The Little Prince and the Fox

Six months ago one of my closest friends gave me the book “The body keeps the score”, which has been on my reading list for a couple years now. I haven’t gotten around to reading it, yet, but I look forward to it — and maybe then I’ll finally understand why, whenever I experience a loss that to me feels like a rejection from a person whom I love deeply, physically I feel it in the pit of my stomach. 

Always. 

It can vary between feeling like a punch in the stomach or a knot, often leading to incapacity or unwillingness to eat. Twice, in very dark moments of my life about a decade ago, after a terrible fight with my then-partner — fights that felt like I was being rejected and/or disapproved of and/or judged negatively or condemned at my core — I felt so bad in my stomach and even so much self-hatred that I hid in the bathroom and stuck my fingers in my throat to try and throw-up. Fortunately, though, I couldn’t get that far. Maybe some tiny shred of self-love or self-respect stopped me then — and even more fortunately that has never happened again. 

But the knot in my stomach, the feeling of a punch at the mouth of my stomach, and the subsequent incapacity or unwillingness to eat, are all there again now… 

Why does this happen to me? 

When I let the deep friendship with my non-binary friend & climbing/adventure buddy acquire a romantic&sexual aspect to it, in April, letting it happen out of spontaneous mutual consent and just the feeling of the moment, without discussing its possible consequences, I made a mistake. 

I assumed it would be okay because in the moment there was mutual consent and it felt spontaneous and “right” then. 

I assumed it would be okay because in my life, and especially in the past five or six years, I have had so many “friends with benefits” and it’s always been okay. 

I assumed wrong. 

I shouldn’t even have assumed in the first place. 

Touché.

For the past day and a half I’ve been feeling extremely sad. The cause lay in a message from a person that I love very deeply. 

This message is very thoughtful, mature, respectful and loving. There is no doubt from this message as well as other interactions with this person that they love me deeply, too. 

I knew that the “immediate” reason for my sadness was heartbreak. I also knew that this heartbreak and the unfathomable depth of my sadness was due not only to this particular message and this particular situation that can be logistically difficult but also to old heartbreaks and traumas from my past. I was aware that I was reading this message not simply as it was but also, inevitably, through the colored lenses of my own past hurtful experiences. So I haven’t replied, yet. I’ve been holding off until I reached some balance and clarity in my own feelings, also because I could feel in my gut that something was nagging at me that I couldn’t pinpoint, yet. 

Now I know what it is: once again, it lies with assumptions. 

One of the aspects of that message that kept feeling terribly hurtful and also disappointing was the sense that this person was deeming our relationship impossible or us incompatible on the basis of what to me felt like “hypotheses”: situations from the past that we haven’t really ever discussed fully and hypothetical situations in the future that might happen or not (because plans are simply plans and can get overturned anytime!). This word “hypothesis” kept lingering in my head and nagging at me, but I couldn’t put my finger on the cause. 

Until this morning. These “hypotheses” in this beloved person’s message that hurt me so much are assumptions — and mostly unfounded ones, as far as my feelings and experiences are involved. 

Yes, this person is mature and honest and direct and loving. They are one of the people I’ve loved the most and had in highest regard in my entire life. But in this message — while it’s still a mature, honest message — they are making a bunch of assumptions (without asking me) and based upon them they are deeming our relationship doomed. 

They are assuming that since I’m white, I have never experienced racism (in my case, what I’ve experienced is technically called “xenophobia”) and thus cannot understand their mixed-race experience. 

They are assuming that my tendency of being non-monogamous would endanger our long-distance relationship. 

They are assuming that their desire to coparent would be a problem for me. 

Why not ask me instead of assuming? 

I know it’s partly, maybe mostly, on me, on my being very shy about bringing up and sharing my deepest thoughts and feelings, my fears and pains. And I know that this person’s assumptions are coming from a place of trust and/or respect towards me, on one hand, and of self-protection to avoid getting hurt too much themselves, on the other. (These are, admittedly, partly assumptions of my own for which I have some direct evidence from this person but which I also need to check!) 

But although I know these assumptions are not meant to hurt me, they still do: they still feel like a shield and daggers. 

So please, please, please: ask me, don’t assume!

“Ask, Don’t Assume”: this has become one of my favorite mantras since first seeing this quote at a friend’s house in February. 

Over the past five or six years my awareness with respect to assumptions has probably been one of the greatest shifts in my worldview and growth. I have found myself in personal situations as well as professional environments which have not only totally deconstructed and turned on its head my upbringing and habit of assuming, but also and maybe even more importantly made it glaringly clear to me how much, how often, how pervasively we assume. 

