They vs. He

Driving to work this morning listening to music, I realized that my voice has dropped low enough that I cannot sing along to one of my favorite songs anymore (“Bitch” by Meredith Brooks). 

A little mustache is starting to shyly yet stubbornly make its appearance over my upper lip — and it’s blond! 

I’m starting to get really impatient for some more male attributes to become more visible and I cannot wait to get my masculinizing top-surgery. 

As I present more and more masculine or talk more openly and explicitly about how masculine I feel, I’m starting to be asked more and more often whether I think that at some point I’ll switch to “he” pronouns from my current “they” pronouns. 

For now, my answer is “No”. 

I’m thoroughly enjoying this delayed male puberty that I’m experiencing and I identify very strongly with being a “boy”. I love boys: I identify with them, I feel comfortable around them, I find them fun and endearing (at least most of the time); and I’m mostly attracted to men and I generally feel (& almost always have felt) more comfortable with, and similar to, men than I have with/to women. 

However, I was socialized as a woman and this is a big part of me & of my lived experience. 

In languages with a more gendering grammar than English, I have asked my closest friends to use the masculine for me. The reason I feel comfortable with that but still prefer using non-binary pronouns whenever possible, and envision myself using non-binary pronouns even if/when I present more masculine in the future, is precisely because of the parts of me & of my experiences as a woman. Even if/when I get to the point where I could “pass” as a man, I probably won’t want to be identified wholly as a “man” (unless my feelings shift a lot from the present). I don’t want to be seen from the outside wholly as a “man” — which in my case would be a white man — because I didn’t grow up, wasn’t socialized, with those experiences and those privileges. I experienced the joys and beauties but also and mainly the difficulties and hardships of being AFAB, and also of being a “woman in science”, or at least perceived as such. Those are marginalized experiences that are very different, and often in many ways harder, than those of a white man. 

Last night I found resonance with two persons on such topics. 

One was my new housemate who is a cis-woman, a very-out lesbian in her mid-fifties. She had just asked me the question about the “They vs. He” pronouns and I gave her my answer along the lines I just explained. And she shared a very interesting experience and perspective of her own, which really resonated with me. She told me about an interview in which the trans-woman Caitlyn Jenner said how nice if was for her to be able to wear nail-polish and “giggle with the girls” because these were things that really made her feel like a woman. While my housemate respects this viewpoint and we agreed that different things can make each one of us perceive our gender differently and uniquely, she also mentioned how she & many (cis-)women friends of hers felt very differently from Caitlyn Jenner, specifically that their shared perception of “womanhood” was more along the lines of their similar experiences of oppression, lack of privilege, and even fear. Which is basically similar to what I’m saying when I explain why I feel that “they” pronouns represent me & my experience better because I lived most of my life with the world around me “treating me as a woman”, which includes experiencing certain types of discrimination and fear that oftentimes (white cis-)men don’t experience. [All this being said, I am very well aware of the terrible discrimination that often trans-women experience which can be even worse than for cis-women — but this is beyond the scope of this post.]

The other was a maybe more light-heartedconversation with one of my closest AFAB trans-masculine/non-binary friends. They were telling me about some gay cis-men friends of theirs in their late-forties and fifties who are experiencing a “decline in their manhood”; while we, as trans-masculine persons doing HRT are experiencing a “peak of manhood” because of the testosterone giving us a sort of “delayed male puberty” on top of our “peaking female sexuality” as females who are finally comfortable in their bodies, comfortable with their own sexuality/sensuality and even with their own female genitals. So somehow we’re getting the “best of the two worlds” — and honestly, this feels great! As far as I’m concerned, while still leaning towards the masculine side of the spectrum and identifying more as a “boy”, I am non-binary in the sense that part of me is “female”. And some of those “specifically female” parts I enjoy and love very much. 

So for me sticking to “they” rather than “he” pronouns, at least for now, is both a recognition and honoring of the difficulties I experienced in being socialized as a woman as well as a celebration of those female parts of me that I love and enjoy.

Despite the stress of the move, I had a good weekend. And it was good because I spent most of it in pleasant company. 

On Saturday, I attended the second part of a trad climbing clinic, hands-on and outdoors in beautiful weather, in the fun company of some students from the research group where I work. And after the climbing, we all went out for burgers and beers. Despite the age difference (I’m much older than they are), it was comfortable and fun — really fun. 

