The Little Prince and the Fox

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.

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

Yesterday I went for a long hike with one of my climbing buddies who’s also one of my closest friends. The hike itself was quite an adventure as we went high up in elevation and despite the recent hot-spell most of the mountain was still covered in snow so the trail was mostly invisible and we had to pick our way through the tress, over streams, constantly walking and falling through snow. 

We spent the whole day together — just like we used to when we went climbing outdoors together on weekends — so that was really nice. 

It was also nice that we could spend the day together yesterday specifically, adventuring together, on Father’s Day, given that we’ve both lost our fathers. We didn’t talk about that in particular yesterday, but we did talk about our dads a bit over dinner & beers — this buddy of mine is one of the few people with whom I really talk about my dad, mostly memories of him from when I was younger, as my friend does with me. 

Before heading out on our hike, my buddy commented on my little mohawk that I just got saying that it suited me and that I reminded him of the “Lost Boys” in the movie “Hook”. 

I don’t know why I made him think of one of those characters, really, but I do feel like a lost boy. Very much so. Although, technically speaking, I’m not a boy: I’m a 42-year-old adult… 

But still, I do feel totally lost. 

… And the key fear or worry underlying my almost constant sense of not being enough is due to the sense — or worry or fear — of being admired rather than loved. 

With my close platonic friends I know I am loved: I know they love me despite all my many shortcomings and defects and even characteristics that make me straight-out impossible to deal with sometimes. 

But with this relatively new romantic friend there isn’t love, yet, it’s simply too soon. She likes me, I know that and believe that, but I feel it’s a liking coming mainly from admiration — for my being physically good-looking, smart, brave, or whatever else. 

It’s okay, and even nice, to be admired in certain, appropriate situations and in not-so-close relationships. But when I feel admired rather than loved by someone with whom there’s closeness & intimacy (of any type), then I get triggered and feel at risk of not being enough at some point — like now that I’m going through a rough spot… 

What happens when the admiration eventually diminishes or vanishes altogether?

It just hit me: the realization of how much I live in constant fear, or worry, of not being enough. 

When I injured my thumb and found out I couldn’t climb for at least three months after surgery, my first thought was, “Will my climbing buddies forget me? Will I lose their friendship?”. Then, when a couple of them reassured me (& one even showed me in action) that they would go hiking with me instead this summer, in order to maintain our connection or bond, my next worry was, “Will they want to climb with me again afterwards, once I’m healed, after having spent this summer climbing with other — and better — climbers? I’ll have to train my ass off to regain a position with them in climbing!” 

Such worries or fears with my platonic friends are more rare, at least once we’ve established a deep connection and thus trust. 

With romantic relationships, though, the fear is much bigger and gets triggered more easily, probably activating childhood wounds more directly. Or maybe, simply, because my romantic relationships of the past decade have been on less solid foundations than my platonic friendships.

It just happened again with the transwoman with whom I had a romantic relationship for the past three months. We’re both polyamorous and we were practicing relationship anarchy in our specific case. When she told me a few days ago that she had started seeing someone else romantically/sexually, too, that activated some old, deep wounds in me and the ensuing response to end things with her. 

I deeply believe in consensual/ethical non-monogamy both as my innate orientation and from a philosophical or social viewpoint. I understand and believe and truly feel that I and she both need more than one romantic and/or sexual partner — I’m very open about saying that she’s “not enough” for me and I rationally understand I wouldn’t be “enough” for her, romantically or sexually — I honestly don’t believe any one person can be sexually and/or romantically “enough” for anyone else — and it takes pressure off of me to think that my partner(s) would get some of their romantic and/or sexual needs covered by someone else rather than all by me. And yet, her communicating that to me in this particularly vulnerable moment of my life threw me for a loop that led me to ask her for radio silence until the end of this month (with the inner intention on my part to end our relationship). I know I have been less present or available for her in the past three or four weeks because of all the difficulties I’ve been going through — thumb injury & surgery with long, hard recovery; partial/temporary move now and then living uncertainty as of September; professional uncertainty, upcoming unemployment, and confusion/disappointment around my career; frustrations & disappointments around other “dating” situations for me; and maybe most of all now (apart from my thumb injury) the renewed pain and sorrow and grief from memories of my European queer ex-lover and the upcoming anniversary of my father’s death. All this has made me recoil, shut down, be less available for her or not feel “good enough”, not feel as “sparkly” for/with her as I was a couple months ago. I guess I’ve been feeling “less attractive” to her while also guilty of not being as present as I maybe should be. So her having started a new romantic/sexual relationship just now feels like a confirmation of my own “not being enough” rather than a simple fact of polyamory/relationship anarchy. 

Will I ever resolve, or overcome, this fear, this worry, this almost constant sense of not being enough for people? 

Can I ever “be enough”?