The Little Prince and the Fox

I discovered the term, or acronym, “MSM” in the book “Erotically Queer” edited by Silva Neves & Dominic Davies. 

“MSM” stands for “Men who have Sex with Men”. 

It was coined with the intention of making it as comprehensive and inclusive — and as such, hopefully, less stigmatizing — as possible. It is meant to include all “men” who have sex (in whatever form or definition) with other “men” — straight men, gay men, bisexual and pansexual men, including cis-men, trans-men, and non-binary persons who have/feel/express a strong masculine part.

I like it. 

I like that it is so general and all-encompassing, as it feels inclusive towards myself, too. 

And I like its “matter of fact” wording: as such it becomes a neutral, judgment-free expression of acts or facts or preferences or events. 

It doesn’t matter whether one is — or identifies as — straight or gay or bi, cis or trans or non-binary. If someone feels and expresses some level of masculinity and has sex (in whatever form) with someone else who feels/expresses some level of masculinity, they have a term, a phrase they can use to describe it. 

It gives me, too, a phrase to describe it, to describe one of my identities, an important and strong aspect of myself, and maybe one of the parts of me/my life that has been present & consistent for the longest time, a part of me that has been there with continuity. Which in a “life made of moments” is significant. 

One of my closest climbing buddies says that life is made of moments. That’s one of the first things on which we resonated and connected when we first met in the summer of 2022, the idea of there being some special, beautiful, meaningful moments in life, often brief and all temporary by nature but important and intense — ”gems”, we call them. 

For the past couple months, my life has been quite full of such moments — important, meaningful events that feel extremely intense and seem to last forever in the moment itself but then are actually gone — like a comet. It’s been feeling more like a meteor shower in the past couple months. It’s been an ongoing, incessant, often self-generated stream of intense and/or meaningful but brief moments of this kind. Most of them associated with positive emotions; but some also feeling very difficult and hard. 

Today, I’m drained. Totally drained: physically, mentally, and emotionally drained. 

Maybe this incessant stream of gems has gotten the better of me. Maybe now I’m just feeling the harder parts and unable to tap into the brighter ones. 

I think I’m still feeling the harder emotions from discovering, a week ago, that I won’t have a job after this summer. I can only feel the worry and disappointment, the sense of loss and confusion and disorientation, or numbness, shutting down, but none of the excitement or hope or relief. 

I think I’m also drained from the recent forms or dynamics of my social interactions. For the past two weeks they have been mostly for work, with acquaintances, new people and/or persons with whom I don’t have a deep or familiar connection. In some cases, that deeper, more familiar & relaxed connection might come later — hopefully will come later, especially with the two people I’ve started “dating” or “seeing”. But that deeper, more comfortable connection isn’t there now so, while it is fun and exciting to be meeting new people and having such an active social life, it’s also draining. Especially because I haven’t been able to connect enough, neither in person nor on the phone, with my close friends, with the persons that I know well and feel comfortable/familiar with in a relaxed manner. I need those closer, deeper, more familiar and relaxedly comfortable interactions: those friendships and interactions nourish me. I’ve been missing them, feeling the reduction in those interactions, in those types of connections over the past couple weeks.

And now, after a sleepless night full of bad dreams, I am feeling really drained, like there’s nothing left in me and all I want to do is cuddle up & be held — or head out into the desert by myself for a few days. 

I need to find a way to re-nourish myself, or to let myself be nourished (again).

In so much of my life I’ve gone through so many shifts and changes but the ones I’ve been going through in the past 3-4 years, and especially the past couple years here in Colorado since really embracing and jumping into my ”gender journey”, have been more intense, more mind-boggling, more stark, and more rapid — almost so continuous that’s it’s hard to keep up with it all. 

The world around me feels like an ever-changing kaleidoscope: dizzying and bewildering but also colorful and beautiful. And, at least to a certain degree, in my own hands. Maybe I am the one spinning this kaleidoscope to turn the world around and see it in different shapes, in dazzling colors. 

As my gender expression changes, the way the world around me behaves towards me and/or reacts to me changes, too. But also, as my internal gender identity changes or, rather, as the level of self-knowledge & confidence & awareness in my own gender identity increases, my way of relating to the world around me, of building and pursuing relationships changes. 

