I’m just focusing on the gender aspect because it’s the closest to my experience right now.) 

I’ve been off testosterone for a couple weeks. Taking a break from it, once again, because of issues with my body hair. Against my doctor’s prognosis, my body hair is growing in new places and/or getting darker & coarser in places where I already had some. And I don’t like this on myself (I have no problem with body hair on other persons!). 

Should I just stop HRT? At this point, I’ve got what I need for society to see me as a guy: my jaw is more square than it already was; my facial hair, albeit still light and fuzzy and present only in patches, is evident, especially my blond mustache; my voice is low and quite clearly masculine (except for rare occasions). And these details paired with a definitely masculine chest and boyish haircut are sufficient for people to put me into the “male bucket” with hardly any hesitation at this point. 

I don’t mind how I look and sound now. I actually like it. And I don’t regret in the least getting my masculinizing mastectomy: I really like having a body without any “appendages”, neither above nor below the waist — honestly, it’s so practical (e.g. for climbing)! 

But I hate the fact that this is what it took for the world to see me how I am, how I always was, how I always felt. For me, it’s not breasts or penises that make us a woman or a man or any other gender. For me, it’s how we feel inside. I’ve always wanted to get rid of, or at least ignore, my breasts as much as possible, just as much as I’ve always preferred short hair: because they are practical, they feel comfortable and easy to me. But I was a boy even when I had breasts or when I had a higher voice and no facial hair or less body hair. I was a boy even when I was born and the doctor (or nurse?) proclaimed me a girl because of my genitals. And not having had this recognized for decades is a huge loss and source of grief and pain and anger for me now. Because it influenced and shaped so much of my life, so many of my experiences. 

And I wonder if even the type of relationship I would like to have with (a) guy(s) now — being friends and bros and adventure buddies before possibly expanding it to the romantic & sexual levels — is something I’ll never have because of how I was socialized and because of all the years as a “woman”… 

—————— 

P.S.: (reflection) I guess one of the things I’m saying here is, that while the masculinizing mastectomy feels like something I would have done anyway, anyhow, once I was given the chance, HRT is something I felt/feel the need to do because of how our society works, in order to be seen by others the way I feel inside…

[Trigger warning for the first paragraph: grief, loss, death of parent.]

One year ago it was probably the worst 4th of July of my life: I was devastated by grief as I had just received the news that my father had been hospitalized for the final time and been given less than two weeks to live. Thousands of miles away, he lay dying in a hospital bed and would never know the true me. 

Two years ago was my first 4th of July as a Colorado resident and my second 4th of July here in Colorado (the first one having been the previous summer). I spent them both with friendly acquaintances who still saw me as a “woman” (albeit androgynous and/or boyish). The 4th of July of three years ago was the first that most of us were spending in company again after the worst of the pandemic and I had just started using “they” pronouns. Today, when I go to the community event hosted for the 4th of July by a local cafe later, I’m pretty sure I’ll be seen as a guy and referred to as “he”… 

In the space of three years, so much has changed that the world has in ways turned upside down for me — my gender journey being only one (albeit the most prominent) of the big changes. 

Two summers ago, as I was settling into my new State (Colorado), I was living temporarily in a big house by myself, part renting, part house- & garden-sitting. And I often felt so lonely that I had little attacks of anxiety. 

Now, after over a year and a half of living with housemates, I’m living by myself again, once again housesitting for friends. There are still moments of loneliness, especially in the mornings, but nothing like two years ago. 

Despite all my fear of a sad and lonely summer, moving out of my housemate’s place three weeks ago was one of the best things for me and probably just the right moment for me to do so. A year ago, it was a blessing to be living with my housemate and her son and partner. Now, I need space for myself. And as I relax on my solitary evenings going out by myself to listen to live music or traveling to visit other friends or immersing myself in a book, I feel a delicious spaciousness inside me. 

I feel that I am creating space — or letting space be created, letting space take form — inside me. 

