The Little Prince and the Fox

I’m still reeling from the flood of emotions from this ice-climbing trip. 

I’m feeling like a bucket of water full to the brim, so full of different emotions that I cannot take one single more drop in. I’m going to overflow, I’m going to explode. 

What got activated on my group ice-climbing trip this past week is a baffling mix of old and new: situations and emotions similar to what I experienced in high school & grad school when I had similar situations/dynamics with groups of cis-guys; but also very different dynamics in that now I am “actually one of the boys” instead of being “the boyish girl” who can be partly (but never wholly) integrated into the boys’ group/clan.

This is one of the things I had been yearning for years, throughout my childhood & teens & young adulthood, until I eventually gave it up at the end of grad school when life situations left me without a supportive/inclusive group of cis-male buddies who would take me as (almost) one of them. 

Moving to California eight years ago and, especially, getting out of & never getting back into a (monogamous) cis-hetero-normative romantic (& sexual) partnership was key to my liberation really opening up my path of self-discovery & gender-affirmation. But although I have been connecting closely with several cis-men who’ve been very affirming of my “special masculinity” since moving to the U.S. and especially during the past two years here in Colorado, until this past week of group ice-climbing I hadn’t experienced & been included into that “male group dynamics” for decades — and never wholly. I had it, partially, in high school. Then, it’s as if the world split in two and I was forced into the “girls’ lane”, despite (or maybe especially because of) being in the cis-male-dominated STEM world. Then somehow in grad school I again found a welcoming & inclusive group of cis-guys to which I belonged: for a few years, I was “allowed to switch lanes” again. But there was always (both in high school and in grad school) the underlying inescapable “truth” that I was a “girl”, a somewhat “special or different girl” but still a “female”, and now & then there would be the inevitable crush or fling with one of the cis-guys. 

So the experience I had with this ice-climbing group was baffling and powerful in several different ways: on the one hand, I was reliving experiences & dynamics similar to those I had with groups of cis-guys in high school & grad school, from 15 or 25 years ago, stirring & bringing up deep, old memories and feelings, which was baffling per se; on the other hand, this time there was the additional & new fact that I was actually being treated (if not “seen”) as “one of the guys” rather than as a “special, masculine girl”, with all the typical “hey, man”, fist-bumping and “he” pronouns just as among the cis-guys themselves. And there was absolutely no sexual interest towards me nor any flirting or hitting on me (such a liberation!). I was “just one of the guys”. 

At least on the surface. 

This is so baffling and in many ways still confusing and overwhelming for me that I’m not even going to attempt going to all the other, deeper, layers & facets of this situation — the entrenched binary vision/dynamics; the irritating cis stereotypes; the heteronormativities; the washing out of gender nuances. 

For now, with this group of people I’m “one of the guys”: I’ll do the fist-bumping and let them “hey, man” & “he/him” me. 

They probably realized I’m trans when we finally went to the hot spring all together at the end of the week, but it changed nothing (at least on the surface of things) and for now I’ll leave it at that. I’ll just put that aspect aside with this specific group of people for now. Or maybe I’ll always just be “my boy/guy self” with this group of people, let the boy in me just be & express himself with them while letting the other parts/sides of me come out and/or express themselves in other situations or with other persons. 

One step at a time.

Just take this in for now, soak it all in — baffling and in some ways irritating (e.g. the binary cis vision) and wonderful and confusing and scary (I’m always afraid of “being discovered” as trans) and affirming.  

Soak it all in — including the fact that at the hot spring I wasn’t just “one of the guys”: I was “the hottest guy” there!