Yesterday two good climbing buddies, who are really friends at this point, came and helped me move. One of them brought his landlord’s small trailer hitched to his own car and his girlfriend also came to help. The other one drove my car so that I could ride my motorcycle and leave it parked at my new place. Their help was priceless. Although to them it might have felt that they simply moved some boxes around, for me it was a huge psychological support as well as physical help. On top of making things so much faster because there were four persons, instead of just one, carrying boxes, it really helped me feel less sad or lonely about moving. 

I’m not upset about this move per se. I knew it was coming up this October; I’m not moving far and I’m moving to an area that I really like and where I wanted to live; the person with whom I’ll be living seems to be really nice and kind and interesting. But moving is stressful and brings up lots of emotions and memories for me. So doing it with the help of friends, and then going out for dinner with them afterwards (buying them dinner seemed the least I could do to thank them all for their help!) was really great — a tremendous help! I’m also very happy that my climbing buddies got to meet my new housemate and that they all seemed to like each other — it somehow makes me feel more at home in this corner of the world… 

Anyway, the events and emotions of this weekend are an additional confirmation of how much I benefit from (the right) human company, how much I need to be around nice people in person. 

Resonating energies

It’s not a question of “taming my energy” or “regulating my intense emotions”. It’s a question of finding ways to express those emotions and of channeling that energy, which includes finding other persons who match my energy and avoiding, or reducing interaction with, people who drain it. 

Many aspects of my feelings, behaviors, experiences or perspectives can be understood and explained in terms of neurodivergence and/or gender dysphoria. But so much of me and my feelings and experiences go beyond that. 

I have — and have always had — an energy that is hard to match. By this I don’t mean that it’s better or worse than other persons’ energy, it just seems to be very uncommon. It’s not only a “high” energy: it’s full of irresistible life; it contains very powerful light; it tends to be constructive and joyful, but it can sometimes turn into a dark storm, usually when it’s not “matched” (i.e. when my needs for sharing it go unmet) for too long.

In my entire life, I’ve met only four people with whom I’ve really resonated on this deep level of “personal energy”; and, in fact, these four relationships have been in many aspects the most intense of my life (for better or for worse). 

The first two started over twenty years ago, when I & the other two persons were teenagers. One was a beautiful German girl; the other was my sailing buddy who was also my first “serious boyfriend”. Both of them are still to this day two of my dearest and closest friends, and two of the people with whom I have the closest, most intense and spontaneous understanding, despite the different paths we’ve taken and the geographical distances. 

The other two I met in California and are both climbers, and both of them especially into bouldering (which is, ironically, the type of climbing that I enjoy the least). And the heartbreaks ensuing from the relationships with both of these boulderers have been so intense and long-lasting specifically because of our resonating energies. Besides all of the other, more common aspects drawing us to each other, it was that same type and level of energy that made our connections so deep. And with one of them, in particular, so intense and irresistible — to his own admission, too. 

The need to find people with my same type and level of energy, and to be able to express it and share it and effectively let it out with them, is vital to me. It’s not a whim. It’s not a “want”: it’s a “need”. And the lack or difficulty of getting this vital need met is one of the main causes of my bouts of sadness or pain or anger, because it almost feels like I’m wasting my life. 

I’m realizing how hard it is for people to understand this — this feeling of mine, this need of mine. People tend to interpret it, and even write it off, as “hypersensitivity” or “being so intense” or even “depression” sometimes. While all of these might have been actual secondary effects sometimes, none of them are the real, correct reason or explanation. I know it, I know myself, and I’m going to trust this knowledge I have deep inside me. 

Bad days happen. Days in which sadness, hurt, pain, anger or even impostor syndrome are so intense that I cannot get work done or that I need to sit and cry it out. Those days happen. At least, they happen to persons with my type of energy. They are part of me, part of us, part of our energy, and the consequence of our energy being hard to match (at least in our society as it most commonly functions). Pills or meds are not the solution (at least, not for me). Getting that energy matched is the healthy solution for me. It always has been and has led to some of the most beautiful experiences and, at least in two cases, long-lasting relationships of my entire life.

So I am determined to continue seeking out those types of experiences and relationships, no matter how difficult it is to find other persons whose energy matches my own. 

I have noticed that oftentimes people who rock climb (outdoors) and/or do certain types of sailing and/or ride motorcycles tend to match my energy level more closely, which is probably not a coincidence. There are levels of resonance and fulfillment that I need beyond rock climbing or sailing together, and it’s those more intimate levels that I’m particularly struggling to find and fulfill. And it’s usually those intimate levels of unfulfillment that lead to my deepest bouts of sadness or anger. But I think that recognizing the problem is part of the solution. 

