The Gender Tag

Ashley Wylde's Gender Tag and the bagillions of video responses that came of it have inspired me, this morning, to return after months of very deep and profound gender exploration to return to a more basic conversation. Perhaps it's a litmus test. I'm curious to enter into this conversation at a time when the world's awareness of trans people and experience seem to be expanding pretty rapidly.

Here are the questions.

1. How do you self-identify your gender, and what does that definition mean to you?

I identify as nonbinary, and I identify as transgender. What those things mean changes over time, and part of the reason those two labels have stuck with me is their versatility. It is difficult to be sure or exact about gender labels when you don't conform precisely - it's important for me to get out of my head, away from rumination about my feelings, and instead describe my experiences.

I had a strongly feminine- and girl-identified early childhood, had a more complex but still girl-identified adolescence, and have had moments of very strong identification with certain types of masculinity and manhood since coming out two years ago. I have had seasons where "genderfluid" would have been the right description; I have had seasons where "trans man" might have been the right description; I have had and am currently returning to a season where "bigender" seems to make sense; I described myself as "genderqueer" for a long time. I can play semantic games all day and waste a million words on the exact connotations of various terms... But they all remain descriptions, and the simple truth that my gendered life has been neither solely male nor exactly female (nonbinary) and that I was assigned a different gendered identity than I identify with (transgender) are denotatively precise in a way that others might not be.

I have gravitated away from the word "genderqueer" lately because it seemed more like a description of society's interaction with me than my interaction with society. Yes, I am queer, and yes, my identified gender is queer, but my social experience is currently more defined (whether correctly or not) by people's incorrect perception of me as not queer than as specifically queer. I have several friends and partners that have a different experience: they get gendered differently by different people, their genders confuse people, they seem ambiguous, they carry marked traits. I feel a greater need to fight for others' perception of me as queer. For some reason, the word "genderqueer" seems more like a description that can be answered "yes" or "no" from observation, and "nonbinary" doesn't seem like an identity people can deny me. 

I find strength in asserting that whatever incorrect, oversimplified things people get themselves to believe about me (that I'm a binary trans man or that I'm a cis straight girl or that I'm some chivalrous dykey lesbian or whatever), I remain an integrated person not confined to any of the binaries assumed of me. It feels like empowerment, rather than something other people can deny me. You may not experience my gender as queer, but I can tell you that for sure I am not binary.

2. What pronouns honor you?

The word "honor" is fascinating. It implies intentionality and respect and visibility and courtesy, the negation of which is almost assumed by me of the broader world. 

They/them honors me very much. I feel less specifically uncomfortable with he/him than with she/her, because I get read so exclusively as female that I figure anyone calling me by male pronouns must understand the mixedness of my identity and presentation. But "they/them" feels to me like people have stopped trying to box me in and have simply accepted me for who and what I am. It feels like barriers have been torn down. When people use my pronouns, I feel equipped to work, to play, to teach, to collaborate, to think clearly without constant reference to gender. 

I am able to be a full and functioning member of a group only when people use those pronouns. Otherwise, I inevitably end up feeling like a perpetual visitor. Which, as you might imagine, makes for an awkward way to be part of family or part of groups that assume that everyone feels warm fuzzy belonging. They don't notice the exclusivity they radiate at my face every time they assume something gendered of me, the most frequent reminder of which is obviously pronouns.

3. Describe the style of clothing that you most often wear.

I wear a lot of button-downs and tailored men's pants. I'm still working out my style - there are so many things I would love to wear but that I can't because dysphoria is a very real barrier. I would love to wear sundresses the way I did as a little kid. I would love to wear the soft, thin, heather cotton men's henley T-shirts I pet and covet every time I walk into a department store but never try on. I would love to wear thinner and smaller clothing in general, because baggy clothes make me feel gross and sluggish... But it's really hard to pull off "form-fitting" when you don't have a form you'd like anything to fit. But I'm working on it.

I love earth tones and soft colors - navy blues and burnt rusty red colors and warm browns and charcoaly grey patterns. I've always loved dark grey things with slightly lighter grey patterns on them. Things that feel clean and fresh without compromising their welcoming softness are very attractive to me. My dad gave me an old, beat-up watch of his that's got a worn brown band and a dull green/tan face, and I just love how it makes me feel. Like I need to hide it or someone's going to notice and tell me I'm not allowed to feel so lovely. 

My aesthetic sense of color and design, for my clothes as well as my physical space, is what feels most masculine about me. But more about that in a bit.

4. Talk about your choices with body hair. How do you style your hair? 5. Do you have facial hair? What do you choose to shave, or choose not to shave?