Song by Grace Petrie with excellent lyrics, “Black Tie”:

“ 

Well, it’s a jungle out there

The year 2018, I didn’t think

We’d still be sorting babies into blue and pink

And all our progress

Well, I wonder what it means

That the only girls’ clothes that work for me

Turn out to be boyfriend jeans

Well, that’s fine

‘Cause I decline

A narrow set of rules that just don’t work

‘Cause these red lines

They’re not mine

And if you need me you can find me ironing my shirt

‘Cause I’m in black tie tonight

Get a postcard to my

Year 11 self

In a Year 11 hell

Saying everything’s gonna be alright

No, you won’t grow out of it

You will find clothes that fit

And the images that fucked ya

Were a patriarchal structure

And you never will surrender

To a narrow view of gender

And I swear there’ll come a day

When you won’t worry what they say

On the labels, on the doors

You will figure out what’s yours

And it’s a bloody nightmare

Trying to fight the spread of bigotry and fear

That’s uniting Piers Morgan and Germaine Greer

And all our progress

Yeah, I wonder who it’s for

When I dared to utter that trans lives matter, yeah

And all I got was a TERF war

Well, that’s fine

‘Cause I decline

Your narrow set of rules, they just don’t work

These red lines

They’re not mine

And if you need me you can find me ironing my shirt

‘Cause I’m in black tie tonight

Get a postcard to my

Year 11 self

In a Year 11 hell

Saying everything’s gonna be alright

No, you won’t grow out of it

You will find clothes that fit

And the images that fucked ya

Were a patriarchal structure

And you never will surrender

To a narrow view of gender

And I swear there’ll come a day

When you won’t worry what they say

On the labels, on the doors

You will figure out what’s yours

You will figure out what’s yours

And that it’s got

Nothing to do with fitting neatly in a box

That was constructed to make it seem

Like people come in just two teams

And anything that’s in between ain’t good enough

And you will love

And you’ll be loved

And you’re in black tie tonight

Get a postcard to my

Year 11 self

In a Year 11 hell

Darling, everything’s gonna be alright

No, you won’t grow out of it

You will find clothes that fit

And the images that fucked ya

Were a patriarchal structure

No, you never will surrender

To that narrow view of gender

And there’s folks you’ve yet to meet

But you’re exactly up their street

And they’ve been waiting just as long

To hear someone sing this song

And better days are one their way

When it won’t matter what they say

On the labels, on the doors

You will figure out what’s yours

And girl, you’re gonna be so happy

And girl, you’re gonna be just fine

And girl, you’re gonna be so happy

Down the line, down the line

“

For now, within the group of people on this ice-climbing trip I’ve been treated & referred to as “one of the guys”, with explicit references made to me as a “guy” and lumped into the “men” when a comment was made about bathrooms at the crag. 

In many ways, I am “one of the guys” and these comments and general dynamics are affirming and somewhat reassuring. But they’re also baffling and quite confusing, I’m continuously asking myself, “Do they really think I’m a cis guy?!?” 

I find it impossible that they can think of me, or see me, as a cis guy. 

Because I’m not a cis guy. And I’m sure that if they looked a little closer, if they paid a little more attention, they’d realize that. There’s so many clues — and many go beyond, and are more important or deeper than, the physical aspects. If they saw me in leggings or if/when we go to the hot springs together and I show up in my Speedo, that will leave no doubt to the details of my lower-body, to the fact that I don’t have a penis — something I’m very happy about & proud of. But there’s so much else that I think could be noticed already, mainly in how I behave. Yes, I have a very masculine vibe, as my climbing buddy (who’s my main connection to/on this trip) said and definitely in these groups dynamics I’m tapping into & showing those masculine vibes in a pronounced manner. But there are inevitable moments when some group dynamics lead to female/male gendered roles and I — sometimes instinctively, sometimes intentionally — behave differently from “the guys” while also not quite adhering to the female role. I fill some gap in between, almost like an “extra kind or gentle man”; some action or phrase on my side is definitely something that a cis man would not say or do. And it’s not that a cis man wouldn’t do it because he’s incapable or “naturally unable” to do it or say that: he wouldn’t because he wouldn’t have been socialized to do it or say that. 