I am letting my mind, my heart and my soul declutter. 

There’s been a lot of cluttering in the past year and a half. Some of it necessary or inevitable, like all the phone calls and appointments for the practical things I’ve needed to get done for my moves, my career change, my gender journey, and my injuries/surgeries; some of it forced upon me, like living in a house filled with someone else’s clutter; some of it caused by myself, as I’ve gone through periods of seeking out new connections to build new relationships, sometimes spurred more by loneliness or fear of loneliness than actual availability/need for connection. 

The clutter in my living situation is gone now, and this per se creates, or allows for, an immense amount of space — physically, around me. 

The “clutter” in my practical life around job-hunting, house-seeking, and medical issues is not over but I am managing to keep it at bay and put it on hold for a while. 

The “clutter” in my emotional life is the one I am most healthily getting rid of. I am not letting my fear of loneliness dictate the dynamics of my relationships. I value relationships, I treasure friendships and am intentional about them. But sometimes, especially after all the “departures” and moves and losses from the past several years, I seek out and try to hold onto more friendships than are healthy for me or hold onto relationships even when they’re not really working. I think that’s the main thing I’m learning not to do anymore. I am taking what feels like leaps of faith, sometimes scary, by choosing to spend more time by myself and/or by severing ties that aren’t serving me (or anyone) anymore. This creates emptiness, inevitably. But it is precisely that emptiness that is allowing for more healthy space, more space for me to actually listen inside me, to find myself more clearly and grow further — to slowly understand or discover who I am deep inside and what I want to do next (even from the practical viewpoint) with my life. And in this phase I realize that old, well-established, platonic relationships and/or male friendships are what feels comfortable and healthy for me now: people who really know me and whom I know well, without needing to explain too much or to put on some kind of “persona”. Relationships that are simple in their depth and established trust. That doesn’t mean they don’t require effort or intentionality: but for me it means there is a security in knowing where the effort & intentionality lie, and thus there is more space in my mind & heart to be able to be myself and grow into myself. 

When I am with these people and when I am by myself, I can actually feel the space within me, more space within me, as I can relax and breathe… 

————————–

P.S.: I’m not saying I don’t ever feel lonely anymore. I still do feel lonely sometimes — e.g. I wish I had close friends or partner(s) or family with whom to grill and watch fireworks today/tonight. But I also know this loneliness is partly due to social conditioning, partly due to my own attachment wounds, and probably also a necessary part of my own personal growth… 

[Trigger warning: grief, loss, death of parent.]

[Spoiler alert: some details about the book “The Extraordinaries” by TJ Klune.]

Last night I finished reading the young adult fiction book “The Extraordinaries” by TJ Klune. 

I devoured it. 

I’ve been feeling a little uncomfortable and even judgmental with myself for the way I’ve been not just reading but actually devouring young adult fiction books recently. 

Usually, I’m a slow, methodical reader. But with these books (three books from the “Greenglass House” series by Kate Milford; “The house in the cerulean sea” & “The Extraordinaries” by TJ Klune), I just cannot put them down, cannot set them aside, as I stay up into wee hours plowing through the pages and even skipping ahead to try and find passages that I enjoy more (like conflict resolution and/or romantic moments) and then go back to. 

It’s almost like I’m trying to live vicariously through these stories, especially through the ones by TJ Klune since they involve many queer characters in the main roles. 

Is there something unhealthy and/or concerning about my reading these books and craving these stories like this? 

Or am I, rather, doing some healthy and necessary self-therapy (e.g. reparenting/refathering and/or “re-teenaging” for myself)? 

Last summer, when I sustained those two huge, extremely painful losses, especially when my father died, my housemate (who is a friend of mine and also an experienced & professional psychotherapist) suggested that I pick some happy-ending young-adult fiction books to read, to help myself in my grieving process, to do some “refathering” and/or “re-teenaging” for myself. At the time, though, I wasn’t able to do it. But maybe the time has come and I’m doing it now…? Now, a year later, a year after those painful losses. And also now in a period of my life when somehow I’m trying to find my own way of being a gay boy, my own way of growing into a transguy, my own version of masculinity, my own flavor of queer. 