I experienced some peer pressure as a preteen to pluck my eyebrows and shave my legs, so I did that for my adolescence, but stopped during my "lesbian" phase as part of my effort to rid myself of the bullshit patriarchal instincts I was taught as a young person. I never looked back about my leg hair - it feels like the innocence of girlhood and the warmth of manhood all at once. I still shave my armpits sometimes - I didn't like when that grew in at puberty at all, and some of that lingers - and like to keep my pubic hair trimmed. I'm nervous about facial hair because it's so high-maintenance and I love the feeling of two peach fuzz cheeks brushing against each other, but I am so extremely excited for the way facial hair will look on me when I'm able to grow it. I imagine I will keep it as short as I can without it feeling prickly or stubble-ish.

6. Talk about cosmetics. Do you choose to wear makeup? Do you paint your nails? What types of soaps and perfumes do you use if any?

I fasted from makeup when I fasted from shaving a couple years ago, and that was really important. I spent my entire adolescence, from 12-19, obsessively spending an hour or more on makeup every single morning. I was so insecure about acne and I so hated how innocent and pure I looked without eyeliner that it was an absolute necessity for me to be made up before I could go anywhere outside my house. I wore black nail polish for a little bit as an androgynous social statement as a teen, but I only paint my nails now as a statement of rebellion against transmasculine gender norms.

As for soaps and perfumes: the introduction of masculine-scented shampoo, deodorant, and body spray into my life has been unexpectedly wonderful. When I get upset or dysphoric, those smells help calm me down and get back into my body. I tend to like just enough muskiness for it to feel more masculine than neutral, but not enough that I smell dudebroish or like an old man.

7. Have you experienced being misgendered? If so, how often?

I'm misgendered constantly, every day, but almost exclusively as a girl. I wouldn't mind so much if it were more or less even, but it's not. I like getting called "sir" in martial arts and don't feel misgendered by that despite it being binary. I like getting called "he"/"boy"/"boyfriend" just as a break from reality by one couple I and my partner know even though those things don't remotely describe me. The rest of my life is overwhelmingly "that nice woman over there" or "hello ladies" or "she" or "her" or "girls."

8. Do you experience dysphoria? How does that affect you?

Yes. I didn't use to - or, well, I didn't use to think I did. I hid it from my conscious mind pretty well as a teen, but I've felt dysphoria since puberty started, and its appearance in my life caused me to quit a lot of activities (dance, gymnastics, ice skating, swimming) that I loved. I always felt discomfort and insecurity around my body, but it was pretty well-managed. As I've become more integrated with my body through sex, kink, and exercise, it's become more and more difficult to tolerate things that feel very concretely wrong. Especially since I've started actively moving toward surgery, it's like I've sufficiently anticipated the ways in which my body will feel better that its persistent wrongness is purely unacceptable to me.

Specifically, my midsection and my chest are frequently debilitating to me. They aren't always, and I work hard to get my body to cooperate with me, but at times it'll flare up to such an extent that I'm unable to fall asleep or lay on my stomach or even roll over without crippling anxiety consuming me. I've actively avoided exercise at times for no reason other than it putting me in touch with my body, reminding me that there are random globs of flesh on me that feel wrong and awful. I have slightly less but still present dysphoria over my actual pelvic structure (which, unfortunately, does not change on T and can't be fixed by surgery), the muscles in my shoulders, and feminine fat deposits on my upper thighs. The above types of dysphoria can sometimes be bad enough that I can do very little other than curl up in some position, stay very very still, and cry until it goes away. I try to avoid it at all costs, because it's simply awful.

I have almost no bottom dysphoria and I am thankful for that constantly. I am very afraid that that will change at some point, because I really like all of my bits. I would like more length in the piece of tissue that I don't particularly love referring to as either a clit or a dick, but I don't feel dysphoric about that right now and am simply stoked for the growth T promises.

I've had less frequent dysphoria over voice pitch and inflection, height, my smile, posture, and other little things that manifest more as confusion or dissociation than distress or anxiety. Dysphoria in general can show up as either sorts. I kind of sometimes prefer the confusion/dissociation type, even though the latter sort is more embodied and feels more authentic, simply because it's less painful.

9. Talk about children. Are you interested in having children? Would you want to carry a child if that were an option for you? Do you want to be the primary caretaker for any children you may have?

I would love to have children. Since I came out as "lesbian," I've figured I'd adopt and been excited about that. I am pretty unconvinced that the world needs more children in it, especially when so many already need homes and stable families. I actively hate the idea of being a pregnant woman, too, so that put pregnancy out of the picture for me. But since opening the possibility of being a pregnant man, I've been more into the idea of perhaps carrying a child. I imagine that that would be less dysphoric and might actually be pretty wonderful and liberating. 

My perfect world involves more than two adults in my children's lives, all of which are parent-like figures and none of which occupy normative roles for "mom" or "dad." It might be cool and convenient to co-parent with (a) romantic and/or sexual partner(s), but those ideas seem unrelated to me. I definitely don't want to be a stay-at-home parent, but I definitely don't want to be a "provider" in the classical sense. I want to radically destroy those things as gendered categories.

