The Little Prince and the Fox

I’m still glowing from the joy and satisfaction of going skiing yesterday for the first time again in over eight years, and for the first time ever in America! 

I went with one of my climbing buddies who also got back into skiing this winter after a decade’s break. And he had reassured me the muscle memory would come back really quickly. He was right, and it felt wonderful — so much fun but also liberating, empowering, like rediscovering & reclaiming another part of myself. 

I used to ski quite a bit back in Europe but when I moved to California a little over eight years ago, I stopped doing it, partly because I was intent & interested in discovering and/or reclaiming other parts of myself, partly for practical reasons (too far and/or expensive and/or not easily accessible). But it’s always been nagging me at the back of my mind until the nagging started becoming a strong draw once I moved to Colorado. My first two winters here were just logistically too difficult for me to get back into skiing so I could rationalize the fact that I wasn’t skiing easily enough. But this winter I just felt like I kept letting my own self down by not managing to get around to it and I was trying to make peace with yet another season in Colorado that I had let go by without even dipping my toe back into skiing. Until this climbing buddy last week, once again, invited me to join him to ski and this time I just went for it even if my gear wasn’t ready and I had to rent skis. 

Until this past weekend, as I got ready to go skiing again after such a long hiatus and then as I finally got onto the slopes with my friend, I hadn’t realized — I had sort of forgotten or hidden to my own self — how much skiing means to me. 

I started skiing three decades ago, when I was eleven. Back then, it was something I did with my parents & sister for a week’s vacation for several years in the late winter/early spring. I also did it with some of my close friends and their families throughout high school and into college. So it has a pleasant taste of winter vacation, mountain huts, hot cocoa, and fun outdoor activities. 

But it’s even more than that. I realize now that starting to ski (& to run track) in middle school was for me a very important step towards being able to find and express fundamental parts of my identity. In the “normal routine” of the school year, my mother put me & my younger sister into ballet — something more aligned to my sister than myself but that my mother saw as “perfect for her two pretty little girls”. My parents tried to put me & my sister into the same ski class but it didn’t work: despite their being only two years between us, there was a gulf in our personalities that quickly made my sister dread skiing (she was really scared) and me love it and progress in it really fast. So skiing (along with running at school) became the first physical activity I was able to do by myself, without my little sister tagging along, and actually pushing my limits by adventuring onto harder slopes and even off-piste. It also became one of the very few, if not only, activity that I sometimes shared one-on-one with my dad, he & I going for a long day skiing up into the mountains by ourselves or with another friend of mine and her father: it was one of the very few moments I had when I felt “special to my dad just as I was”, without having to be different from my true self. As I grew up, skiing also became one of the first activities that I did by myself with friends, in high school, taking a weekend or week away from our families (in a relatively controlled & safe environment), which felt wonderfully liberating. Then, in my last year of high school, on the ski slopes I met the first guy — the very first person — with whom I had sex (& with whom I also had some of those liberating weekends away skiing). Later on, in grad school, skiing was something I did only with my then-romantic-sexual-partner. At first, it was nice, it was something that drew us close, a shared interested, especially when we started doing uphill skinning and backcountry skiing together. I remember how empowering it felt to me to be able to go up & down those steep mountain slopes away from the resort crowds. But I also remember a painful exchange between me & my ex-partner as I once asked him, “Aren’t you glad that I’m so strong and adventurous that I can do these things with you?” (which was clearly my boy-identity yearning to be recognized and validated by him) and he replied, “Not really. These are things I would be perfectly happy doing with my guy friends. I’d rather be planning a family with you”. 

Well, now I, as a guy, am skiing with my own guy friends. 

Yesterday’s outing on the slopes with one of my climbing buddies marked a reclaiming of yet another part of my own self. 

[Trigger warning: death; loss; abandonment, rejection, neglect.]

Yesterday my boy-chest turned 15 months.

Something I was hoping to celebrate with the gay guy with whom I had my first date last week and was planning to see again last night. But I ended up having to attend to the wounded boy in me, instead of celebrating his 15 months of visible existence. 