Maybe that is exactly what I am doing by reading these books, devouring these stories: I am “refathering” and “re-teenaging” myself. I am giving myself the opportunity to live, even if only vicariously and only for a shorter amount of time (months vs. years), puberty in the way I would have wanted it and couldn’t have it.   

In the book “The Extraordinaries”, in particular, the aspects & topics that pull at the strings of my heart are mainly two: the love story between the two queer teenage boys who have been best (platonic) friends for a decade; the difficult but loving and close relationship between the main character (gay boy) & his father. These are both topics that are extremely dear to my heart, especially because I feel I didn’t have these experiences that I would have wanted in real life when I was a teenager.  

While the relationship with my father is “lost and gone forever”, something I didn’t have and will never have, these books can remind me of some of the things that I did have, at least partially. Like the friendship & love story with my sailing buddy who was also my first serious boyfriend, my first “true love”. We met in the summer of 2000, when I was 18 & a half and he was 16. We liked each other instantaneously and had a summer fling but we also built a solid friendship (which lasts to this day). We were kids, both of us, and we loved each other with the intensity of teenagers, and particularly of teenagers who are misfits among their peers and have troubled households/absent parents. We were friends, sailing buddies, lovers, and in some ways even brothers. He’s straight and would definitely not have felt physically attracted to me if I hadn’t looked like a pretty girl two decades ago — that’s a true fact. But it’s also true that he never treated me like a girl. We played like boys together — our play encompassing many aspects, from sailing, to dancing, to sex. Even though I looked like a girl and he was attracted to me because of my female body, it never felt misgendering to me because we always acted like two boys who loved each other. The way we were there for each other, the way we loved each other, the ways in which we interacted were in many aspects similar to the relationship between Nick & Seth in “The Extraordinaries”. So maybe even if I didn’t have exactly what I would have wanted, because I wasn’t allowed to be (or wasn’t even fully aware of being) my gay-boy-self, I did have some experiences as a teenager & young adult that filled my heart & soul in similar ways…

So maybe these books will help fill that hole in my heart and then I’ll finally be able to live with my grief without being overwhelmed or hardened or dried out by it? And then maybe I’ll finally be able to be the adult that I’d like to be, an adult who is capable of loving (romantically) & being loved (romantically) unconditionally?

This trip to Salt Lake City has been extremely healing. 

I feel like I’ve found new pieces of myself — or maybe pieces of me that were already there have fallen into place more clearly, more coherently, with more confidence and peace. 

I’m feeling more at peace, more centered. 

Today I went back to the SLC Pride festival at The Gateway by myself after having been there yesterday afternoon with the two cis-hetero friends (& allies) who are hosting me. There were booths and stands and three stages with music, apart from food-trucks and drink stations. And so many flags, flags everywhere. I was particularly struck by the fact that the most prominent one, together with the Progressive Pride Flag, was the Trans Flag. In a similar way to last summer’s Pride events, once again I felt lots of intense, overflowing, and even contradictory or mixed emotions. But this year I was less overwhelmed by the emotions and was able to feel the nourishing ones more deeply than the ones connected to sadness or loss. And when I went back by myself today, I found the courage to go up to the “Dragon Dads” stand and asked for, and received, a “squishy bear hug”. It made me cry, of course, but it brought some healing — for all the hugs I would have wanted/needed and didn’t get (& will never get) from my own father. When we went by the “Dragon Dads” stand yesterday, I got very emotional and cried and my buddy from Ragnar (who knew the reason for my intense sadness) came and gave me a kind “side bro-hug”. 