10. Talk about money. Is it important to you to provide for a family financially if you choose to have one? Is it important to you that you earn more than any partner you may have? Do you prefer to pay for things like dates? Are you uncomfortable when others pay for you or offer to pay for you?

I hate money and I hate that it's gendered. The partner with whom I currently spend most of my time is much more financially established and lucrative than I am, and it is easy enough for me to vicariously perform her utilitarian calculus that I don't feel guilty letting her buy everything for me anymore. But I definitely prefer more egalitarian money solutions, and look forward to the day when I and all my partners can buy things for each other or pay bills in a way that makes money as much of a non-issue as humanly possible.

11. Anything else you want to share about your experience with gender?

Liberation... It is precious and beautiful and I have felt it. My experience of gender seems so real, but so detached from society at large. Because I and so many of my loved ones are trans/GNC/nonbinary, I have gotten used to my life being subversive of gendered scripts and norms. I feel like an ambassador or tourist or tour guide when I have to interact with people that adhere to them. It is something of a life goal of mine to infect as many people as possible with the knowledge that this way of life is possible for them... I cannot imagine how much less alive I would be if I weren't living with the self-knowledge I have gained.

Trans Singer Template

The director gave me a smile and pointed with her head over to the tenor side of the line I straddle, indicating that I should sing with them. She had decided to put all the altos on descant, and caught my eye just as this was going into effect. Glancing over the notes, a good quarter of them were below a D3. Not that I could hit those notes, but it felt pretty comfortable to pretend. Some days it feels great to soar around in my whistle register just because that's what my voice is able to do... but some days it catches up with me, that feeling of strangeness and disorientation that tells me something's very off. Hey, if she's gonna actually put me on the tenor part, I'm going to take her up on it. I sneak over in that direction in secret all the time anyways.

It's not the first time she's forgotten that I don't have the same range as Jess. Jess has been around for two decades and has put a lot of work into her voice in that time, but she tends not to jump up to the soprano register - she was once a bass. Perhaps it just gets lost on our poor overbusy director that FTM and MTF spectrum people have entirely different places they're coming from, vocally. It feels strange to be plunked in the same third-gender box as a trans woman, but if I've gotta be in a box, at least it's a better one to take than the conventional two.

I'd Rather Be On The Risers

"Chamber women on the floor, chamber men on the risers."

Sometimes I sing with the women, sometimes I sing with the men. When they're separate pieces, I sing both. Caught in awkward hesitation, I catch the eye of a fiercely lovely fellow Alto 2, one of the epic femmes that love the shit out of their lower registers. She gives me a sympathetic smirk, and I shrug, moving not a muscle as the "men" regroup around me and the "women" shuffle off. It ended up being one of the songs that I sing with the women. So I wormed myself back out again.

Huffing something about the stupidity of the gender binary, I slip back into my "woman" spot in front of the extremely bi girl that frequently plays with my hair for the entirety of rehearsal and flirts like mad. She gives a little laugh and - I dunno, squeezes my arm or something. Someone validated me. We sang awhile, I joined the men. The "men." I didn't know where to stand, again, and a half-closeted trans girl in the baritone section pulled me up next to her with a smile. Oh, how freeing it is to sing next to other queer folk.

 It's weird feeling so heard - that everyone seems to understand that the binary is unnecessary and doesn't work - and yet nothing changes. Everyone understands why the status quo exists, so the status quo remains. And I'm pacified by the fact that I'm not being traumatized by the vicious transphobia and heteronormativity suffocating me with every turn, so I don't fight it either. It's better not to fight. I don't like to fight. Especially in choir. Especially in my own family.

A few days ago I had to leave rehearsal for upwards of twenty minutes to compose myself after becoming simply overloaded by the dysphoria. There are all these unnecessary gender-related thoughts: your voice is so high, you sound like all the other girls. Do you think you can sneak over for just this part? Will anyone notice if you take a break to sing with the tenors? Your tone isn't blending, you make such a pathetic little guy! Insert random internalized sexist feeling! No, Adriaan, common, focus on the music. Shit, that means I have to choose a part. Will anyone notice if I stop singing entirely? I could just mouth the words. God, this is stupid. Breathe, Adriaan. Just sing. Ah - Nope. Nope nope nope. It'll be okay, no one will notice, I'll only be gone for a moment...  

I just didn't want to think about it. I wanted to tell my brain to shut up and sing, but - well, sometimes that works, and sometimes it just doesn't. When it doesn't, I flee the binary choir for the binary restroom, where at least a door locks and I can be alone. The irony doesn't escape me for a minute. Even conventional safe spaces are overcomplicated.

The hope is live in me that choir could be the only necessary safe space. I long to someday make it one.