The gay guy canceled on me at the last minute. To be fair, he didn’t simply cancel on me. He had been having a particularly exhausting week at work — something he had already let me know during the week — and tried to reschedule for tonight. But I gave him a hard, non-negotiable “No” for tonight because of special & important plans of my own involving other people and other activities that are very meaningful to me. Given both my schedule and his, the earliest we can see each other again, for our second date, would be May 14th, more than two weeks away. He asked if we could put it in the calendar to see each other then and he would cook for me to make it up to me. Also, to his credit and to be totally honest, we had this conversation on the phone yesterday evening: he called me to try to reschedule and decide together what to do, he didn’t just send a text to cancel. 

I know that his liking me is genuine. And he likes me as a whole, not just physically, but even intellectually and emotionally — we both feel & agree that we’d want to be platonic friends even if the romantic/sexual aspect didn’t work. But how I feel is that “he canceled on me last night after having nearly had to cancel last week”. What remains for me is that he couldn’t rally himself out of his tiredness last night to see me. To me that nullifies all his compliments and sweet words for me. 

I need someone who shows up. Words come later, if at all. Actions, facts are what matter to me, what count for me, what I need. Like with my climbing buddies: we show up for each other, even if/when we’re tired. We build the trust not with words, which can be so empty, so deceiving, but by actually showing up, by actually being there for each other. 

I was so angry last night, so disappointed, so hurt. Out of proportion angry and disappointed and hurt if one looks at it in terms of a “canceled second date”. I know my reaction to what happened last night is “out of proportion” to last night’s event per se. My flaring anger last night came from a deep deep wound, a very old wound of mine: the wounded boy in me, the wounded boy that I am. 

The wounded boy who was abandoned, or rejected or neglected, by his father for so many years, for decades, from a tender age. I “technically” lost my dad last summer when he died; but I actually lost my dad over three decades ago when he abandoned me because I was a “girl” and as such “my mother’s business”. 

This wound is so deep in me and still so raw also because it encompasses two losses at once: there’s the wound from not being acknowledged as the boy that I was, that I’ve always been; and the connected/consequent wound of being abandoned, or rejected or neglected, by my father because of me “not being a boy”. And the consequences of this deep, old wound are that I still get very triggered when somebody whom I look forward to seeing cancels on me — and I feel much more hurt (& therefore angry) when it’s a cis-male “bailing on me” rather than someone with a less masculine gender identity. 

My entire life I’ve been yearning and striving to have cis-boy friends as buddies to help affirm my boy identity. And I’ve also sought out (& fortunately found) many surrogate father figures as mentors and/or older cis-male friends. And I realize that one of the reasons why my relationships with my climbing buddies (almost all of them cis-male) are so important to me is precisely because they’re cis-men with whom I can have a very strong and deep and intimate connection, stemming from the camaraderie between climbers, while still being platonic and as such “safe” for me because it’s “close but not too close”. 

Eventually, I would also really like to have sexual and/or romantic partners who are gay cis-men, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to. I won’t unless I heal that deep, deep wound; unless I find a way of healing that wounded boy in me. 

There’s another extremely important thing I want to register & put on record today. 

On Tuesday, I was a wreck. Partly, I was probably just feeling the exhaustion from the weekend’s efforts. But also, I had a conversation with my boss in which he confirmed that he cannot renew my contract past this July and the professional advice he gave me was pretty much useless. I felt overwhelmed and panicked and also full of grief from this phase of my (at least professional) life coming to an end. 

But then, between Tuesday afternoon and last night I had several conversations that have helped (re)kindle my own sense of hope and almost relief and/or liberation as the other side of this coin of losses. Between Tuesday and yesterday afternoon, I talked about my current professional situation with one of my closest friends from grad school in Europe, my running buddy who supported me on the race, a dear non-binary transmasc friend here, and a colleague who’s older and more experienced while also having a similar “non-orthodox” (in academia) path as mine. And in all these conversations, the main feeling that transpired, that got rekindled, underneath or beyond my fear of being unemployed in a few months and my confusion about what to do next, was the liberating & empowering sense that now I can redefine myself, both professionally and personally. As scary and unwelcome as it is to be facing unemployment in just a couple months, this could also be an opportunity for me to (re)decide what I want to do next, especially now that I know myself better and that I have more confidence in who I am & how I (want to) present to the world. 