It’s been very nice, and healing, to get to know my buddy from Ragnar better. I really hardly knew him, having spent only the Ragnar weekend together before this visit. But in the past nine days here we’ve gone on four runs, two hikes, and multiple walks with his dogs together. We spent a lot of time in silence but just as much talking openly about deep and intimate topics in the way that “good guy friends” do and it felt really nice. Very validating and affirming to me. And healing to both of us, I’m sure. 

Last night we even went out to a gay bar just the two of us. His wife was too tired from the afternoon activities so my Ragnar buddy went along to be my wingman. And that also felt wonderfully nice — and so new to me. In many ways, from the practical viewpoint, it could be partly counterproductive for me to go to a gay bar with a straight guy friend — I know this and actually my buddy & I joked about it yesterday. But still, it was fun and healing. We got drinks, chatted, and then even danced. And I felt more comfortable with the people and in my own skin in this type of space. I still had two little moments of panic when it seemed that someone was beelining towards me — I felt myself tense up and then relax as I realized that in both cases the guy was going somewhere else along my path. So there’s still work for me to do there, or room for growth, but overall I really enjoyed myself and felt quite comfortable (dancing outside in the parking-lot-turned-dance-floor like Friday night). And at the very end, just as my buddy & I were leaving, the DJ put on a remixed version of “Girls just want to have fun” by Cindy Lauper and I finally got to do what I had been wanting to do all night: I took off my gay-boy-tank-top and danced bare-chested! I felt a bit self-conscious but especially I felt super-liberated. And comfortable/confident enough to actually do it, even if for only a few minutes in a corner of the parking-lot-turned-dance-floor: I let my beautiful trans-gay-boy self dance bare-chested — Heck Yeah!

I discovered Cindy Lauper’s song “Girls just want to have fun” in my first year of college. I can still remember the sense of fun, liberating joy and almost ecstasy I felt then, listening to it & singing & dancing along to the song with one of my then-closest friends (who was a fellow Physics major and a sporty cis-girl). 

I still feel that sense of liberating joy every time I hear that song even to this day. 

The DJ played it last night. And on top of the usual liberating joy, last night I also felt a special trans joy hearing the song and dancing to it. 

I felt so trans and happy & proud of my “transness”.

There’s still a part of me that aligns to that song very closely, I resonate with the feeling of “girls wanna have fun” because there is part of me that is a “girl” and there probably always will be, especially when I dance. I don’t know what that means for me exactly, how that part of being a girl also fits in with being a gay boy — maybe it’s a “twink side” of me or my being non-binary trans. 

But it’s there and last night, with that song, it felt alive and joyful and proud again.

Last night, I went to another gay bar here in Salt Lake City with the (cis-hetero-normative) friends who are hosting me. 

It was quite a different experience from last weekend. 

Firstly, while I was still feeling extremely nervous, I did feel less uncomfortable and almost a little more confident or even comfortable in my own skin. At the other bar, I basically never raised my eyes from the floor. At this other bar last night, while I still made no eye contact nor interacted directly with anyone, I did act & move a little more “naturally”. 

But I think the big differences where in the type of venue & events and ensuing atmosphere. 

Last weekend, we went to a smaller gay bar, mostly known as a “dive bar”, with a small patio (where people smoke cigarettes!!!) and two small rooms indoors, one with a pool table and one for dancing. The patrons at this gay bar had been distinctly queer, and most of them slightly more mature gay men. 

Last night, we went to a larger gay bar that is usually known to have a “sports bar” atmosphere. In reality, the screens showing sports are not at all obnoxious and there’s plenty of space in a big room, including a pool table, karaoke, and well-separated tables & booths. The outdoor patio is also larger (& no one smoking!). And then there’s an adjacent parking-lot that last night had been turned into a big outdoor dance-floor with DJs and, later, drag shows. Maybe this latter part in the parking-lot-turned-dance-floor was specific to this particular weekend with lots of celebrations for the last weekend of Pride month. The patrons last night seemed to be more varied, or diverse, and there seemed to be also a large portion of non-queer people.

