The Little Prince and the Fox

The broken chain & the rings that remain

Monday, almost a week ago, was a “Big Day”. A day of “one big beginning and one final ending”, I wrote then. But it turned out to be a day of two beginnings.

For almost half-a-dozen years I had been wearing a silver chain around my neck with two silver rings on it that are very meaningful and precious to me. I never took this chain off except when I had to for practical/safety reasons like surgeries or MRIs. Like my tattoos, this silver chain with the two silver rings had become part of me, part of my body even.

On Monday night, the chain broke in my sleep.

On Monday, I broke a chain. A chain of patterns that I had been repeating for years, for decades, with my behavior in specific types of relationships or situations. These behaviors served me well for many years, they even saved me several times. But they are serving me no longer: on the contrary, in more recent relationships or situations, these patterns have led to increased pain for me (& maybe also for the other persons involved).

The ‘chat for shared closure for our “winter fling” / “attempted friendship with benefits”’ ended up being more of a heart-to-heart clarification with repair and intention-setting for the future. Whether we’ll be able to have an actual friendship moving forward remains to be seen and will depend on both sides’ availability (& his efforts), but that would just be a bonus, the icing on the cake. What matters here is that I finally broke that chain, I finally stepped out of a pattern that wasn’t serving me anymore. I turned around and knocked on the door that I had slammed shut as I walked away from yet another painful disappointment. And fortunately, this time, I found someone who was available/willing to open that door again — or keep that door open — for me. Someone who sat and listened to me and took all the shit from me, and owned it, and apologized. And at the end said, “I still like you and I would still like to see you, if you’d like to”.

Realistically, we probably won’t hang out one-on-one again because he will likely not reach out and I’m done making that effort. It’s the end of this particular relationship, but a sweeter end than most of the ones I’ve had in the past. And it’s also a beginning: the start for me of a new way of handling break-ups or disappointing/painful relationships.

When my silver chain broke in my sleep last Monday night, I was able to find the rings, fortunately, and put them on a thin leather band that I’m now wearing around my neck.

It’s the rings I want to keep with/on me at all times, not that particular chain.

It’s the sweet, shared memories and the possibility of friendliness that I want to keep with the gender-expansive gay guy with whom I had hooked up, not the chain anchoring me in my anger towards him. And having shared my anger with him, too, I freed myself of it and can now lightly & gently hold onto those shared memories like little gems, like my precious silver rings.

My painful longing to find a way into “Boystown”

I’m visiting Chicago for the weekend. And this afternoon I spent a few hours exploring the streets of Boystown, Chicago’s official (& the nation’s oldest officially-recognized) “gay quarter”.

I probably should have gone on a different day — I hadn’t realized there was an event going on which led lots of people to visit this part of town to tour many of the venues tasting the food & drinks & vibes, so it was crowded and felt “touristy”.

Still, I was able to enjoy it to some extent and satisfy my curiosity at least partly. But, as I often do in similar places/occasions, I also felt sad and lonely. I see all these queer people, mostly gay men, and wish I were really one of them, integrated into a friends group of gay guys all going out together for fun. I see these groups of gay men out together and I long to be one of them and I feel the clear, sharp pain that I’m not.

When it comes to gay men, I’m still the outsider, and I’m afraid I always will be, and this is terribly painful for me.

Conscience, or vocational, crisis

I’m at a quantum workshop & recruiting event at the University of Chicago theoretically “chaperoning” two students whom the program that I manage is supporting.

But I’m doing a lousy job. Because I’m too upset.

First, the restroom incident this morning started off my day very badly — for the thousandth time at events like this one.

And then, this afternoon, some students protesting for Palestine’s freedom disrupted the event — and I found myself agreeing with the protesters and feeling that I couldn’t put up with the quantum event any more. But the disruption was only temporary, then things continued as if nothing had happened. And, what’s worse, people in our audience acted irritated towards the protesters, some folks even sniggering or complaining.

My job is, officially, to help “build the quantum workforce” and my advisor & I are trying to focus on schools that serve underprivileged populations and students from groups underrepresented in STEM. So, at least on paper, it’s a “good job”, I’m one of the “good guys”.

But am I really?

As I see all these professionals, as I sat there listening to the panelists, despite them having been chosen from groups underrepresented in STEM like BIPOC and women, what I really see is all of us — including the latino and female students I’m accompanying — trying to play by the rules, or get a piece of the cake, of the white cis men in power.