Something similar happened last night on my date with the gay man. We eventually spoke about physical/sexual intimacy and I shared with him how I’m struggling with the recent realization that all physically/sexually intimate connections from now on for me will be with people who know only this “new version” of me: persons who will never have seen me pre-testosterone or with breasts. And that to me has been feeling like a painful loss, in the sense that I’m afraid they might never really get the “whole me”. They’ll only get this “new me”. But as I put it into words with him last night, all of a sudden the loss turned into a sense of liberation: from now on all my physical/sexual intimacy will be in “my new self” but this “new self” that feels so much more confident & aligned with itself. And, also, it means that all my relationships entailing physical/sexual intimacy from now on will be in some way totally new for me and incomparable to any of my previous ones in a wonderfully liberating way. Of course, all relationships are fundamentally unique and cannot really be compared, but all my sexual relationships from now will be “more different”; and if I can find the right persons with whom to connect sexually and/or romantically, these future physical/sexual relationships will probably feel more fulfilling or healthier to me because I’m more aligned with myself. I will finally be going into sexual and/or romantic relationships as a transmasc gay guy, unburdened by having previously lived (& having been seen) as a “woman”. 

This could turn into a wonderfully powerful liberation.

[Trigger warning: some explicit, though limited, sexual content.]

This almost feels like a whole new “coming out” for me. 

I know I’ve already felt, and written about, my attraction for masculinity, one of my main identities as being a “gay boy”, while also using other terms to describe myself, my identities, my sexual orientation, including terms that might sounds contradictory. But to me all those labels make sense: non-binary, transmasculine, queer, gender-queer/gender-fluid, gay, pansexual. I am all of those things. And yet, at the end of the day, deep down inside, what I feel most strongly is that I am a gay guy. 

I think there’s two main reasons I’ve struggled with defining myself this way with clarity & conviction. 

On the one hand, there is a degree of pansexuality in me that comes up with other androgynous non-binary or trans persons: but the physical or sexual attraction in these cases is usually secondary or slower and conditional upon, or actually sparked by, the emotional connection coming specifically from being non-binary/trans/genderqueer. 

On the other, and maybe most importantly, there’s some internalized homophobia, I think. I love being around guys, cis-men. I like male environments and really enjoy having platonic cis-male friends with whom to climb or run or just hang out for a chat. And I’m terrified that if they know or realize that I’m a gay guy they won’t be my friends anymore because they’ll be afraid of my sexual orientation as a threat to them (because of their own internalized homophobia). I’ve realized that my main fear when walking into the men’s changing room at the gym now is not anymore that they might realize that I’m trans, but actually that they might think (or realize) that I’m gay.

But today, I’m reveling in the good feelings of having had my “gay-guy-ness” validated so wonderfully last night. 

I had my first date ever with a cisgender gay man who has never had sex with women, is very openly attracted to masculinity in all its forms and is genuinely affirming (& attracted to) trans guys. It was one of the most affirming experiences at least of my recent life. This guy sees me as a guy and likes me as a guy and wants to have sex with me as a guy (regardless of the specifics of my genitals). I honestly thought I would never have this. 

Of course, I don’t know how this specific relationship will turn out. At the moment it feels like a good fit but it might turn out not to be. But that doesn’t matter now. What matters now, what I need & want to register and put on the record, is these emotions I’m feeling right now: the sheer joy; the sense of safety alongside the permission or confidence to explore, try, play; the budding confidence; the sense of full recognition & acceptance; the ego boosts from all the genuine compliments. Even if it were just the latter, that would probably be enough, a very important step in my confidence building & healing: learning to be able to sit there and not only accept but actually let sink in the shower of genuine compliments — and compliments specifically about masculine aspects of me! 

Of course, this didn’t happen in a vacuum. The acceptance and affirmations and love I’m getting from all my platonic friendships have been helping me feel better in my own skin. The race I ran in protest as a non-binary trans athlete with the wonderful support, on the ground, of a close non-binary friend and of lovely cis allies, and from afar of so many dear friends rekindled my hopes and my confidence. The fact that I recently made myself an account on Tinder where I’m specifically presenting as “non-binary transmasc gay/pansexual” using “he/they” pronouns and seeking only men, while it hasn’t led to anything concrete yet, is an important step forward in my own self-determination. I’m sure all these events & factors, together with the positive vibes I was feeling in anticipation for last night’s date, contributed to my state of mind yesterday, more confident than usual about my gender-identity & sexual orientation. As I was driving, I kept thinking, “I’m a gay guy — and I want to tell my closest (cis-male) climbing buddies!” And then at the gym, as I lifted weights in a crowded room and caught my image in the mirror, reflecting back to me not only my masculinity but also my queerness, I didn’t shy away from it: I looked back at it proudly, smiling, confidently, with a sweet inner voice saying, “Yes, I’m a hot guy and I’m totally gay & queer!”