The dynamics with my cis-male climbing buddies is becoming more and more platonic while also getting stronger. I do believe that both they and I are getting more and more used to, and maybe comfortable with, my being “one of the guys”: that’s my “bro time”, my “bro space”; we climb together, plan/go on climbing trips together, and change in the men’s room together. I’m finally getting the closeness and intimacy and camaraderie with nice cis-men that I’ve yearned (& sometimes had) my entire life without having to be sexual or romantic with them. 

On the other hand, I’m finding myself to be sexually and/or romantically attracted to non-cis-men more and more, and maybe exclusively to queer persons. For the past couple years at this point, I have been consistently attracted (in a sexual and/or romantic way) to people who are queer and most of the time specifically gender-queer as well. And genderqueer people with more feminine energies but not exclusively feminine (regardless of anatomies). 

I think different parts of me — and specifically different aspects of my masculinity & gender-fluidity & being non-binary — are coming out and being expressed within these various spheres of relationships. With my cis-male climbing buddies, it’s the strongest and “toughest” parts of my masculinity; I’m just a “boy with the boys”, “one of the guys” in that space, almost fully to the masculine end of the spectrum (while still being happy & proud about not being a cis-man!). With my platonic gender-queer friends, there’s more of a rainbow of identities of mine that come out, spanning a wider range of the gender spectrum. And specifically, with the gender-queer people with whom I interact romantically and/or sexually, there’s still a lot of my masculinity finding its expression, but in a different way than with my cis-male climbing buddies. Within the romantic/sexual gender-queer interactions, the part of my masculinity that comes out is a complement to their feminine energy, rather than being “on the same wavelength” of my buddies’ “bro-ness”; in some ways it’s gentler, or calmer; and it’s also less far on the male side of the gender spectrum, a little closer to the non-binary or gender-neutral center, leaving more space for my own gender-fluidity as well as the other person’s gender-fluidity. 

In both spheres it’s a new way for me to relate to people and to experience how people are relating to me: it’s a new way of relating to & being treated by cis-men as well as a whole new world being around other gender-queer people. 

Colorful and dazzling and ever-changing, like a kaleidoscope all around me — or is this kaleidoscope inside me?

It’s been a tough week, it started really roughly on Monday, and I’m struggling with difficult emotions now. 

The aspect of shock from being told on Monday that my contract could not be renewed has subsided, leaving space for the other emotions: disappointment, sadness, worry, anger. 

One of my close friends asked me on Tuesday if I felt let down by my advisor. I wasn’t sure then. Now I know: yes, among other things, I am also feeling let down by my advisor. And abandoned or neglected or rejected by the whole department/institute where I’ve been for almost two years now. I sense a painful confirmation of an undercurrent feeling that has been there for a while now: I feel undervalued, not valued enough, not really seen for my full & real professional (& human) potential. And this is hurtful, disappointing, painful. I feel sad and hurt but also angry about this. 

I’m also feeling sad and angry because I’m pretty sure this was my last shot at a career in academia and I blew it. And it’s not wholly my fault: I wasn’t really given all the chances or means to grow professionally, I feel that I wasn’t fully supported in this position. And this is additionally hurtful and disappointing for me because it was my last chance in this field. 

Additionally, I’m feeling angry and hurt and disappointed because I don’t think I’m getting the support I would deserve specifically as a non-binary trans person. And I feel this lack of support both from my employer and from the medical establishment. 

On the one hand, professionally, I believe that if I had had more “common” medical issues such as needed parental leave or needed extra care/leave to recover from child-birth related issues or if I had needed time-off for mental health reasons, I would have been given more slack and/or my relative “unproductivity” would have been understood & accepted. But as is, nobody really understands (or accepts) that what I have been going through in the past couple years is so hard and can be so crippling that it does impact one’s life, albeit temporarily, even on the professional level. 