Are we really doing DE&I, are we really trying to make STEM & Quantum more diverse and equitable, or are we just trying to make more people buy into, or play by the rules of, a colonialist capitalistic exploitative power system?

Is it going to be sufficient to bring more women & BIPOC into these companies to change the way things work or are we only perpetuating this colonialist capitalistic oppressive power system in a different way?

Battle for pronouns & restroom equity at CQE (University of Chicago)

STEM events, even in “liberal” or “progressive” places like the University of Chicago, are still very lacking and behind when it comes to restrooms.

When I got to the event this morning, of course name tags had no pronouns on them and the only way to get one’s pronouns on the tag was to write them by hand.

And the only restrooms that were clearly marked with explicit signs were the women’s and men’s — until I complained and a sign was put up to indicate the location of a gender-neutral bathroom (hidden on the uppermost floor in the employee’s wing)…

United under the Rainbow

This is my first time flying with my new Colorado DL/REAL ID, going through TSA with an ‘M’ (instead of ‘X’ or, previously, ‘F’) on my ID.

And it’s been wonderful for now.

Not because of the ‘M’ — after all, I’ve been “sir’ed” and “man’ed” when traveling through airports for at least a couple years now, at least since my top-surgery.

It’s been wonderful because of the brief but heartwarming connections I’ve made with three people — three men of color.

I’m wearing my three Pride wristbands (rainbow, nonbinary colors, trans colors) and a short-sleeved T-shirt, so the wristbands are evident; my T-shirt has a big progress flag on its front, right on the chest; and I have a small progress flag sticker on the bag that I am carrying.

The Black man who helped me at the drop-off for checked luggage saw my wristbands. He didn’t say anything about them and I’m not sure the nonbinary and/or trans colors meant anything to him, but I could tell he registered the presence of my wristbands. He and his Hispanic colleague “sir’ed” and “man’ed” me, of course, but then they also joked with me in a very pleasant, relaxed way from which a sense of camaraderie transpired clearly.

A short while later, as my security interaction with the young Black TSA agent was ending and I headed towards screening, he smiled and said, “I like your shirt. I like that it also has the brown & black colors in the flag”.

Such a completely different experience from typical TSA checks. Instead of the usual nervousness or detachment, all at once I felt this wave of connection, brief but powerful and heartwarming: not only did I feel seen but also, and maybe foremost, I felt that I had extended my hand — figuratively, thanks to the progress flag on my T-shirt — to a fellow human and allowed him to feel more comfortable with me.

Big Day

Today’s a big day. I’m going into the city to go to the office where I can initiate the sex-change paperwork for my European IDs. And then I’m going to meet the gender-expansive gay guy for “shared closure of our ‘winter fling’ / ‘attempted friendship with benefits’”.

One big beginning and one final ending today.

I’m feeling nervous but also ready and eager to get this done.

“Feel it and be free”

“Feel it. The thing that you don’t want to feel. Feel it. And be free.”

[Nayyirah Waheed]

Our democracy is at risk and cannot be taken for granted

Plenty of other signs should have been telling us already for a while that with Donald Trump and his fascist, phobic oligarchy our democracy is seriously and realistically at risk. But if those weren’t clear enough, then the startling admission from GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski, “We are all afraid”, should really raise the alarm.

“

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the moderate Alaska Republican who has routinely broken with her party to criticize President Donald Trump, has made a startling admission about the reality of serving in public office at a time when an unbound leader in the Oval Office is bent on retribution against his political foes.

“We are all afraid,” Murkowski said, speaking at a conference in Anchorage on Monday. After pausing for about five seconds, she acknowledged: “It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. I’ll tell you, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”

“

[The Seattle Times article; The New York Times article]

Retribution against political foes, retaliation, and being anxious about using one’s own voice are not things that happen in a democracy: these are signs of an authoritarian regime. We’ve seen this happen elsewhere and we’ve seen this happen even in places that are considered the birthplace of democracy: just think of Europe in the first half of the 20th century, fascism, the Nazis, other dictatorships, and the two World Wars they caused.

People have fought (& died) for the democratic rights and liberties we have (had): we cannot take them for granted. The threat is real and we have to do something actively to stop the risk from becoming a hellish reality.