Gender - Like, Gender Identity

On the first day of my stats class, there was maybe half an hour of lecture before we took turns introducing ourselves: name, year, major, something interesting about yourself. At the end of my list of facts, I added a note about my pronouns and said that it'd be great if the class could please use them to refer to me. My professor nodded enthusiastically and said "Oh - yeah, uh huh." People continued introducing themselves and then she went back to the lecture: explaining how to study different types of variables.

Peculiarly, "gender" was suddenly no longer simply gender when she was looking for some stock dependent variable. This time, it was "gender identity, like how people identify, like within the binary, and also, well, otherwise, because, you know, things aren't that simple anymore, but people thought it was binary, so sometimes we treat it that way in this class, because traditionally gender was just male and female - so...yeah. Gender identity." It was hard to keep my laugh. She was so sincere. Awkward, but also beautiful in a weird way. It's a sigh of relief when people at least try.

She messed up my pronouns twice the first week, but the second time she seemed really apologetic and backtracked. She hasn't used any pronouns for me since - she manages to avoid to. I can respect that.

A couple days ago, she used the masculine pronoun to refer to a peer of mine, but then backtracked and covered up the pronoun with something more generic, the way she seemed to have done for me when she's needed to use pronouns. The person in question is someone I'd read pretty strongly as the Token Urban White Cis Gay Guy That Actually Is Socially Progressive Like For Real Despite His Homonormativity. He'd even brought up transgender suicide rates as an example of a social problem with a large dark figure, so obvs big brownie points with the genderfuck kid in the room, and in other classes I've had with him he's seemed uniformly intelligent, well-informed, and passionate about liberal politics. He really didn't seem nonbinary to me, but then I don't either. I checked myself and bookmarked it, telling myself I could ask about it later.

We were standing around the literal water cooler the next day at break, and I mentioned the professor's hesitation. "Nah," he says, "I kind of wondered about that too. I definitely identify as 100% male, but like, go inclusivity, I guess?"

I distributed a survey for this same class that gave five options for gender: cis/trans female/male and nonbinary. Four responses were nonbinary, something exciting to me. I know who two are and have strong suspicions for one more - they sit behind me in class and queercode as clearly as they possibly could, but haven't said anything explicit about being queer - but I'm enjoying the process of entertaining whether the other queermo's another classmate in hiding.

Things have been weird in general in that class, perhaps compounded by the professor's obvious apologetic benevolence. The data sets we've been running tests on for practice just so happen to be from weird ultra-conservative populations, 57% of whom believe "homosexuality" is "always wrong" and 7% of whom believe it is "always right." She discussed this in detail, though she prefaced her explanations with a disclaimer that these results obviously did not reflect her views, but skipped over the data set showing a correlation between homeownership and race. This seemed to be because she felt that it might be uncomfortable, or exclusive, or triggering, or something, to recognize verbally that black people are less likely to be homeowners than white people... Simply strange, given that black people's comparatively low rates of homeownership is the factual systematic output of discrimination, while homophobia is itself raw discrimination. What would it be like to study a question that yielded a 57% "always wrong" response to a question that inquired into the right of black Americans to own homes at all?

Whelp. Whatever. I really can't blame her, at least she's really trying.

There was a kid in that class - one I've read as Genuinely Progressive Cis Gay Guy Number Two - that used my pronoun last week in a totally normal context, without hesitation or correction or any reference to gender whatsoever. He has no idea how rare that is and how disorienting it was to actively feel included in such a cis-dominant space (read: public).

To him: thank you. I kind of hope you're not the other nonbinary person, because I love to think that there are more cis people like you out there learning to grow.

The Woman I Wish I Could Be

This was a comment on this video regarding fleeting reflections about detransitioning.  

I'm almost two years into (nonbinary) social transition, though I'm planning on T/top surgery within the year. Still dealing with family, still passing exclusively as a (mostly "pretty"/straight) girl in public. I and my friends/partners are good about seeing past that, but there are moments - days, even - where I look in the mirror and am pleasantly surprised to see the attractive young woman everyone else sees right there. Staring back at me. Like she's been here all along. 

Especially being the huge gynephile that I am, I can't help but think to myself, "Common, Adriaan! Why would you give this up? Have you even totally realized that you could BE that person? She's so pretty. And strong. And genuine. And feminist. That girl is the same person that's done all of this personal growth and liberation and stuff you've been doing since you came out. Think how much cooler it would be for a girl to be the beneficiary of all this work you've put into yourself. That's within your reach, it's your birthright, you're 100% free to do it, you're liberated and beautiful now... Okay, it'd be hard, but you're powerful enough to handle it. Dysphoria's just another problem, you're totally tough enough to suck it up and deal with it. Lots of women have body issues. Oh my god, this must be what all the girls in my life feel when they hit feminism! I could do that, I could be like them! 