But I was socialized as a woman. So I know how “the other side” feels. I know what it feels like to be the only person, or one of the few people, in the room without a penis, without testosterone flowing through their body. I know what it feels like to be surrounded by guys talking all their bravado — no matter how kindly or friendly, but still taking up all the air in the room, often not even realizing it (like these guys here, who are truly “nice guys”). 

These past couple days climbing and sharing dinners with this group of people have been interesting (once I finally got the courage to face whatever might happen), affirming, baffling, confusing. It’s as if I were living a new life, or living life as a new, or different, person: almost as if I had lived the first half of my life as a woman and now I were starting to live life as a man… 

I can understand both sides — which is one of the beautiful, and hard & challenging, gifts of being trans.

But I don’t belong to either side wholly and I so wish there weren’t sides at all. Because saying that I lived the first half of my life as a woman and now I’m starting to live life as a man is so reductive and not a truthful, or complete, representation of my experience nor of my identity.

On Friday, I went to get a haircut, to get my hair cut even shorter with the hope of ensuring I would look as male (not just “masculine”) as possible for this trip. A group ice-climbing trip that I joined with one of my climbing buddies and several close buddies of his, most of them with their girlfriends or wives. 

The fact that after having been sick and stayed at home for most of last week I made the specific effort on Friday to go get a haircut to look “more male” is not a small thing. It’s actually a big thing, and quite sad, if you think about it. Something that I know only my trans/non-binary friends (& other trans/non-binary people) can fully understand. I felt the need to get a haircut to try and feel safer, more comfortable — not for myself or with my circle of close friends, but safer & more comfortable out there in the world, in a group of new acquaintances and in a town of strangers. 

If you think about it, if you stop and think, it’s heartbreaking. Or infuriating. Or both. 

Once we got to our destination yesterday afternoon, the three guys with whom I traveled & I were early for our AirBnB check-in so went to the local brewery. The waitress who served us was super friendly with all three of the (cis) guys, calling them “sir” and “man” and almost flirting with one of them (despite the big age difference). She basically ignored me. Fortunately, she didn’t call me “m’am”, but that hardly makes it better. 

People stare at me but then ignore or don’t acknowledge me in public spaces. Part of the staring might be due to the fact that I still wear an N95-mask in public indoor spaces, but that cannot be the whole story. People stare like they’re trying to figure me out, they stare and scan me, but then there’s no attempt to address me or get to know me like it would have been when I was presenting female and looked like an attractive girl/woman. Nor are they friendly or flirtatious with me like they would be with a straight, cis guy. 

Gosh, am I learning what it means to live with the weight of being neither cis nor straight. 

Despite the daily frustrations I get at “home” (i.e. in that corner of Colorado where I have been living for the past couple years), I do live in a protected bubble and I’m never really prepared for the awful impact that these forays “out into the world” have on me. Yes, even in that “progressive bubble” where I live hardly a day passes that I don’t get misgendered or don’t have to put up with some other frustration or discrimination due to my being trans/non-binary. But I have built a sort of “layer of protection” around me there that helps buffer the frustration and pain and fear. I have a safe group of friends and some climbing buddies, who are all either queer or cis-male guys who take & treat me as one of them. The “outside world” with which I have to interact and that might still misgender me or force me into some uncomfortable binary choice (like only gendered changing rooms) is known to me so at least I have the “safety” or “protection” of familiarity. And somehow for all the uncomfortable or frustrating or painful interactions that I have to deal with almost daily, there are also as many safe, comfortable, affirming ones to counterbalance. 

But that’s not the case now, here on this trip. Partly, having been at home sick last week I didn’t get my usual dose of affirmations because I wasn’t able to exercise nor to go to the gym and see familiar faces nor spend quality time in person with any of my close friends: so my own bucket of outer validations & inner self-confidence is empty. But even if it weren’t empty, even if it were full, I’d be struggling now. 