So while continuing to cherish the wonderful friendships I have and being grateful for all that they give me, I will also keep in mind my own vital needs that are not met now and that probably require different types of relationships and persons with different energy levels from what I have close to me at the moment. It might be possible to get those important needs met only with one or two people, as it has been in the past: but I need to find that energy that resonates with mine and build a deep connection with persons available & willing to share it with me.

Creating ourselves

Yesterday I saw two quotes I really liked: they both resonated very much with me and felt somehow related to each other. 

One was anonymous and read

“Life isn’t about finding ourselves 

Life is about creating ourselves”.

The other was a Chinese proverb: 

“Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today”.

For months now I’ve been trying to find a different word than “transitioning” to indicate the processes — mental and emotional as well as medical — that I’m undergoing in my “masculinization”. I don’t feel that I’m “transitioning”: I’m not “going anywhere” or “really changing”, but rather, I feel that I’m “becoming myself”, “coming into myself” or finally being allowed to be more wholly & truly myself. Sometimes the expression “sculpting myself” has even come into my mind, like an artist sculpts a statue, physically creating something that they already envision in their mind. 

I’ve always known that I was, and am, a boy. I’ve always known that I’m autistic. I’ve always known that I’d be an explorer and wanted to be a scientist. 

For me that first quote is real, or appropriate, in that I haven’t had to “find” myself but, rather, I’ve had to find the environments and situations and opportunities to actually “fully be & express” myself — i.e. to be able, in fact, to create myself. 

Part of what has allowed — and is now more consciously allowing — me to create myself is making space for myself — for my needs, my wishes, my dreams, the image and visions of myself. And that’s where the second quote, the Chinese proverb, connects and fits in for me: making space for me requires leaving “stuff” behind, including not letting yesterday be too much of a burden or a shadow today. 

I’m not saying that leaving behind is easy or even fun. It’s often hard and sad and painful, and I’m not always good at it — on the contrary! 

I know that a great part of the sadness and pain and even of the anger that I’ve been feeling lately comes from having to let go, to leave “stuff” behind, in order to be able to create myself by making space for myself. And this is why I don’t want to write off these intense, uncomfortable, painful emotions as “just chemical unbalance”: these emotions are telling me something extremely important, vital even. 

They are partly the spur and partly the consequence of not “letting yesterday take up too much of today” so that I can create myself by making the necessary space — and thus live.

At the end of my rope

Today I finally got around to the bank to pay my October rent, five days late. This is not my style. 

I’m just so overwhelmed, so tired, at the very end of my rope. 

I’m not getting my needs met. 

I’m tired of having to drive miles to meet up with friends in person and, especially, tired of having to wait weeks, even months, to actually see friends. 

I’m tired of having to almost always be the one who initiates plans with people. 

I’m tired of having to be so often the one who keeps in touch and of hearing from friends only if I’m silent for days or weeks — then, fortunately, they start to wonder if I’m alright and get in touch. 

I’m tired of being so alone. 

I’m tired of having to move once again — for the fourth time in nine months. 

I would need to not have to move again now. 

I need to have some friends with whom I could meet up for an impromptu dinner, to relax for a walk and/or a beer after work, without always having to plan it days — or weeks or months — in advance. 

I need to have more friends that I could call spontaneously for a chat instead of there being so many constraints coming from time zones and/or personal boundaries. 

I need more spontaneity and flexibility and availability in my social life. 

I need to have more “healthy fun”, more “down time” in relaxed, friendly company; I need to have physical contact, touch, shared sexuality.

And maybe above all, I need to have someone for whom I’m “the first person”. Because although I have many lovely friends, for all of them there are one or more persons who “come before me” — their family, their partner(s), their housemates, closer friends. 

I know I’m not the only one struggling at the moment. I know that several of my best friends are also going through rough spots right now. But I have only one friend who is truly as alone as myself. And I am really in need now. In need of love and affection and support, even in person, and as spontaneous and unasked for as possible. 

I also know that part of these feeling stems from chemical unbalance: from my weaning myself off meds recently and currently exacerbated by my period (which I got one week early this month, making things even worse). But chemistry is not the only, or principal, cause of how I’m feeling now. I’m not going to write my emotions off, I’m not going to brush them off as a “chemical storm”. 

I am suffering. I have important needs that are not being met and that haven’t been met for months, maybe years. 