"Plus, think about it, it'd take a lot less time & money & bullshit than this whole transition thing. No freaking out your family, no more financial anxiety, you could use your transition fund on grad school, or paying for your own apartment... That makes a lot of economical sense. Is this what it feels like to be a cis person? That's a great idea, no wonder so many people are cis. Eureka! Adriaan, why haven't you considered this before? You could totally pull it off!"

...But after x amount of time getting high on excitement, I realize how hilariously dissociated that whole thought process is, how unsustainable it is to live off of transphobic internal pep talks. I can't be someone I'm not. I can lose myself in the fantasy of this woman I wish I were as much as the rest of the world seems to, but it feels like some kind of ridiculous imagination game, this 24/7 real-life RPG thing. I can't help that I'm ... just me.

And the person I ACTUALLY AM - really, truly, authentically - has gotta be more beautiful than any fantasy. 

Do You Climb Trees?

Sitting at a table outside a sandwich shop, hands tucked between my legs, legs crossed on another metal chair across from me. I was waiting for Jess to grab some dinner, and so watching the crowd for her face. I love people watching on sunny days on the Hill. It's like all the weird seeps out of the cracks and we're all more able to realize that normal is weird and weird is normal here. What is weird? What is normal?

A cluster of people came down the sidewalk that day: two femme-ish woman-ish looking people with a stroller (lesbians?) and another person tagging along behind them (poly family? friends?).

They had shoulder-length muddy brownish hair pulled up into some kind of messy half-ponytail. Blue jeans, rolled up to the ankles, well-worn, grass stains. Bare, dirty feet. Light purple backpack. Worn over a grey T-shirt with some kind of eco-something print on it. Piercing blue eyes. They surveyed me - at that time in all-black concert attire, a vest and collared shirt - and made eye contact again. A smile escaped me. They grinned back.

The group passed, and I allowed myself a laugh. I was so drawn to them. Not sexually - there was just something about them. Should I look back? Nah, that'd be awkward. Oh, common. It's been long enough. They're going to be out of sight soon. I looked back and was met with a reciprocal smirk and probably two full seconds of eye contact. They kind of skip-tripped trying to walk while looking backward. I laughed out loud, hugged myself, and giggled. I love people watching on sunny days on the Hill.

A couple minutes passed, and I heard steps behind me. Bluejeans stepped out in front of me and in this strange gutsy-nervous way, said, simply, "Hey, I have to meet you."

"Yeah, absolutely! Adriaan. You?" I offered my hand and they shook it warmly.

They returned with their name. "Do you climb trees?"

"........Yeah! I haven't found any around here. Do you - I mean, have you found a good one in the park or something?"

"Common, I'll show you."

It was a big tree with knots up the trunk for about ten feet before the first big branches. "How do you get up there?" I spoke with the awe and adventure of a kid. Like they were going to teach me how to go to a magic world. I remember when I used to take other kids into the woods and show them magic worlds you had to be really good to climb into. A decade or so might have passed since.

"You just - these knots are pretty good for - and then you just - " they scampered up the trunk and grabbed onto the huge branch - a foot and a half in diameter, maybe - with both hands, wrapping their legs around it sloth-style and pulling themself up with just upper body strength. I was taking off my concert shoes and fancy socks, leaving them in a pile with my vest on a nice patch of grass at the base of the tree.

"What? How do you... Huh." I was having some trouble getting up.

"Yeah, testosterone helped."

"I just can't - ugh." I dropped back to the ground.

"Need a hand?"

"Nah, I think I got - " dropped again. "I swear, it's been years since I haven't been able to get into a tree."

"It's alright. I mean if..."

"No, I'm gonna - " I managed to grab hold of the stump of a thinner branch that'd been broken off and found a well of adrenaline somewhere in me to keep from letting go as I slipped, hanging by just my hands from the branch. After a few seconds of struggling, I finally pulled myself up, grinning to myself.

"Yeah, I bet T helped. How long've you been?"

"Two years."

"I'm supposed to have my appointment in... 26 days?"

"Nice, congrats."

"Family, though. I'm gonna have to postpone a little."

"Yeah, my parents freaked out for awhile. They love me, though. They're conservative Christians and all, but they love me, and things are okay now. I see them every few weeks."

"That's not bad. Where'd you grow up?"

We talked about where we're from, about our parents, about our majors and where we're going to school. I talked about choir, they talked about anthropology. They dropped down for a few seconds to retrieve a blue and green blown glass pipe from the purple backpack and packed some pot into it.

"Woah, your foot's bleeding," they said. I'd noticed, but there wasn't much to do about it. "I don't think I have anything in here to help with that, sorry."

"That's fine. Yeah, my hand is, too, but I'll be okay." They pulled themself back on top of the branch and pulled the little pipe out of their pocket, handing it to me with a lighter.


"Sure." My hands were still shaking from the adrenaline. "Wind doesn't help."

"Here - " I got it lit, passed it to them.

"I've gotten stupider since I started smoking."

"Yeah?"