We did it!!! 

A couple months ago, I started looking for a spring half-marathon trail race for me to do and the only one I could find that was within reasonable distance for me (and not racing on paved roads) was the one in Fruita, CO. It looked perfect: a timely date for me, a gorgeous location, spectacular landscapes and ideal weather. So I went to register but found only the usual two binary options of “Male” & “Female” for gender. So I reached out to the organizers and explained my situation as a non-binary athlete and person who officially has an “X” gender-marker on their IDs. I asked if there was any possibility for me to register in a different category that would recognize me as non-binary athlete (& individual). Their reply was a polite and slightly vague dismissal, along the lines of “we’re working on this for the future but for now we only have the two given categories”. So I wrote back asking clearly, “Does this mean that if I want to register I must pick either “M” or “F” and cannot register otherwise?”. The reply came more clear: “Yes, that’s correct”. 

I felt the white-hot fury rise inside me. The discrimination on the basis of gender was so blatant to me it felt like a slap in the face. And my first thought was, “I cannot run this race because I’m non-binary”. 

Then, as I talked about this issue a few days later with a European non-binary friend who also runs, all of a sudden my attitude shifted and the thought came to me: “Yes, I CAN run this race! I CANNOT REGISTER for it but I CAN RUN it. And so I WILL RUN it!”. 

The white-hot anger had turned into the red-hot anger of the warrior in me: the anger shifted from being passive and self-destructive to being a force that gave me the energy to ACT. I knew, however, that I couldn’t do this by myself. I couldn’t drive to a place almost 300 miles away where I don’t know anyone, and show up to run a half-marathon in the desert with ~2,000 feet elevation gain on technical terrain with no support (also because by not registering for the race, I would not have a bib like the other runners so I might be denied hydration and/or assistance if I needed it on the trail). 

Well, I am blessed with wonderful friends, nearby and far away. So I was able to do it. 

Friends from all over sent me their support with text messages, advice, tips, and even swag I could wear for the race. 

And some friends nearby actually went to Fruita with me. And our weekend adventure was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. 

The non-binary friend who joined me carpooled with me and we caravaned with my other friend who joined with his family. We traveled together and when we got to our destination the evening before the race we all had pizza together and sat down to discuss logistics for the race and do craft work for our activism. My non-binary friend & I had already started discussing logistics and the possible scenarios and outcomes on our drive, so I had already realized that they had a sense of the importance as well as risks of what we were doing. But I was still unsure to what extent my cis-male running buddy was going to “be in on this” apart from shadowing me on the trail (if we got to race). But as we sat around eating pizza, it became very clear how everyone there was super involved and committed to the cause. My buddy’s wife and my non-binary friend, who would not race but wait for us at the start/finish line, had done & continued doing research about our civil rights when protesting this way, checking details of the location and of this particular type of activism (like previous examples of activism in running). When I discussed logistics of the race itself with my buddy, I said clearly that they might not even let us start and in that case I would oppose passive resistance by sitting on the ground with a protest sign, but I also clarified that I didn’t expect him to do that part and asked him how he felt about it. And he simply said, “If that happens, I’ll stand close to you to help make sure the runners starting don’t run over you. I’m here to protect you”. And then after dinner, we all sat around brainstorming phrases for the signs and writing the signs — including my friend’s daughter drawing rainbows and non-binary & trans flags everywhere! 