Anyway, I ended up spending almost the entire night dancing outside in the parking-lot-turned-dance-floor. 

At the first gay bar last weekend, I was also able to dance a bit, but only in the small dancing-floor-room (indoors). I know I got lots of stares/looks last weekend, despite me always stubbornly looking at the floor. And last weekend, one of the gay men even came up to me and caught my attention by gently touching one of my arms on the dance floor and said to me, “You should teach me some dance moves — my husband says I dance like Donald Trump!” 

Whereas last night I felt comfortably invisible, or almost. I got hardly any looks/stares from anyone, no one seemed really interested in me, it felt like we were all there just to dance in the parking-lot-turned-dance-floor (at least, those of us who were out there), and I even looked around a little more instead of staring at the ground the whole time. (But I also know how distracted & unaware of things I can be when I dance.) 

Was this an improvement? Or was it simply different from the other time? 

I want a boyfriend. A gay boyfriend, of course. A gay man who likes me and loves me and feels physically & sexually attracted to me as a guy, too. 

This longing has been there my entire life. I’ve always felt I was one of the boys, or wanted to be one of the boys, while also feeling physically/sexually attracted to some boys/guys (& not to girls). 

This longing has become more intense, and its profound reasons more clear, since 2020, since the (beginning of the) pandemic. My draw to movies and books depicting stories of love between gay men or boys and the deep yearning they left in me were one of the most important initial clues to my own true gender identity. 

Now I’m reading another young adult fiction book by TJ Klune, “The Extraordinaries”. And it’s causing some deep, intense longing in me again. Longing for some things that I’ll never have, like those experiences, and crushes, between queer teenage boys. Because that’s an age I’ve passed already, and by many years at this point, so that’s something I’ve lost for ever. 

In some ways I like being trans and feel fortunate to have a broader gender experience than cis people. And in some ways, compared to many of my cis-male friends who are nice guys and got bullied as teenagers, I feel that my own puberty & teenage years sheltered away from toxic “male locker-room dynamics” were a blessing in disguise. But I still feel I missed out on a lot, a lot of things that I would have wanted, a lot of pieces of myself that I wanted to be or could have been. Pieces that I’ll never get back. 

And now there’s this intense longing for a gay boyfriend again. Intense longing for a male partner who can be both an adventure buddy and a romantic & sexual friend. I hadn’t wanted something so deep or broad with someone for a long time. I’ve been “compartmentalizing” relationships, not in a superficial or uncaring way but in a way that has allowed me to develop & maintain close, profound, trusting relationships with clear, healthy, safe boundaries. And I came to think that was what I would always want or need from now on: very separate relationships, with a clear, impermeable separation between my romantic/sexual life and my more adventurous/athletic or intellectual/emotional sides. But maybe that isn’t really the case, maybe not anymore, not necessarily. 

Now I would really want a gay boyfriend. A nice guy who would do “guy things” with me, go on adventures with me considering me & treating me as a male peer, but who also liked me & loved me romantically and felt attracted to me sexually as a guy. 

Is that possible? Can I find something — someone — like that? Or is it unrealistic? Will my being trans always be an obstacle?

I’m visiting one of my friends from the Ragnar race (& his wife) in Salt Lake City. These people are not queer but they are great allies, very open-minded and full of relatives & other friends who are queer. This couple is also going through a period of renewed self-discovery and self-definition, for reasons quite different from my own but that nonetheless made the connection with this new running buddy at Ragnar instantaneous. 

With the group of people at Ragnar I was very much in my masculine identity (using only “he” pronouns), very much “one of the guys”. So this new friendship started on those terms, with those dynamics, and it feels good to me also because of that: I’m visiting one of my trail running buddies and he & I are exploring the local mountains together as guys. Both because of this friendship being recent, new, and because of it having started on a “male footing”, there’s something very liberating and refreshing about it, as it allows me to experiment & explore my masculine sides with someone who knows me “just as a boy”. And as a “gay boy”. 