"I dunno why. I guess it's dependency, not addiction, but... yeah. I don't know why I keep it."

"Mm. People talk a lot about addiction. Even if that doesn't exist chemically, it makes sense that it'd do something to you."

"Yeah."

"You said you're graduating this year?"

"Yeah, had a job lined up, but turns out it's only for students, so it's not going to work out."

"That sucks. I don't know exactly where I'm headed, either, but I'm getting there. You seem like you'd be more at home in environmental studies than in anthro, to be honest."

"Probably. I only discovered it recently. At least I have the minor."

The wind was still whipping through the leaves above me. I always used to have the best conversations with childhood friends in the tree I grew up in. There's something communal about climbing trees, something conversational about the way the breeze moves through them.

"I love how big this tree is. I bet people sleep up here."

"Yeah, probably. It's a good tree."

"You hungry? I probably need to go meet up with Jess at some point."

"Oh yeah. Forgot about that."

"Wanna come with me, meet her?"

"I should go catch up with my friends."

"Alright. Let's see if I can get down from here."

I managed with surprising elegance. Gravity makes it much easier getting down than up, even with a bleeding foot. "Ha."

"You have a phone number to give me?"

"Facebook's easier - my phone's bust. But here, I'll put my info into yours."

"Alright, Adriaan."

"I'll see you soon."

They showed up at the concert I was singing in the next day. I don't know if they knew other people in the choir, but they didn't stay to talk to anyone else. I went up to greet them and to introduce them to Jess, and the first thing she did was to give them a big hug, as she does. They said they'd met her before, and that she was a fairy. Perhaps they'd confused her for someone else, but I love to imagine that she is one. Someone had suggested about them after hearing my story that they'd been an angel. I like that we can seem otherworldly to each other. I love that we can discover otherworldliness right here.

The Counteralto

Walking up to the risers, I noticed that one of the tenors I usually stand next to is way further over into the alto section than usual. As cautious as I am about straddling the line between altos and tenors, I put a daily effort toward making sure I'm right in between the two sections.

Don't want to confuse anyone. Don't want to throw anyone off of their part. Just want to sing. I just want to sing. Deep breath. Lose yourself in the music. Let it all float away.

I danced around him awkwardly trying to figure out which side to stand on. Look, if he's trying to be on the alto side, I'm not exactly going to fight him over pushing me closer to the middle of the tenor section. It's kind of absurd the way my brain maps things, but simple physical proximity feels like a simple pleasure, a victory. Not because I particularly love the tenors, or because I dislike the altos. It just makes me feel less self-conscious.

People often start in the wrong section for social reasons - they're talking and laughing with a friend or another. At least it seems to be for social reasons. It seemed that way today.

Until I heard him warming up with the altos, an octave up from my tenor. Side by side, eyes forward, hands to our sides. We must both have heard the other. I guess he wouldn't've been surprised to hear me in the range he was assigned, but I could not help but let a wave of joy and community move through my body. But I kept my eyes on the conductor, held tight to the smile forcing its way to my lips. The lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue, the lips, the teeth, the tip...

I'm really skeptical about the fact that so many queerish people seem to gravitate around the alto-tenor divide. Confirmation bias? Maybe. A desire to fabricate for myself community? Maybe. A conflation of sex and gender? Sigh, I don't know. I've always admired this guy's energy: youthful, bright, energetic, proud, something slightly spunky and femme I might call tomboyish if it weren't for his assignment. I was so jealous that one day when the sopranos just could not figure out how to soar up to their high G and he popped up there to show them how shit's done. Maybe that wasn't jealousy. It was some kind of longing. Some kind of pride. Some kind of solidarity. Some kind of wish that I didn't feel the energy in the room that suggested more than a few had been startled by his unironic willingness to sing their note.

I have to wonder how he'd feel about singing it more often.

Blue Box, Pink Box

It's time to distribute envelopes full of tickets to the choir talent show all students are responsible for selling. Section by section is called out to sign off on them: each member has their own bunch, sorted by name into one of two boxes.

I approach them and try to figure out which to reach into.

"How are they...?" I ask of the tenor handing me a clipboard from behind the table.

".....They're binary," he says though a bit of a grimace. I smile at his reluctance and apology, reaching for the pink box.

"Actually, the... here, the blue one."

"....I thought you said it was binary?

"Yeah, but blue is the women, pink is the men."

I laugh. "Common, if you're going to make things arbitrarily binary, at least do it right," I quip sarcastically. Part of it is that there's something validating about being able to joke with cis people about gender. But something in me is actually thrown off for a second - I'm so used to guarding myself that I'm actually surprised to see something out of place.

He seemed to pick up on that, because he remarked, slightly taken aback in the same half-joking tone, "Adriaan, pink isn't a girl color, blue isn't a boy color."

"A- ah." I giggle. There's something even more validating than sarcastic jokes about cis people telling you off on your  cisnormative expectations.