The next morning, we had to be shuttled to the start of the race with everyone else because there was no parking at the trailhead. So my buddy & I got there just in time to start. I was so nervous, my mouth was parched and my heart was racing. But my buddy was right beside me and the rest of the crew was nearby with the signs and all their support. My buddy & I got into the crowd of runners (there were a few hundred) and started with everyone else. I was scared: scared the runners around us would be hostile, scared the organizers would stop us at the start, scared we would be flagged at the aid stations along the trail. But none of that happened. And after the first mile or two, my body started going from “anxious mode” to “race mode”. I got into my pace, with my buddy shadowing me and telling me every mile we gained — “3 miles; 4 miles; we’ve been going for 45 minutes, it’s time for your first energy bite; 5 miles, 6 miles, 7 miles”… 

It felt so good, to be grinding miles and having the support of my buddy. I was fighting a battle but I was not alone: neither alone there on the trail, nor when I got to the finish line.

Once we passed 7 miles (so we had done more than half the race) and the second aid station, I really knew we had this. And so at that point I knew we’d go with the plan we had for the scenario in which we got to run the whole race: at about 12 or 12.5 miles, we’d stop briefly for me to put on the trans flag (that another friend had given me) as a cape to wear for the last 1-1.5 miles & across the finish line. And that’s exactly what we did. And boy, did it feel amazing, to be running with that cape…! 

A finish line had never felt so far away to me and yet also so close… We could see it from the top of the hill, the last downhill which also hid a last gentle but treacherous uphill that we weren’t expecting. My legs were really tired by then — it had been a very taxing race course. But the joy, the sense of empowerment, the pride (& probably also the runner’s high from the chemicals coursing through my body) kept me going. As I approached the finish line, my buddy’s 10-year-old daughter showed up on the side of the course with the hand-held progress-pride flag I had brought for the occasion and she handed it to me: and I ran the last quarter mile and straight across the finish line wearing the trans flag as a cape and waving the pride flag high up in the air. 

It was one of the most beautiful moments of my life. 

And what made it even more beautiful was that I wasn’t doing it by myself nor only for myself: I was doing it with the support of loved ones, with the support of kind people who believe in this cause — we were all doing it for a higher, greater cause, with the hope that next year non-binary athletes will be allowed to register officially for this race and run it and be awarded fairly, getting the official recognition they deserve. 

Yes, I did this for myself, for sure, because I’m not going to let someone tell me I cannot run a race only because I’m neither an “M” or an “F”, or that I have to pick “M” or “F” to be allowed to run the race: i.e. I’m not going to let them discriminate against me on the base of gender (which is what this organization effectively was doing at this race). But I did it for all other non-binary runners who might want to run this, too — this race or any other race where there’s no official category for us, yet. And I know that my friends & I also did it with the belief of making this world a better place, with real inclusivity because, as one of our signs read, “Gender is a spectrum — Running is for everyone”.

“Fight for the things you care about. But do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”

[Ruth Bader Ginsburg]

This is one of my favorite quotes. And I guess I’ll get to practice it this weekend, for the first time in a long while, at least at such a (potentially) large scale. 

I will be attempting to run a half-marathon race organized by UTMB which has not included a “non-binary” category for athletes. So people like me are effectively excluded from the race. The webpage for the race has a whole section on “Diversion, Inclusion & Equity”, full of pretty words, but nothing at all mentioning non-binary and/or trans athletes or ways to practically include them. And when I wrote to the race organizers they refused to accommodate me in any way, saying that the only way I could participate was registering as “Male” or “Female”. 

Hence my decision to try and run this race as a rebel, without registering, as a form of activism, of social protest. 

I’m full of energizing anger to do this, but I’m also scared. 

Fortunately, I have a couple of friends going with me — otherwise, I don’t think I could do it. One of my two cis-male running buddies will be running the race with me, also without registering in protest, and running alongside me, like a pacer or shadow, to support me literally at every step. His wife & daughter will be coming along for the weekend and waiting for us at the start/finish line. And one of my closest non-binary friends will also be coming with me for moral/emotional support, waiting for me at the start/finish line. My running buddy got apparel (socks, T-shirts and tank-tops) with the colors of the non-binary flag for all of us to wear on the day of the race. And I/we will be preparing signs for us to hold up with slogans in support of non-binary/trans athletes, to make it clear that we’re doing this as a social protest (& not “banditing” the race). And I even have a big trans flag to wear as a cape, if/when I can, that was given to me by some other close friends in the queer community to support me. 

So I’m getting a lot of wonderful support from my friends — they are “joining me” in this battle, whether at my side physically or from afar emotionally. 