So going to a gay bar for my first time ever with my trail running buddy (& his wife) the other night felt good as it fits into this particular phase of exploring my masculinity & defining my way of being masculine. It also has the advantage of happening in a city where nobody knows me so I feel a little less social pressure.

Still, the experience at the gay bar the other night was very intense and quite nerve-racking for me. 

Overall, it was good and I want to do it again, I can’t wait to do it again. But I also feel nervous about doing it again because it wasn’t easy. 

The cis-hetero-normative couple I am visiting as well as some other cis-hetero friends of mine were very surprised that I had never been to a gay bar before and they even made comments like, “Even I have been to a gay bar” or “Gay bars are so much more fun than straight bars” (or was it even worse and they said “normal bars”? I cannot remember). These comments didn’t sit well with me. I know the intentions were good but they’re missing the point — several of the most important points for me, actually. (And, on the other hand, I would like to ask: “Why would you go to a gay bar as a straight person?” or “Why do you, as a cis-hetero person, find gay bars more fun than straight bars?”) 

As to me, it’s not only gay bars that I’d never been to before: I don’t go to bars, period. I never really had a reason to go to bars, whether straight or gay. I don’t like to drink and I don’t like crowds or loud places, and I don’t like having to shout to have a conversation. I enjoy dancing very much so I’ve been to clubs several times throughout my life, including very gay clubs in Colorado which have been fun experiences — but I go just for the dancing. 

Moreover, even if I had been to a gay bar before, going to a gay bar now, now that I’m living fully and openly in my true identity as non-binary gay trans-guy, it would the first time for me at a gay bar anyway: the first time for this gay trans-boy at a gay bar. And it’s precisely this that makes it such a huge step and made it such an intense and in many ways nerve-racking experience the other night: I walked into that space being perceived as a (handsome) young man. If I had walked into that place even only a year or two ago, I would have been perceived very differently: two or three years ago, I still would have been perceived as a “woman” walking in. Now I am perceived as a man walking in. 

I know I keep writing about this here but it’s hard to convey in words how much this fact turns the world upside down, how much getting used to it takes, how much rewiring of the brain it involves. 

For so many years I can remember wishing people would see me as a boy, as a guy. I remember how much I tried to pass as a boy, as a guy, with baggy clothes, short hair, and masculine postures. Sometimes it even worked, and it felt incredibly wonderful, but it was fleeting moments that became more and more rare, until they eventually disappeared and I (the “old me”) settled with being a “badass girl who did boys’ stuff”. 

But now that wish has come true. Now I walk into a store, a restaurant, an airport, an office, my climbing gym, the crag or trail, and I am perceived as a guy. 

It changes everything. 

And in places where physical aspect counts or is noticeable, like gyms or bars, I am perceived as an attractive guy. Which for me adds a whole lot of layers, maybe from my own personal baggage, which aren’t easy to carry or shake off.  

And if I specifically walk into a gay bar, I am walking into a space where I’m trying to belong, a place that feels aligned to my true identity while also being new and scary and not completely acknowledged even to myself yet. I’m walking into a space where I feel I am one of them and yet I also still worry that I don’t fully belong or that “they might think I don’t belong”. And on top of it, I’m walking into a place where the physical aspect of people counts or, at least, is one of the first things that is noticed; a place where people will look around and stare and make moves on other persons. Of course, part of why I want to start going to gay bars is to see if I can meet other gay guys there and see how it feels. But I’m not used to this kind of environment and interactions of this type feel at least partly uncomfortable to me. Whether it’s simply because I’m shy or not used to these places, or whether it’s my neurodivergent brain, or whether it’s the impostor syndrome related to my gender journey, I don’t know how to behave in a (gay) bar. Yes, it is flattering to walk in and realize that guys are registering my presence and looking at me as a handsome/desirable young man: it’s flattering and affirming. But it’s also uncomfortable and scary as hell. What do I do? What do I say if someone comes up to me? Will they “see through me” and realize I’m trans and not be OK with it? 