Maybe these needs aren’t getting met because of some deep incapacity of my own. Maybe I’m unable to build connections or a life style that lead to the type of company that I truly need deep down inside me. In that case, I could add this to my list of failures. 

I know that after having cried it all out, I will get a grip on myself again. I know that resilient nugget in me will pull itself together again and get me through my move in a few days; it will get me through my urgent work deadlines, and hopefully through the rest of my upcoming and future tasks — as it got me safely to my destination on my motorcycle despite the horrible freeway traffic earlier today.

But how long will this little core inside me hold up before it’s worn to shreds?

In and out of the shadows

“I really like working with you”, the grad student whom I’m mentoring said to me today. 

For me, this simple sentence was a great relief, like a warm and bright shaft of light after some dark shadows in the past few days. 

I guess one of the big questions I need to answer for myself is why do I continue to constantly need such confirmations? Why do I still continuously doubt my professional skills as well as the possibility of my being someone pleasant enough to be around or, at least, pleasant enough to work with? Why can’t I trust myself, yet, after all these years? 

Why do the shadows still overpower me to the level of total loss of trust, from time to time? 

Hormones…

I need to start dating — purposefully dating. ASAP.

I’ve always been a spontaneously erotic person, someone who naturally feels, perceives and even expresses eroticism/sensuality/sexuality in a variety of ways, often very intensely and inadvertently. 

Now, with HRT, this is getting physiologically to a level of intensity that is almost unmanageable for me, in the sense that I risk getting “vicarious crushes” (mutual or unilateral) on persons with whom I really want to maintain a platonic relationship. So I effectively need to “divert” my sexual energy to directions that are more appropriate, that don’t risk mixing levels or crossing boundaries which it’s safer and healthier to not mix or cross. 

It’s hard because hormones can really go to our heads and mess with our brains… 

But I’ve learned the lesson, sometimes the hard way, and I don’t want to waste it: let it serve me now!

We get what we give

“You get what you give” [song by New Radicals]

At the end of class, Arys got a spontaneous round of applause from the students. 

This was the first time in nine months that Arys had taught a Physics lesson to college students again, and had they been asked to do it even only a month ago, it probably would have been much harder. 

Over the past few weeks, though, Arys has slowly been finding their place again, even professionally. 

This class was only a “once-off”, covering for their supervisor who couldn’t make it for his own personal reasons and had asked Arys for this favor with plenty of notice. Despite it not being a “big deal”, Arys spent the whole morning preparing for this class. The perfectionist in them wouldn’t allow them to just hand-wave through a lesson on the propagation of electromagnetic waves through matter. But it also went deeper than that: it was love motivating them. 

Arys loves Physics and they love teaching, sharing it. 

So they prepared the lesson meticulously and then walked to campus, more than a little anxious since they didn’t know what to really expect: what would the classroom be like? What would the students be like? How would Arys come across to them? Had Arys’s supervisor even told the students to expect a sub for yesterday’s class? 

As Arys walked to campus, feeling the anxiousness rise in their chest, they reminded themselves, as they do in tricky moments on a climbing route: “You’ve done this hundreds of times before. This is your jam”!   

The anxiety was still there at the beginning of class, just like at the beginning of a hard route on an unknown wall. But then Arys let go and settled into their “instructor mode”, into their own special persona of when they teach Physics. And the energy, the enthusiasm, the spontaneous connection with the audience, even the love, all just started to pour out again as if they had been doing it all this time with no interruption of nine months. Arys wasn’t thinking: they were just in the flow of the moment, of that class. And the students felt it and responded, reflecting back all that spontaneous positive energy. 

At the end of the lesson, when time was up, the students spontaneously — at first awkwardly, then more convinced — broke out into an applause. 

Many of them asked whether Arys would be teaching any of the following lessons for this course or any other class, and several openly said they wished Arys would teach more. Two students at the very end even went as far as saying that this had been the best class they had had in the whole semester. 

Arys was thankful for the face-covering they were wearing, as it helped hide their blushing. 

These comments made their day, rewarding them for their hard work in preparing for the class. The comments were also good, and somewhat necessary, reminders. Of their capacities. Of the place and space that they can take up. Of the importance of finding and maintaining a balance between humility and knowing one’s worth. Of the power of love: because it is love — the love of Physics, the love of teaching, the love of sharing, the love of helping other people learn and grow, too — that allows Arys’s classes to shine. 

And of the fact that we so often get what we give.  

“…

Don’t let go, you’ve got the music in you 

… 

You only get what you give 

… ”