But still I am a little scared. I might be kicked off the race course. I might be dragged off the trail if I oppose resistance. I probably won’t be given any water or assistance at the aid stations, IF I get to run, so I ned to make sure I’m self-sufficient with hydration&food for the whole race, just in case (it’s a desert race). 

I’m scared because to a great extent I don’t really know what to expect. And hopefully, if the race organizers do kick me out or insult me, I will have at least some of the other (“binary”) runners on my side, somehow “joining me”…

Today I feel that I’ve been made whole. 

I think this was sparked by listening to the poem by Dean Atta, “Some men have vaginas”, last night. 

Throughout the night, in the sparse moments of lighter sleep, the phrase “some men have vaginas” kept coming back to me, to my mind, to my heart, to my soul, filling me with a sense of wholeness and belonging. 

I slept better than most nights, almost nine hours straight to the morning, and had a very vivid dream which seemed a little nonsensical and puzzling at first but that I understand now: it represented the masculine and the feminine in me finally uniting more peacefully. 

I also finally made sense and somehow fully understood & wholly accepted within me the meaning of my relationship with my European (gender)queer ex-lover/friend. A week ago, I was explaining to a common acquaintance how our (me & my European (gender)queer ex-lover) being both non-binary in the specific sense of they describing themself as a “bearded lady or woman with a penis” and me identifying as a “boy with a vagina” had been one of the most important and special reasons for our uniquely profound connection — both on the level of our souls and sexually. As I explained this to our common acquaintance, I said to him, “We were like the Yin & Yang, taking turns in a fluid, dynamic, and natural way between the two roles/forces”. 

But last night it dawned upon me that, while it was indeed true that we were like the Yin & Yang, taking turns in a fluid, dynamic and natural way between the two roles/forces, it wasn’t exactly like the Tao with the soft, curved lines: it was more like the “jagged Tao” that I drew for myself several years ago and now have tattooed on my left shoulder-blade. There are jagged edges between the two forces, the two colors, the Yin and the Yang: those rugged edges are what cut between us, what my European (gender)queer ex-lover and I weren’t able to smooth out together, and thus led to us hurting each other with the still inherent sharpness. 

Those jagged, sharp edges were also what was in between my masculine and feminine sides, cutting one another and almost feeling like they couldn’t coexist. 

But in last night’s vivid dream, I think they came together. I was in some European location where there was both historical city and wild nature (also two opposites that define my life, my experiences, and my longings), on a weekend trip with two friends of mine who didn’t know each other. One was a boy from my middle-school years, one of those boys who are very cute and grow earlier than most but who is also shy and kind and struggles with ending up in the spotlight for being “the cute guy in class”; we were in class together for three years and had secret crushes on each other in different moments. The other was a young cis-woman with whom I was friends when I was living in California, especially before the pandemic; she & her partner/husband were very heteronormative in some ways, and thus very different from me, but she was also very “non-girly” in many ways and, among other things, she was a scientist & runner (like me). Neither of these people are present in my life now nor have they been for years but I’m sure there is a deep meaning to my dreaming specifically about them: each one of them represented parts of me, parts of my identity. The young, cute but shy teenage boy; the scientific & athletic, “no-BS” young woman. Also, both these people have names that start with the letter “A”, like mine (as well as my European (gender)queer ex-lover’s name). And specifically, the young boy from my middle-school years was called “Andrea”, which means “man” in Greek: so one of the two persons in my dream was actually a teenage boy called “man”… And in my dream, I was bringing these two people who didn’t know each other together with me as a “mediator” or “go-between”. 

The dream ended before I could see the whole weekend pan out for the three of us so, like the broken-up relationship with my European (gender)queer ex-lover, it’s a “jagged Tao” rather than the perfect Tao with the smooth curved lines between the black & the white, between the Yin & the Yang. 

That — the perfect Tao with the smooth curved lines between the black & the white, between the Yin & the Yang — is still a goal for me to work towards, but at least now it’s a goal I can see and feel, a goal that has been brought to my awareness, not only in my head, but also in my heart & soul.

“

He said he was a gay man

with a vagina and I, penis heavy

and light of foot, wondered

if gay meant the same to him

as it did to me, wondered

if man was in mind or body.