On the other hand, I realize time and again that I’m often not getting the best care, or really careful care, from the medical establishment. “Trans medicine” is understudied due to biases in the medical/scientific establishment (one example of many scientific biases, unfortunately). But on top of that, I believe I’m not really given the whole picture of options or solutions for my medical issues related to gender identity. The latest example is “ablation”. Since the beginning of my “medical gender journey” I have always made extremely clear to all my physicians that I identify as non-binary, more towards the male side of the spectrum but not fully as a “man”, rather more like a genderqueer “boy”. Thus, I’m not interested in bottom surgery (I’m actually very happy to not have a penis!) and body-hair feels just as dysphoric to me as breasts did — and I’ve always made this clear to the physicians treating me. Hence the low doses of testosterone for my GAHT. One of the consequences of this is that I still bleed and get my period randomly, anywhere between every 2 to 8 weeks. Which is frustrating and can be dangerous for one’s health (chances of endometriosis, among other things). So when I discussed stopping my period/bleeding with doctors, the options I was always given were either hormonal (using “female” oral contraception, i.e. “female” hormones) or hysterectomy. Both of these alternatives are totally unacceptable for me, for important & serious reasons. So the only other solution presented to me to reduce/stop my bleeding was to increase the testosterone which in turn increases body-hair growth. Exasperated by bleeding every 2 weeks, I increased my testosterone GAHT in January and promptly my body hair started growing so fast & coarse & abundant that I got gender dysphoria and stopped GAHT — which in turn has affected my mood, of course, because probably the estrogen produced by my ovaries is taking over again. Only yesterday was I finally given another option to stop my bleeding: “ablation”. A simple, easy, safe surgical procedure that would not only stop my bleeding without the need to increase my testosterone but also make me sterile (YAY!). 

Now why the heck wasn’t I given this simple option, that aligns so well with my medical needs & gender identity, sooner???

[Spoiler alert: several scenes and topics of the movie “Mutt” described in some detail.]

Last night, I watched the movie “Mutt”, recommended to me by one of my genderqueer transmasc friends. 

My only qualm with this movie is that in two distinct moments it gives a clear but wrong message that getting on testosterone as GAHT for AFAB people can eventually serve as birth control. This is untrue: for AFAB persons who keep all their “female” organs, testosterone alone will not be sufficient, or reliable, or safe birth control — as any responsible physician will tell you!!! 

Other than that point, I think the movie is excellent and very true in showing what it means to be trans — and specifically transmasc — not only for the trans person but also for those close to & around them. 

There are several scenes in the movie that really touched me deeply, with which I could fully relate and have experienced myself. 

The scenes in which Feña has interactions with strangers and all the (mis)gendering issues come out are powerful and very relatable for me (I’m not sure what pronouns the transmasc main character, Feña, uses in the movie, so I’ll use he/they here). There’s the instance at the bank that is extremely frustrating especially in its daily reality. Feña is trying to cash a check but the name on the check (issue by his/their employer who uses his/their chosen name) doesn’t match the name on the legal/official ID so the teller says she cannot cash the check. Feña tries to explain the situation, saying clearly that he/they is a transmasc person — which in itself already requires a lot of courage and vulnerability. Despite Feña’s polite and transparent clarification, the teller not only still refuses to cash the check but even addresses Feña as “M’am”. Feña looks at the teller, sad and disappointed but also like this has happened so many times before, and just says, “‘M’am’, really? I’ve just told you I’m transgender”! Oh boy, how many times has this happened to me… it’s so infuriating! On the other hand, the scene at the pharmacy where Feña is addressed by the elderly man pharmacist as “Sir” and “young man”, and you can see the evident joy mixed with incredulity in Feña’s eyes, is also very real and relatable for me: those moments in which you can hardly believe that the person in front of you is actually seeing you as you feel (or at least close to how you feel, in my case, because unfortunately most people are just unable to see anything other that “men” and “women”, “Sir” or “M’am”, which is a whole other, infuriating, topic). 

I also really appreciate the direct manner in which it is made clear that transmen can like men and that sexual attraction is something different from (albeit at least partly related to) gender identity. One of the instances when this is made clear is in a difficult conversation between Feña and his/their father, whom they/he hasn’t seen in two years, since transitioning. So, of course, this is an extremely loaded encounter which for me has additional levels of potential trigger due to my own relationship with (& recent loss of) my father. But there’s a moment when exasperated Feña exclaims to their/his father, “Liking men doesn’t make me a woman”! Such a great truth! But also one of my own fears: what does it mean to those around me that I like (also) men? 