As it is now, I’m feeling the crushing weight of the cis world and don’t want to interact with anyone from the ice-climbing group. I admit I’m probably coming in with my own assumptions, which also come from the fucked up patriarchic conditioning I received. But in this moment, I just don’t have the strength to show up in a group of mostly strangers where pronouns are assumed (it seems) and I’m the only trans/non-binary person. I don’t have the strength or courage to show up and risk being misgendered. I am honestly terrified of showing up and someone referring to me with female pronouns or the wives/girlfriends in the party trying to include me in their circle, as often happens in these male-dominated environments/activities. 

As the behaviors at the brewery and many other small situations yesterday reminded me, we live in a binary world dominated by deeply ingrained cis dynamics which are exclusive and oppressive for whoever isn’t cis. It’s a constant trickle of microagressions (in the best cases). And I just don’t have the strength for it today. 

I’m not one who usually feels much fear. So if I’m feeling terrified of being misgendered by someone in a group of acquaintances with whom I then have to spend the rest of the week, and if this fear is keeping me away from ice-climbing with them today, that means a lot. 

If I had to describe, or label, myself on a personal level mostly around my gender identity & sexual orientation, I would say that I am, or feel like, a genderqueer/non-binary pansexual gay boy. Maybe I’d even say that I’m a genderqueer/non-binary pansexual gay guy, as in growing up from a trans boy into a trans man… 

But the part of this multifaceted, almost contradictory, identity that feels the strongest now is the gay guy. 

Maybe it’s the gradual but in some ways also sudden increase of body hair, mostly on my limbs and a bit on my cheeks. 

Maybe it’s the recent celebrations of the big anniversary of my gender-affirming top-surgery which included going out dancing at a queer (mostly “gay guy”) club with friends. Maybe it was all the validation I got from my cis-male friends even on that occasion, when they came to the queer club with me as well as and treated me just like a guy even in that context (as they do when we go climbing together). 

Maybe it’s been some recent comments from one of my closest (cis-male) climbing buddies who said he thinks people take us for a gay couple when we’re climbing or traveling together, him being read as the “twink” and me as the “butch” because I “have such a masculine vibe” (in his words).

I know the gay guy part of me isn’t the whole of me. I know there’s a genderqueer/non-binary part and a strong trans identity that I don’t want to lose, I don’t want to become invisible to the world; and I know that there’s a bisexual/pansexual component to my sexual orientation that has actually become stronger & more clear to me in the past 2-3 years. But somehow the gay guy part now feels like the one that needs the most attention and attending to in this moment or phase. I feel a yearning for being around guys, but being around them as another guy (not as the attractive and/or athletic girl as often happened in the past). I want them to take me as one of them. I want to hang out with them. I want to have sex with them (some of them, potentially, but none of my buddies). But I’m also scared. I’m scared of being “discovered” as a transmasculine person, i.e. “not a man”, when I use the men’s changing rooms or restrooms (internalized transphobia?). I’m worried that my cis-male friends might feel uncomfortable around/with me if they realize how much of a gay guy I am, i.e. that I mostly like boys rather than girls (internalized homophobia?). And I’m also partly scared when I go to a gay club, worried that the cis gay guys there might not like me or exclude me or, even worse, insult or attack me, if I’m “discovered” as a transmasculine person, i.e. “not a man” (internalized transphobia?). 

Sometimes I wish I were just a (cis) gay guy. I know life wouldn’t be completely easy (it would actually be very difficult in many places) but it seems like it would be easier than the tangle I have to deal with as genderqueer/non-binary pansexual transmasculine person.

I’m still feeling very emotional today and still wanting to cry. These tears, like last night’s tears, are not from regret or sadness. There’s no regret in my words or feelings when I say, “There’s no going back for me”. 

These tears and my feeling so emotional come from the intensity, from the breadth & depth & mix, of the emotions I am experiencing: it’s so much, it’s almost too much to hold. It’s mainly tears of gratitude and joy and almost disbelief for what this anniversary represents to me. And also tears of compassion towards myself.

And there’s awe, too. A sense of awe towards something that feels bigger than me and/or beyond myself. As if life, or the universe, were unfolding through me and somehow beyond me.