This confusion, these doubts and fears are very real for me. 

Going to gay bars for me isn’t just “fun” as it may be for many people. Going to gay bars for me now is yet another step in my self-determination, in the exploration of my gender identity & sexual orientation; it’s an extremely important and delicate new phase in my own journey, in my growth, in the (re)claiming of myself.

It feels like being a teenager all over again in the most confusing and disorienting way. 

Arys was a beautiful child, angelic-looking with golden locks, big blue eyes, and regular features. But Arys didn’t care: “she” played with the boys (after all, “she” was a boy “herself”, wasn’t “she”?!), tumbling around after soccer balls, climbing trees, and tying up the long, wavy, blond hair in a practical pony-tail. 

When high school came around, though, the world started sending Arys new, and wholly unexpected, signals: ‘You’re a pretty “girl” and boys like you’. Arys still kept playing rough with the boys maintaining platonic relationships but it started entailing shooing off or ignoring their crushes on “her” and putting up with the uncomfortable feeling of being seen or looked at differently, almost devoured by stares, when “she” entered a space. For several years, Arys’s instinctive response was to hide: not indoors, not by stopping the activities “she” enjoyed with friends, but by cutting off all the long hair, wearing a boyish (and rather unattractive haircut) and baggy clothes. It wasn’t until college & grad school that Arys started feeling relatively, or partially, comfortable with “her” looks: and not because “she” really felt aligned to them — that didn’t happen until very recently, more than fifteen years later. Arys just learned to ignore or put up with or play along with some of the social norms connected to being a pretty “girl” while still always maintaining a good dose of anti-conformism that was always — indeed, still is — one of their innate, defining traits. 

Now, in their early forties, Arys is visiting one of their friends from the Ragnar race (& his wife) in Salt Lake City. These people are not queer but they are wonderful allies, very open-minded and full of relatives & other friends who are queer. Moreover, this couple is also going through a period of renewed self-discovery and self-definition, which is one of the reasons Arys connected quite instantaneously to this new friend at Ragnar. So these people were very happy to go to a gay bar with Arys last night. 

Arys’s first time at a gay bar. 

And there it was all over again: that sense of walking into a space and having everyone’s eyes on you, eating you up with their stares. If Arys had walked into that room undressed, he would barely have felt more naked. 

As much as Arys feels like a gay boy, walking into a room with plenty of gay men (but not packed & chaotic, and thus as anonymous as a gay club) is a completely novel experience that still feels scary and uncomfortable. 

All of a sudden, it’s been happening to Arys, to be noticed by gay guys on the street and being looked at like he wasn’t before — which is an explicit measure of how Arys’s exterior looks have, indeed, changed. And last night’s experience at the gay bar brought it home clearly to Arys: how much this phase feels uncomfortably like high school, when people, “the world”, started seeing or noticing or looking at Arys as a “physically attractive person”, as the ugly duckling suddenly turned into a swan. 

But there are also some important differences. Back then, in high school, despite looking like a girl, Arys didn’t feel like a girl (they never did) — so that made the experience harder. But they had all the information and social cues on how to act or respond — which made it easier, at least on the surface, at least to mask. Whereas now, there is a good amount of alignment between how Arys looks and how he feels. But there’s still some dis-alignment (at least perceived) as Arys probably looks like a cis gay guy while they are a non-binary trans gay boy, which causes a huge impostor syndrome for him — “What if they discover I’m trans? What happens then? Am I even allowed in this space, in this room full of gay men? Am I really one of them?”. And then there’s the lack of information or cues on what to do: Arys wasn’t socialized to deal with this, they don’t know what to do, they don’t know how to read cues or what to do with them. 