Another scene that I find extremely truthful and powerful and (for me) very relatable is with Feña’s cis & straight ex-boyfriend John and John’s young cis-female cousin who’s turning 22. Feña & John have just run into each other by chance at a club after a painful breakup and not having seen or heard from each other for a year and a half, since Feña’s transition. John’s cousin invites Feña to join them in sharing her “birthday coke” so they all go to the bathroom and John’s cousin (who apparently has been told that Feña is transmasc) asks Feña if they/he has a penis. So Feña replies, “First of all, you should never ask this. But no, I don’t have a penis”. The cis-woman cousin is relentless, though, and proceeds to ask why: “Don’t you want to be a real man?”. And here I find Feña’s reply wonderful (& to me extremely relatable): “You don’t need a penis to be a real man”!

But the interactions that maybe touched me the most deeply and tenderly are probably those between Feña and his/their cis straight ex-boyfriend John. The scene in the laundromat where they take shelter together after having got caught in a downpour of rain: here they are now, after clubbing, soaking wet to the bone, in the middle of the night in a laundromat. John offers Feña one of his dry shirts to change into. At first, John takes it for granted that Feña, who has had top-surgery, will just change & be momentarily bare-chested in front of him, but Feña asks him to turn around. John is confused and replies, “But I’ve seen you naked!” but Feña replies that this is different. So John turns around but then actually gets to see Feña bare-chested in the reflection of the washing-machine in front of him and when Feña realizes this, he/they is terribly upset. Once Feña is less upset, though, and facing John again, John gently asks if he “can see” and Feña says “Yes” and takes the shirt off again. Then John asks if it hurt (i.e. the surgery). And Feña’s brutally honest reply is so perfect — “yes, they [i.e. the breasts] were cut off and it was all a mess inside and I had tubes coming out of my body and couldn’t really move my arms for two months”. And then Feña lets John touch: touch the scars, the new nipples, the chest. And John asks if Feña can feel [the touch] now and Feña replies, “Yes”. This whole scene and this particular moment of it are, in my opinion, extremely sensual & erotic and one of the most tender of the whole movie. I could relate to this scene so much, so deeply: the fear of being seen naked, bare-chested by someone with whom there is, or has been, some form of deep physical intimacy; the vulnerability of letting someone see, and touch, those scars; the vulnerability but also the liberation in telling the whole brutal truth about top-surgery; that mix of fear and yearning for physical intimacy & touch; the sweetness of being seen and touched physically, intimately, once trust is established. 

Feña & John eventually have sex (it’s not portrayed in the movie but it’s clear that they have PIV intercourse). And while it troubles me that their sexual intimacy happens when they’re both still partly drunk and/or high, I find the explicit representation of John’s own internal demons or fears or questions about being sexually attracted to someone who identifies as a “man” or “guy” to be extremely truthful & real for so many “straight” cis-men. 

Finally, I also find one of the moments between Feña & John towards the end lovely and tender and very relatable. Feña asks John if he/they look different to him. And John replies something like, “Yes, but it’s still you, I still recognize you. The difference is mostly that you look more comfortable now, you’re not tense when you move”. And Feña smiles, like this answer makes sense, and adds, “People say I look happier now”. Gosh, how I understand and can relate to this conversation!

All in all, I find movies like this one extremely valuable and powerful and necessary.

[Trigger warnings: unemployment, big changes, loss, grief.]

I think I’m in shock. 

I’m feeling similarly to when my father was hospitalized and when he died. And in some ways similarly to when my European genderqueer ex-lover left last summer. 

Even when one is mentally or rationally prepared for the loss, the shock is always real when the loss actually occurs. 

I needed one more year at my current job so badly. Not so much from the professional viewpoint, really: I needed it emotionally, mentally; I needed a year of “coasting”, a year of relative stability, a year without (too many or too big) changes after all the changes & challenges I’ve been through, non-stop, in the past 2-3 years. I needed a break. I needed to be somewhat in autopilot with at least one part of my life feeling like it didn’t need to be “thought about” or “rethought”. 

At this time two years ago I had been in Colorado for just over a month. I was taking a break and considering rebuilding my life, or restarting, and was quickly realizing that I wanted to stay here and not go back to California. So I started job hunting here — two years ago, almost exactly to the day. 

Here I am now, two years later, having to start job hunting again. But in the meantime so much has happened: especially, I have changed so much. 

Two years ago, I was still using my (female) given name; I was still relatively new & gradually getting used to using gender-neutral “they” pronouns for myself after decades of feminine pronouns used for me; I still had breasts; I hadn’t started testosterone/GAHT, yet, and had very little body-hair; and I hardly had any idea of the trans world, which I actually started exploring then. In many ways, I still knew myself much less and was a very different person. 