"Rachelanne did the sorting. She's been doing it that way for years."

"Yeah," an alto pipes up, "I think she just wants to fuck with the system. No reason for it to be that way, right?"

The tenor smiles. "I like pink, anyways."

I sign off on my tickets. "Fuck yeah."

I Have A Name, Should I Use It?

Prompt: Facebook asked about a situation in which someone had identified a name that felt like the person they were becoming, but were not quite yet. There was fear over legal name changes, social name changes, their permanence, the general insecurity around changing the external label of your personhood.

There was a name - Adriaan - that immediately came to mind the first time I put myself in drag makeup. He did not feel like a person I could be "full-time" for about a year after that first experience. It's like I knew very concretely who that person that was - it was something of a revelation, tbh - but it didn't feel real yet. At that point, I still felt like Marie, this identity I'd constructed very painstakingly/intentionally as my assigned gender. But after a month or two I just couldn't stay away from this thing I'd found and came out as genderqueer. I used a different name, Emory, for the first (very fluid) 9-ish months after that, but it didn't stick, plus I was becoming more and more like the "Adriaan" I'd seen in the mirror. And then one day things kind of just clicked into place and I'd grown out of Marie. I have no doubt in my mind that this is the right name for me, now - it clicks so well. I'll have used this name for a year come May.

I'd definitely recommend that you try it out for a few months or a year, use it as though it were your only name (except for legal stuff, of course), and see if it fits. But it's really tricky to project this vision of Future You, this person you dream of becoming, onto the proto-Future You person you still are. Just let yourself become. You'll likely decide about names as a product of that process.

Monosexuality

Am I monosexual? Does monosexuality exist? Can we be nonbinary and still only attracted to one gender? (Sigh. You wouldn't think these questions would be necessary, but they feel so necessary.) This was the prompt. I posted this as a comment on Facebook.

I would say yes, with some qualification. Bear with me.

I've spent a lot of time queer theorying my life, trying to dismantle monosexist/heteronormative/homonormative/cissexist/(trans)misogynistic ideas. I've also had a long history of Gay Problem: "do I want to be that or fuck that?" In middle school, before I knew I was allowed to be attracted to girls, I couldn't figure out why I was staring at them all the time, so I figured I must either be "creepy" or jealous. I spent the next few years discovering an almost exclusive sexual attraction to women, but aesthetically I still thought some guys were very pretty - although I usually had to frame them in those feminine terms. In college I tried to call myself gay because of that, but later I figured it was stupid to group people arbitrarily into two groups like that, especially if I were still experiencing fleeting attractions to people in the "wrong" group. So I letting myself consider male-bodied people (often transfeminine, always very feminist) and female-bodied people that weren't "my type" attractive to me in their own ways... Because just conceptually, I despise the idea of deciding you have one type and everyone else is sexless. Just seems so black and white!

The past year or so, though I've ended up in quite a number of very confusing sexual situations with people I'm not into "like that" - this deep random panging longing that people I'm fucking had boobs or hips or were smaller or whatever, guilt that I feel the need to relate to their bodies as though they were just differently-proportioned female bodies, guilt that everything I find most attractive about them seems to be their most feminine traits. Put on top of that the fact that I have literally no idea what to do with dicks until I'm big spoon and giving a hand job, such that I'm touching it as though it were my own.... Ugh.

Guilty sex is stupid, so I've slowly been trying to come to terms with my extremely pronounced, uncomplicated, boringly monosexual attraction to femininity and women. While still in three relationships with a cis man, MAAB enby, and cis woman of not-my-type, respectively (in addition to one relationship with a post-op trans woman who actually is). Trying to figure out how my apparent monosexuality relates to my strong panromantic-queerplatonic tendencies. Trying to figure out to what extent random, impulsive, fleeting, confusing (though often impassioned) desires to be sexual with the people I'm in these queerplatonic-romantic relationships with is a desire to smash the binary, or feel homoerotic tension, and to what extent it's authentic. Oh, and of course now I'm staring at every well-groomed long haired man that passes me on the street with the same longing/jealousy/Gay-Problem-whaaat with which I used to stare at girls.

tl;dr - nothing about me or my life seems like it'd be conducive to monosexuality but it seems to be a thing

The Female Tenor

She's short and ginger and strong in a way I think only femmes can be. Her clothes flatter her body as it is - she doesn't seem to wear things that coax it into a box. I admire that. I envy that. I envy her beauty and confidence and freedom. Purple lipstick if she feels like it, epic patterned tights, high-waisted skirts, jean-on-jean-on-jean. Simply nothing to hide. Bubbly, approachable, starts every rehearsal in the middle of a clump of tenors or basses. Her laugh is light and infectious; her sarcasm is the kind of honest that forces me to smirk. We know each other as members of the same section, but I have this stupid instinct not to get too comfortable or friendly around any (especially cis) women I like.