This is MY BIG DAY, MY BIG ANNIVERSARY. Something HUGE for me, something of paramount importance. But I also feel so small and delicate today. I feel the need to be super gentle with myself today, to show & give myself as much love & compassion as I can, to let myself be loved and held.

At last, the tears came. Just a trickle at first, while I was driving home. And now, at home, the dam finally gave way and the tears poured out flowing freely and abundantly. 

It’s really starting to hit me now, all that I’ve been through, all that I’ve put myself through, with the strength and conviction and determination, almost blind determination, of self-preservation and self-definition. 

Two years ago at this time I was spending the last of my three nights on the road on my way from California to Colorado. I was spending the night in Grand Junction before my last leg to reach my final Coloradan destination with only a very vague idea of what would come next for me — really, with a plan only for the following 4-5 months then. 

One year ago at this time I was at my French climbing buddy’s place, trying to relax before my gender-affirming top-surgery the next day. 

Both of these events were life-changing for me, really life-changing, just as my move from Europe to California had been in January 2016. 

From each of these three events there’s no going back. They’re irreversible. Even if I did go back to California, or Europe, or if somehow I got the “original, feminine chest” again, it wouldn’t be the same anyway, I wouldn’t be the same anyway. These three events have changed not only my life but also, and especially, transformed me so deeply that there’s no going back. 

And each of these events was a huge leap of faith, something I did almost blindly, with only a vague, or short-term, idea of what I was in for, of what could be in store for me, of what life would be like for me afterwards. Each time I was leaving so much behind, leaving behind almost everything I had or knew or had known. Upending my professional, relational, and geographic life in the case of my two major moves; overturning my gender identity with all that entails — A LOT — in our life, with my top-surgery last year.  

In each of my two big geographic moves, I basically packed my bags and left — crossing an ocean & a continent, in the first case; driving halfway across a continent through snow-storms, in the second.

As to my gender-affirming surgery, it’s hard to put into words how different life is for me now and how it’s still changing for me and how much emotional effort and how much energy/focus it’s taking to get used to this “new me”, despite it being “the me that feels more true” to me. Walking in this world as a male-presenting individual while still having the almost constant awareness of not being an AMAB person and sometimes even the fear of being “discovered” or “considered as an impostor” because of being AFAB. The constant doubt or worry of not knowing exactly how the world perceives me, what other people see. The desire and conscious effort to claim my place in male spaces such as men’s restrooms and men’s changing rooms or simply men’s clothes or my deeper, more masculine voice or “male attitudes”. I am very aware and self-conscious about how I do these things, use these spaces, and how it means to me that I am claiming male spaces that I’ve always felt belonged to me, or I belonged to, but were to some extent inaccessible to me before because of my “AFAB status”, because of my body. But now I have a masculine chest which gives me just enough confidence to enter and take up space in these male places, but still not enough confidence to feel wholly comfortable and/or safe in them. And maybe I never will. 

But even if I never feel fully safe or comfortable in male spaces, there is no going back to female spaces for me. And this is one of the things I didn’t wholly realize a year ago when I took the huge step, the leap of faith, of my gender-affirming surgery, i.e. of getting my breasts amputated and my chest redesigned. 

Just as I didn’t have a full or real or complete idea of what I was heading towards when I moved from Europe to California and then from California to Colorado. 

In each of these cases, I followed a sort of “life instinct”, almost “survival instinct”, along with a strong desire or dream. In each of these cases I knew I couldn’t continue to live where & how I was, I knew I needed that specific change although I didn’t really know all that that change would entail. This to me seems like some deeply-rooted, natural “life force”, some innate and almost primeval drive that is the expression of the strength, or conviction, that life can have. Not only a survival instinct, but also a drive of that innate core in every living being to find its true expression despite, or against, all odds.