I am a scientist: in some realms of my life, assumptions are my daily bread and are necessary. But I have come to realize that apart from maths and the hard sciences, where indeed assumptions are often the foundation (and yet still need to be made with extreme caution and analyzed carefully!), when it comes to human relations and most aspects of life, assumptions are not just tricky: assumptions can be straight out dangerous and harmful. Assumptions about people, feelings, situations can sometimes be necessary or inevitable. But overall I’m realizing that assumptions about persons, emotions, situations are more like shields or walls, and they can even turn into swords or daggers or rocks. 

I still find myself making assumptions, too. A week ago, in my last session with my counselor, I was wrapping up a situation that had weighed on my mind and heart and soul for along while, and I found myself saying, “… but the shame I felt in all that is still hard to overcome sometimes and that’s something that he didn’t feel, even if it was confusing and difficult for him, too, at least he didn’t feel the shame…” And then I stopped almost in mid-sentence: before my counselor had even said anything, I caught myself and corrected myself: “Actually,” I found myself reflecting, “I don’t really know that and cannot know it unless I ask him. He might have felt shame, too. I’m only assuming he didn’t and I cannot really know”. 

In that moment I saw and felt how useful therapy has been for me because, together with many readings and conversations with people who are open-minded and non-judgmental, I have truly learned to ask and listen carefully instead of assuming, to be more open-minded, to hold the doubt, and also to be much more aware of the moments when I don’t, when I slip back into the old, ingrained habit of making assumptions without enough information. 

“Kiss it” by Dorothy (Album “Rock is dead”):

“Mama she don’t like my walk

Daddy he don’t like my talk

My baby told me “Listen here

A woman need a man.”

All I gotta say to you is “Kiss it baby, ” yeah

Kiss it

Kiss it baby yeah, kiss it

Kiss it baby yeah, kiss it

Preacher try to make me see

Teacher try to marry me

My baby told me “Listen here

A woman need a man”

All I gotta say to you is “Kiss it baby, ” yeah

Kiss it

Kiss it baby yeah, kiss it

Kiss it baby yeah, kiss it

Whoa kiss it, kiss it

Whoa kiss it, kiss it

… 

… 

… “

You might feel like you’re on your own now. And you might really be on your own. 

Maybe your family’s reaction to your coming out was something like, “Of course, we love you just as you are, but… “ 

Maybe some close friend turned their back on you for stating your opinion honestly, regardless of how respectfully you did it. 

Maybe an acquaintance or friend’s partner attacked you for no reason, just for being you, for being in some way “anti-conformist”. 

Maybe you got evicted or kindly asked to leave or fired because of not “fitting the standards” — and maybe it was done without even telling you the true reasons so you couldn’t defend yourself. 

Maybe you live in a place where you cannot even make your own choices for your own body because someone else writing the laws has decided that this fundamental right is too threatening. 

You have the right to be yourself. You have the right to choose how to live your life and what to do to your own body (as long as you’re not willfully harming anyone else!). 

You have the right to speak up.

You are lovable and loved regardless of your shape or color or age or gender or relationship choices.

You’re not alone. You might feel alone now, you might actually be on your own, living your life your own way. But trust that you’re not alone. 

There’s more of us out there, trying to live their lives authentically and respecting the right of auto-determination, for ourselves and for everyone else around us.

I’m upset. And scared. 

I have two close friends who are around the same age, in their early-mid forties, both single mothers of two girls and both have the tendency of getting in relationships with violent (and usually much older) men. 

With one of these friends of mine I haven’t been able to talk, not even on the phone, for months because of her violent husband who’s jealous and scared of me, irrationally considering me one of the main causes of their dysfunctional relationship. He’s an extremely violent man, verbally, psychologically and even physically, and has been violent towards me several times. He sent me such insulting, violent messages in February that I thought about looking into issuing a restraining order against him. 

And this morning something similar happened with my other friend’s partner who started texting me out of the blue last weekend — this is that cousin with whom, albeit being close friends, we had a fall out last August-September, probably partly due to her (then new) partner. So his text out of the blue last weekend was a shock, especially since my cousin gave him my number without my permission. His first text message was friendly but still an unwanted surprise to me so I forwarded it to my cousin instead of replying to him. My cousin and I agreed to leave each other some more space for another month or so before being in touch again — all via peaceful text messages. But this morning I received a very insulting and extremely violent (verbally & psychologically) text message from her partner. I was so shocked and upset that I instinctively deleted it, but maybe I should have kept it as evidence…? 

Is this harassment? 