Because I wear my man, 

strip down bare to my man. 

In the mirror, there, I am. 

For me, man has merely been

a matter of circumstance,

not a journey or discovery.

I rarely had to fight for it,

rarely want to fight against it,

never wanted to shed skin

to reveal somebody else.

I never questioned it until 

he said, ‘Some men have vaginas.’

I understood it to be true

but it left me feeling nothing 

more than a tool, who knew

nothing about being a man

outside his own body.

” 

― Dean Atta, The Black Flamingo

My European (gender)queer ex-lover shared the link to this poem with me just over a year ago, on April 1, 2023, in response to my voicing to them my fears that nobody would like me or understand me (physically/sexually) anymore because of my body post-gender-affirming-surgery: straight men wouldn’t like me because I didn’t have tits anymore, and gay men wouldn’t like me because I didn’t have a penis. I was a “boy with a vagina” and would therefore be a “freak” forever. 

Last night, a few days after taking the plunge and making myself a Tinder account where I’m specifically presenting as “non-binary transmasc gay/pansexual” using “he/they” pronouns and seeking men, I finally had the courage to listen to Dean Atta’s poem “Some men have vaginas”.

I listened to it twice: and I saw myself in those words, I felt myself. And I also, once again, felt myself so utterly & profoundly seen as wholly myself by my European (gender)queer ex-lover. They had seen me wholly already last year, already two years ago — which is one of the reasons I loved them so much, and maybe also why they loved me. But I hadn’t seen myself or felt wholly comfortable with/in myself, and thus ready to approach that poem, until last night. 

How far I’ve come in this year… this is an actual, quantifiable measure of how far I’ve come! 

[Spoiler alert: some details about the movie “Moonlight”.]

Last night I finally watched the movie “Moonlight”. 

I think it’s one of the most beautiful films I’ve seen. It presents profound coming-of-age themes made more complicated by male homosexuality in the marginalized black community. There are many instances and explicit scenes of bullying but the violence is never gratuitous. And despite the almost constant presence of violence, the movie is incredibly delicate and poetic. The soundtrack probably contributes to that, interspersing pieces of classical music in many of the most intense scenes. There’s so much gentleness, despite or alongside or opposing the violence, so much gentleness in an environment dominated by so much toxic masculinity — so much gentleness even, or especially, from some of those macho men. There’s the theme of the lost/absent (dead) dad and surrogate father figures — a theme which is so important, and so sensitive, for me. There’s one of the loveliest scenes of sex between two teenage boys that I’ve ever seen. And some of the loveliest tenderness between two grown-up black men trying to accept and/or come to terms with their homosexual love/attraction. 

I like to interpret the title of this film as a possible definition of manhood: manhood as moonlight, as something that needs the shadows and the gentle light of the moon to be brought out wholly; and also manhood as something that comes and goes, that waxes and wanes, like the phases of the moon; something that can be present even when it isn’t visible, like the new moon; something that can shine a bright but gentle light on the world around it, like the full moon. Manhood as moonlight as it integrates into itself “other” parts expressing itself also through something that is usually considered the “feminine”, as the moon is — which is maybe why I see & feel my AMAB European (gender)queer ex-lover as the Moon.

As remote as the experience of black (gay) men from southern U.S. ghettos is from my own experience, this movie, the coming-of-age of Little/Chiron/Black, feel very close to my own in some ways. Maybe all men could relate to it, if only they let themselves do so. After all, it’s two AMAB people who are important in my life (my closest climbing buddy here in Colorado, a cis-man; my European (gender)queer ex-lover) who said to me, “There isn’t one man on Earth who doesn’t struggle with his masculinity”. I guess I’m one of those men, too. One of my many parts or identities is a boy navigating, and sometimes struggling with, his masculinity. 

As I took a shower after watching the film last night, I was able to relax and let go in a way that is hardly ever accessible to me. I let the water pour over me, I just felt, I let myself feel, physically, bodily. And I hugged myself and stroked my upper-body, my arms. With love. With a love that I’m hardly ever able to give myself. Unconditional, I think, and somehow coming both from inside of me and outside of me, as if it were me but also someone else hugging & stroking me. Or maybe I was letting the little child in me, the boy in me be shown & given the love he needed and wasn’t given when he was growing up. And I experienced my own self, my boyhood, my manhood differently: in some way, as I caressed my upper arms I felt my own manhood like I had never experienced it before, as if the bodily/physical experience were the effective means to actually feel my manhood at a deeper level and in a way that didn’t suffocate or erase the other parts of my (gender-) identity. It was wonderful, truly lovely, so sweet and gentle and yet so powerful and profound and liberating. 