Coming up on the one-year anniversary of their gender-affirming top-surgery, coming up on the 1-year mark of event that probably means the most to him in his life — at least, that’s how it feels now. More important than their biological birthday even, and more important (probably because more conclusive/concluded or definitive) than their legal name change. 

One year from his gender-affirming top-surgery and two years from his move to Colorado…!

So much has happened (to him) in this past year — in the past several years, really, but specifically Arys now feels this ONE YEAR from their gender-affirming surgery. So much has happened (to them), he’s done so much, they’ve gone through such huge changes, he’s grown so much… It seems incredible even to him… Arys can hardly believe it, how far they’ve come, how much he’s changed in the past year, how much has changed for them over the past year, in what a different place he was one or two years ago…

How far he’s come! 

Is Spring here already? 

Something has shifted for me, something major. Something happened ten days ago, initiating a change, an opening up, a “turning of the page”, a looking ahead & moving forward for me that I hadn’t felt in months. 

I feel that all of a sudden I’m able to really experience joy, to feel profoundly and intensely happy and alive again. 

It feels as if the door to joy has opened for me again. And it’s not only joy: it’s also an intense liveliness, a wish or drive to be alive again, to get out, to put myself out there, to explore the world and relationships. Which I am doing and it feels wonderful (& joyful) but also scary. 

The desire and yearning and craving for closeness, connection, and intimacy are alive and strong in me again, but the fear, almost an instinctive reaction against closeness, connection, and intimacy is still there, and both the joy/craving and the fear are getting activated at the same time. 

Even my dreams are telling me clearly that I’ve “come alive” again with all the power of animal energy. 

What do I do with all this life energy coursing through & pouring out of me?

About once a week I run with a neighbor who’s also a friend now and himself a runner (who runs almost every single day). Among other things, we share the passion for running and the need for it. Now we’re preparing for the same race, training sort of in parallel, and today we’ll be going for the weekly long run together. And yesterday he told me he had a very stressful day and said “I’m looking forward to running away from it all for a while tomorrow”. I know that he meant that “running away” figuratively as well as literally. 

Last night I had dinner & a lovely evening with one of my close non-binary friends, catching up after not having seen each other in over a month and also celebrating my eighth “anniversary of liberation”, i.e. the eight-year anniversary of my move from Europe to California. They will also be celebrating with me next weekend, the “double anniversary” of my move from California to Colorado & of my gender-affirming top-surgery. They too have gone through some important moves and big shifts or life changes. And as we talked about these moves, they asked me, “Have these moves or changes for you been a ‘moving away from’ or a ‘moving towards’ something?”. 

I had never thought of my big moves or life changes that way and I found it an interesting question, for which I had to pause to find an adequate, truthful answer. As I reflected and then answered my friend, I realized (& said) that for me it’s always been both together, both a ‘moving away from’ AND a ‘moving towards’ for all of my big changes. It’s been that way for me professionally, the times I’ve made important career shifts; it’s been that way for me geographically, moving away from places where I no longer felt at home but also moving to a new place where I really longed to live; it’s been that way for me on the personal level, too. 

I hadn’t thought of it this way until my friend’s question last night, but now I see it clearly. Even my gender journey has been that way: I struggled with the sex assigned at birth to me & female socialization my entire life, always moving towards some form of masculinity. But it wasn’t until I had a form of masculinity that was really clear and available and desirable to me, through HRT & gender-affirming top-surgery, that I truly moved away fully from my “assigned femininity” and towards my version of masculinity — this masculinity that I’m stepping into more and more confidently. 

And that liminal place or state when I already know how uncomfortable or unhappy I feel in my current situation but don’t know, yet, where I want to go, in what direction or towards what I want to move — that’s the hard place. And that’s where I feel I am now professionally, feeling unsatisfied and/or inadequate in my current job but still unclear about where I want, or can, go with my career from here. And also in intimate relationships, feeling unfulfilled/unhappy in my prolonged “singleness” but still not ready to enter into romantically intimate relationships both for lack of “available people” and for my own relational shortcomings.