I know exactly what’s going on here, I see a pattern common to both scenarios: these are violent men who are not used to, and cannot accept, women (or persons they see as “women” — they both stubbornly misgender me) standing up to them. In that way I am a threat to them, even if I don’t actively do anything against them but just am myself and model something different from their ideal “acquiescent woman” both to their partners (my friends) and their daughters. 

Although I can understand this rationally, it still is extremely upsetting, and frightening. I am feeling attacked now, like I did the other times with my other friend’s husband.

This is an attack, isn’t it?

“Ain’t no angel, oh gonna greet me

I’ve been so far gone living in a fever dream

I wanna stand on the mountain

I wanna know how it feels

I wanna see what the world looks like

When everybody here can feel just what I say

And I’ll do it my own way

Yes, I know, well I know, there’s a price I have to pay

Cause I do it my own way

And I do not know what I need to say

Cause I’m on my own

The rules have changed since I learned to play

So I burn in vain

It is harder now than it ever was

But I’m strong enough so I’m standing up

There are things in me my words cannot betray

So I do what I do, what I do, what I do

And I do it my own way

If I could see in the future

If I could look from the clouds

If I could learn what I don’t have now and could not live without

I’d gladly stay

And I’d do it my own way

Yes, I know, well I know, there’s a price I have to pay

And I do it my own way

…”

I’ve been having a very tough week. 

Moments of hope and happiness and excitement and gender euphoria; and also plain joy from being with and talking to so many good friends, as well as satisfaction from the work on my textbook. 

But then the deep pits of hopelessness and despair — not a general “depression” but specifically induced by gender dysphoria, a sense of alienation (and deep concern for what is going on in the world around me, on top of it all). 

These opposing emotional states have been keeping my mood in sway for over a week and given me plenty of sleepless nights. 

And I just cannot make up my mind re. HRT at the moment. 

Today, however, on my early morning run (which I had to do on music to get self motivated — very unusual for me), I had a moment of perfect, blissful “recognition” , almost piercing recognition or insight or clarity, something that felt like enlightenment, like one of those rare moments when you feel that you KNOW, but not rationally, rather with your body and your soul. 

It happened with a song: “Ain’t not angel” by Ron Pope. 

I’ve always liked both the melody/tune/rhythm and the lyrics of this song, but this morning it was the singer’s voice that spurred a feeling of “recognition” in me. Since pondering about getting on HRT, I have been paying more attention to singers’ voices and noticing how many of them could be male or female, indifferently. And when I heard this song this morning, this singer’s voice, I thought to myself, “That’s a voice I could identify with. If I were a guy with a voice like that, I would feel okay and myself with it” — and I didn’t mean a musical voice, I meant the pitch. I identified with that voice, with that guy: I saw myself in that guy’s voice; I saw myself as a guy I would identify with, in that voice.

I really want to write this here to help me keep record of my ups and downs re. HRT. Because I keep changing my mind about it. 

I know I’m non-binary. I’m not a man and I do always want to honor that part in me that is a female, a little girl, a woman: after all, I was brought up as a girl and a woman; I feel topics like abortion rights viscerally (and in fact went to the pro-abortion rights manifestation on Saturday); I even enjoy wearing “girly clothes” like leggings or skimpy summer dresses sometimes. 

I also know that I feel mostly like a boy, though, I am mostly a boy. But to what extent to I take that? How can I align my outside look to my inside feeling? 

And how important is it to me that the outside world see me the way I feel about myself?

“… 

I do not know what I need to say

Cause I’m on my own

The rules have changed since I learned to play

So I burn in vain

It is harder now than it ever was

But I’m strong enough so I’m standing up

There are things in me my words cannot betray

So I do what I do, what I do, what I do

And I do it my own way

… ”

The intake call with the physician’s assistant for top surgery went so well this morning that I was overwhelmed and at a certain point just couldn’t stop the tears rushing out of me during the half-hour phone call. 

The realization of this being actually DOABLE, of even having options on the type of surgery or some details. Learning more about the recovery and discovering that it wouldn’t be as bad or as long as I had thought. Being told that I could choose whether I would rather aim more for “nipple sensation preservation” or “masculinization of my chest” — that drew tears from my eyes as I was flooded by disbelief and joy and excitement at the idea, almost the visible image in my mind’s eye, of having a boy’s chest, at last. 