When I left California for Colorado a little over two years ago, I was a gender-nonconforming non-binary wanderer feeling very confused. Now, I am a genderqueer trans-boy trying to find his way in this place that mostly feels like home. I have a different name, a different body, a different voice, and in some ways different dreams, or needs, than two years ago. But I’m still just a toddler, I feel like I can only barely stand on these new legs of mine. And as I’m trying to learn to walk on these shaky new legs, I feel like the rug has been pulled from under my feet and I might topple over any moment. 

How can I know what job I want, or can, do next if I hardly even know my “new self”?

From the practical viewpoint, the job I had these past 18 months allowed me to discover and come into myself or, at least, start coming into myself fully. But I really would have needed an extra year, a little more professional continuity for another year. Rocking the boat, rocking what to me still feels like a shaky raft, is a huge blow for me now. And it feels like a big loss. 

There is also, mixed among all these difficult emotions of shock and loss and grief and failure and fear, a sense of relief, of sense of liberation & freedom almost. A sense that this current job ending in 5-6 months will allow me to catch my break, to pause for a moment, and to reinvent myself even professionally, if I want/need to. There is a sense of hope and excitement even. I know that is part of me, part of who/how I am: the adventurer in me, the curious person always seeking growth. It’s the other side of the same coin: uncertainty or loss, on one side, and freedom & discovery, on the other. 

But in this moment, the shock, the sense of loss and the fear and confusion are greater and hard to bear.

…and if there’s one thing, even only one thing, that I’ve learned in life, it’s that the body knows. 

At least, my body knows. 

My body knows.

[Trigger warnings: unemployment, loss, grief.]

For the first time in my life since finishing grad school, I’m finding myself in the position of being (almost) unemployed but unwilling to move. 

For the past fourteen years it’s often been the opposite: I’ve quit many jobs because I wanted to move, or to move on, or both. 

Actually, a similar situation happened to me a decade ago, when I was living in Barcelona: in the spring of 2014 the start-up where I was working had financial difficulties and had to fire almost all its employees, me included. At the time, I was happy in Barcelona and unwilling to leave just then (I was ready to leave a year later), and the several months being unemployed there turned out to be one of the nicest periods of my life then. 

So many difficult and intense emotions have been activated by the news I received from my advisor this morning that my research contract can most likely not be renewed past this summer that I don’t even know where to start to process them all. 

I guess a good point to start would be my body. 

My body is telling me to stay. My body is crying — I am physically crying, tears are falling from my eyes (despite the testosterone from GAHT). 

I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to uproot myself again, not yet, maybe not ever. Definitely not now. 

My advisor is encouraging me to take the academic job in California, if I get an offer (which is not at all to be taken for granted). But my whole body & soul balk at the idea. 

I don’t want to leave this area of Colorado, and definitely not to go back to California, especially not that area of California. 

This is home, here. I want to stay here. I need to stay here for now. 

The sadness and grief I feel at the idea of not working at this institute anymore in six months time is huge. I’ve been part of this institute, part of this town, for two years now. I don’t want to leave, I don’t want to change again, not now. There are so many memories, so many people, many of them so important to me, connected to these places. 

And I’ve built a life here over these past two years. I’m still building it and it has started to really look up and feel really good only in the past couple months — really good as in like pre-pandemic, even better than pre-pandemic because I’m happier here than I ever was in California because I was so lonely there. 

If I can avoid it, if I can do anything about it, I don’t ever want to be so lonely again in my life. It would kill me. 

I recognize part of what I’m feeling now: it’s similar to what I felt last summer when the losses connected to my father’s death in Europe and the departure of my European genderqueer ex-lover really brought it home to me, made it clear to me at a physical level, that this is home for me here in Colorado. That I don’t want to leave here, not even to “follow the love(s) of my life”. 

I don’t know what job I’ll do. I’m too sad and hurt and confused and scared to really know now even what type of job I’d like. But I know I’ll start looking with all the motivation and intentionality that I have. And with all the hope that I’ve felt reborn in me, truly & deeply, in the past couple months. 

This might yet turn out to be a blessing in disguise: yet another challenge, yet another big change, and as such maybe yet another opportunity to grow and shape my life in ways that could be even more aligned with me & my dreams. 

As one door closes, another might — or must — open. I’ll start looking for that door.

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

“