Part of me is a man, or is growing into a man, into some “form of man”, but it doesn’t have to erase or suffocate the rest of me, the other (gender-) identities in me — and I’m not alone in my struggles or battles to accept my masculinity. The whole of me will never be a “man”, but parts of me can be. 

[Trigger warnings: loss, death, grief.]

It can often be useful to have a brain that literally works like a calendar. 

And it can be very powerful and even wonderful to have such an innate connection to seasons, dates, recurrences, such a natural or instinctive sense for anniversaries and celebrations as I do. 

But it’s a double-edged sword, a sword that cuts two ways and sometimes is very sharp and cuts painfully.

With the present slow and somewhat oscillating yet steady oncoming of Spring typical of Colorado, an almost natural or instinctive expectation, at the level of my heart and body, has been reawakened in me around my European queer ex-lover. 

They stumbled into my life two years ago, in my first Coloradan spring — both of us unawares of what our encounter, which was originally merely professional, would eventually lead to. In their first (academic) visit they stayed here in Colorado only three months, from March to June, during the spring and into the beginnings of Coloradan summery weather. 

Last year they were here for five and a half months. After having been mostly out of touch during the previous autumn & winter, they emailed me early in 2023 to confirm/remind me of their second (academic) visit to Colorado. 

The first three months of 2023 were particularly eventful and mostly rough or intense for me, but by the time the last weekend of March came around, and I was planning to go to the Trans Night of Visibility celebration with some friends here, I knew my European queer academic friend was back, I knew they had just arrived a week or two prior, so I invited them to go to the Trans Night of Visibility party with me & my local friends. 

I dreamt about my European queer ex-lover last night. And I dreamt about them while I was away on my trip last week, too. 

These dreams are vivid and intense, they feel so real — both the dreams and my European queer ex-lover in them. In both recent dreams my European queer ex-lover is back. They are here again, we are standing together somewhere or having a meal together and we are talking, trying to resolve or at least clarify the conflict of our breakup from last summer but I don’t feel a sense of resolution: I feel abandoned. I feel angry and hurt and abandoned by them. That’s what has been coming up in these recent dreams about them — I guess that’s how I still feel deep down inside. In my two recent dreams I’m telling my European queer ex-lover: you abandoned me; first, you were pursuing me but only when/because you were lonely and had no one else and you were lost or bored; then you found someone else, something else, and lost interest in me and abandoned me without even giving me a chance to talk, to respond. 

In some ways, I feel that the emotional response I’m having now is like the realization of someone really close & dear & beloved having died. On January 18th, 2024, I did my burial ritual of my European queer ex-lover, a few days after having felt the grief flow out of me, almost like a psychedelic spiritual experience while dancing. That burial ritual was the right thing for me to do: it felt good, appropriate, healing, liberating, powerful then and afterwards. I still believe, and feel, that it was the right, and timely, thing for me to do. What I’m feeling now, though, is what one feels when the reality of that burial, of that “death”, hits: my European queer ex-lover is not coming back (for me). Not this year, not ever. 

So far, I’ve spent two springs in Colorado: both of those springs were marked by the arrival and presence in my life of my European queer ex-lover. So probably my body, and maybe my heart, has learnt to associate Colorado springtime with my European queer ex-lover. Therefore, with the arrival of this spring — my third spring here in Colorado — I guess my body & heart were somehow instinctively, or unconsciously, expecting the arrival, the renewed presence, of my European queer ex-lover. My head wasn’t — isn’t — expecting this, but my body & heart, I guess, were. And now the realization that this isn’t going to happen is hitting hard, coming through in my dreams, as the recurrence of the Trans Night of Visibility draws near, closer & closer this weekend…

Now I’m feeling it again, how much I miss them. And I’m missing them as one misses someone who has died: with the knowledge that that longing will never be satisfied.