I’ll probably be waiting six or seven months before getting this surgery done, mainly for professional reasons, but if I could, I’d get it done now and getting all this information from specialists and actually taking the steps towards making this happen (as the video call with the surgeon that I’ll have soon, too) feels wonderfully good, albeit still unreal… 

But it’s starting to feel more and more real — to the extent that I’m beginning to think about some of my close friends whom I haven’t seen or heard from in months, who don’t know about these latest developments and decisions in my personal life… who might see a very different “me”, a person who possibly will look very different in a few months’ time… And if I do get on HRT, I might even end up sounding different…

Part of me is still in disbelief, while part of me is starting to soak in these new possibilities, the new images of me more aligned on the outside to how I feel on the inside… 

Tomorrow, after weeks of waiting, I’ll finally talk to the endocrinologist about HRT… so tomorrow I might already make a decision on that front, too… and even if not, I’ll anyway have more information to go on and make my decision when I’m ready… I’m so excited!

For now, for tonight, I’m going to revel in the new image of me with a boy’s chest at last… 

Today and tomorrow I have some very important things coming up for me, both because of deadlines for my textbook and because of gender-affirming medical appointments: intake call on top surgery today and endocrinologist visit to discuss HRT tomorrow! 

But also, or already, yesterday evening something really important happened for me: I came out more fully, actually discussing my recent thoughts and feelings on gender-affirming medical procedures with a very heteronormative couple — and it felt really good! 

They’re not just any random pair of strangers, of course. He’s one of my new but already closest climbing buddies here in Colorado — he’s the guy to whom a couple months ago I said, “I feel like I’m a boy in a girl’s body and I’m a boy who likes boys”, and his spontaneous, supportive reply was, “There’s nothing wrong with that!” 

He & I are very similar in many ways. We hit it off as buddies or fraternal friends with instinctive camaraderie right from the first time we met (he actually gave me a ride, as a stranger, when my car engine got overheated in February and I was stuck in the canyon!). 

He moved here, like myself and many other people to whom I’m connecting here, mainly for the climbing and outdoorsy lifestyle; and now his girlfriend has joined him here. They are very open-minded, progressive, and kind but also, by their own admission, quite “heteronormative”. 

Yesterday evening I was over at their new place for dinner and we were catching up on a lot and I was feeling safe and comfortable about all my gender thoughts; so I didn’t refrain from letting the topic slip into the conversation if/when appropriate, just as I did when climbing with the four guys last weekend. [This courage and feeling comfortable/confident talking about “queerness” more openly is something very new and even a little scary to me.]

At one point last night, I mentioned that in a week I’ll be getting my first tattoo — so they asked about that and when I said it will be on my left shoulder-blade, my climbing buddy said half joking, “Oh, so from now on you’ll be climbing with a bare back to show your tattoo?!?” To which I replied: “Of course, and I might even do something that allows me to climb bare-chested…” — but then I let the conversation move on to another topic. 

Later yesterday evening, we were talking about skiing — another activity that this climbing buddy and I share, and he asked me whether I’d be getting the “Epic Pass” to ski regularly next winter. At that point, after a moment’s hesitation, I took the plunge. I started by instinctively replying very vaguely (albeit honestly), “Yes, if I can I’d like to get it…” But then holding the truth back felt uncomfortable or wrong, I felt like I wanted him to know why I might not be able to get the “Epic Pass” to go skiing regularly next winter, so I took a breath and said it: “I might be getting surgery sometime between the end of next fall and the beginning of winter, and if I do, it will require a few months recovery so I don’t know if I’ll be able to ski much next season”. I didn’t mention “top surgery” explicitly but they both got it immediately and their reaction was wonderful: they didn’t push or pry but were genuinely interested in my feelings and process; they asked me how long the recovery would take, asked me whether I will be getting on hormones first, shared some info they had from another friend of theirs who’s trans-masculine and been on testosterone for a while, and made sure I’m getting all the support I need and talking to people who have already done this and/or are in the process of doing it. There was genuine interest and care on their part and not a trace of judgement or prejudice. And then even a very funny moment when talking about HRT my climbing buddy suddenly said, “Oh man, you’ll get so strong and climb so much better than me!” — that was hilarious but also flattering in some way. And it also gave me food for thought as I realized that being an even stronger athlete, and in particular even stronger climber, is one big motivation for my desire to get on “T” (= testosterone). 

Sharing my feelings, my thought process, my plans and doubts with this “non-queer” pair was liberating, comforting, affirming, fun, and also very instructive for me. Instructive because, as I also told them last night, I haven’t made up my mind at all, yet; I’m still debating whether I want to do anything medical and if so, what and when and how or to what extent. And telling them openly that I’m still in the initial phase of gathering information, talking to specialists and people in the community, thinking about it but also still full of questions and doubts myself, and explaining or describing some of those doubts explicitly to them, helped me understand my own feelings and desires and doubts or fears better. 

So for me that was quite a new and powerful way of coming out last night!