Admittedly, part of this is flattering and affirming: to walk into a room of gay men and realize they are looking at him as an attractive gay guy (& how liberating not to be seen as an “attractive young woman” anymore!). But it’s also scary, disorienting, and extremely uncomfortable. It feels so objectifying.

Something that the nerves can only take for a short while, like the scariest parts of being a teenager but with the experience and additional awareness of an adult, that in some ways makes it even harder…

There’s always something liberating for me about traveling. And also about letting go. They renew my sense of self-determination. 

This past week was really hard, a deep emotional rut. I’m not saying the fear or sense of uncertainty aren’t there anymore. But I’m feeling the other side of the same coin: the side that has to do with liberation and potential. Potential to continue becoming my own self — as scary and lonely as it may be. 

I might not be ”queer enough” but I am my own flavor of queer (and it isn’t a competition anyway). 

Some comments and conversations with friends in the past week have been helpful, almost fundamental, as I once again saw myself, or my potential self, reflected in their words and thus found the hope & courage again to continue on my own path to discovering and becoming my own self fully. 

I hadn’t seen my French climbing buddy (the friend who drove me to my gender-affirming top-surgery in January 2023) since last October 2023. I saw him again on Monday and after talking for a few minutes, he finally really looked at me, really saw me, and exclaimed how much the shape of my face, particularly my jawline, had changed. He & I met over two years ago, when I still looked quite feminine, so a comment like that from him really means a lot to me, not only because it’s very affirming but also because it effectively reminds me of how much I’ve actually, physically, changed. And this is a measure — one of the several — of how far I’ve come in my self-determination. 

On Wednesday I had a chat with my ex-housemate (who’s also a friend of mine and therapist) and was sharing about some of my recent doubts and emotional troubles. She’s known me for a little over a year and her reminder, once again, of how much she’s seen me change and grow over this time was healing. But even more so were a couple of specific comments of hers around my queer identity and sexual orientation. “You’re a non-binary gay trans-boy — it hardly gets more queer than that!”. And then her affirming encouragement to let myself go out and find validating male company and in particular community with gay guys, reminding me that she’s seen this yearning in me for as long as she’s known me and that I deserve to seek (& hopefully find) what I want, what I desire. 

I don’t know any transmasc people who identify as gay guys, so in that sense I feel lonely and confused, as I don’t have examples or specific community. But that’s what I am, a non-binary gay trans-boy, and I need to let myself be & become. So I reached out to a big local gay men’s chorus and will audition at the end of August to hopefully sing with them. This feels so right. 

And also having ended things with the transgirl and having deleted the dating apps from my phone feels so right. I did it as an almost instinctive response, last week, to my body shutting down. I trusted that physical response of mine — I’ve learned to trust them. And I’m glad I did. This summer needs to be my summer, a summer of reflection and reset. And maybe even of partial redefinition of myself as I listen to myself more deeply, as I explore and discover. And for this I need some solitude. And especially I need to be single. As scary and lonely as it may be. 

I need to find, discover, explore, and define my version of masculine, my version of queer. 

I am very drawn to the masculine world and I am an athlete. I don’t share these aspects with most of my closest trans/queer/non-binary friends. With respect to these aspects I am alone, for now. But this is me, this is who I am, this is the direction in which I want & need to grow. So I have to do it, I need to follow this path even if now it feels mostly covered in snow or hidden by overgrown jungle. 

Whether it’s visiting new friends in Salt Lake City, experiencing the last two weeks of Pride month very differently; or relaxing in my own living-room by myself; or hiking up a fourteener — it is me that I am trying to find and define. 

It is scary but it also feels right. I recognize this feeling, I’ve had it several times before: this sense of letting go of expectations, letting go of situations; this sense of embracing the unknown; this sense of finding and defining myself authentically, regardless of the difficulties. And maybe one day I’ll finally learn to integrate the feeling that I deserve to be myself and to have/find what I’m longing for and seeking. I might never get it but I deserve to seek it.