The other day she mentioned to me off-hand that she's jealous that I get to sing part-time as both Alto and Tenor. She's always wanted to sing with the tenors. She would drop women's music for theirs in a heartbeat if she could. (Just like me.) And? I say. Why don't you? (I'd asked the same question of a different alto that said she wished she could wear a tux like the men at Christmastime.) She sighs and half-smiles and says that she asked our director, but she wouldn't let her. Can you hit the notes? Yeah. How low is your range? I've got a comfortable C or D. So, plenty low then. Mhmm. That's so awesome.

There was this awkward silence in which she just kind of smirked at me and I stared at her and I couldn't figure out if she was just really jealous, or if she felt bad for making me feel like she was co-opting my trans privileges or ... I don't know. I know that I was angry. That I felt her pain. Maybe more than she did. I wanted to yell that I understood. That I wish she could juggle the absurd mess of being in both unnecessarily-gendered groups with me. She's not the only one that would do it if given the chance. I know at least two or three other altos that would be way overexcited to develop their lower registers. They sound so great down there, when we all follow the basses down in a quiet hum during the "low warmups" that for some reason are just for them. So I guess I feel that with them. But I am so indignant that girls apparently have to be... well, not, that they have to be trans men, to get permission to inch toward loving their voices in their genderless entirety.

I love seeing my fellow altos laugh with glee when we belt out F3s like nobody's business and fill out chords as beautifully as any bass section could. I love seeing women feel powerful. It hurts me to stand outside of the gendered muck everyone seems to be bogged down by and see their power constrained by music often written to encourage "women's" parts to feel higher, or more feminine, or less meaty. Or anything but exactly what they are: voices. Voices that sing notes. That love to push their limits. On both ends of the spectrum.

I've heard many trans men say they feel like traitors, like they're leaving their people behind for privileges that would never have been afforded to them. It's not like this constitutes a concrete example - it's not like I've benefited at all from male privilege. But I'm extended a unique opportunity to sing where I'm comfortable singing just for being true to myself. And the gorgeous femme that stared back at me for those excruciating few seconds, in her mascara and epic crimpy hair and circle skirt, is tantamount to a role model to me for how to be true to myself. The feeling that my process of gender liberation would open any opportunities to me that "the other girls" don't have access to makes me....

......angry. I'm angry. I want gender liberation. I want the system to go fuck itself.

At the beginning of our next next rehearsal, she was laughing and talking with a group of men, again, and I smiled and stared at her hoping she wouldn't notice and feel weirded out. If she can do it, why can't I? If she can feel so at home in the middle of the basses - half a foot shorter than me and explicitly feminine - why do I feel such a compulsive need to scrutinize the precision with which I've landed exactly on the invisible line dividing the altos from the tenors?

Maybe one day I will fully learn from her that lesson.

Boob Garb

My new binder was cheap and didn't take well to two days of wear and a night of sleep. At least it made me feel less vulnerable with it on, but it'd lost any efficacy beyond that of a sports bra. I know you're not supposed to sleep in them, but this one had stretched out so much that it didn't seem to make a difference. I slept in a one-size-too-small underwire bra and bracami all throughout my teens - before became liberated in college, sleeping bare-chested like a good feminist! - so maybe my ribs remember the strain and don't get too bothered.

My bras were probably always a few sizes too small.

I have a vivid memory, somewhere in Target, about 6th grade, before I had gathered the courage to admit to myself that I really did need a real bra. There was a woman that passed me - or perhaps it was an ad on the wall. I only remember that, although the woman was pretty average-sized, I imagined to myself as though she were a drug addict that I would never let myself get trapped that deep, buying bigger and bigger bras like it was okay to let the infection spread. I was willing to let my body run wild for awhile, but I'd reign it in if it ever got that bad.

I didn't understand why she would wear that kind of shirt, either, one that flaunted the fact that she had breasts. It wasn't that she was immodest... I just couldn't help but wonder - why would she want to draw attention to something so awful? All the lines on her shirt drew attention to her waist, as though she wanted her breasts to look even bigger than they were. Things were bad enough for me already. We females had to deal with these burdens, I thought, but we certainly didn't have to publicize our flaws like we were proud of them.

From fourth until sixth grade, I owned only three thin white cotton training bras. They had no support and didn't do anything for shape, but I was too embarrassed to dare ask for something else. More than that, I had no idea what'd be worth asking for. I didn't want something padded - then I'd look bigger than I was, even if it'd have the plus of effectively hiding my changing nipples - and I didn't want underwire (who wants  to walk around with metal strapped to their chest?). I didn't want to think about it. Didn't want to talk about it. Didn't want the problem to exist. Knew it would inevitably continue to exist. Resigned myself to the struggle. I layered a second bra on top of the first when the need arose, and then added a third when I decided it still wasn't enough. That continued for a year until my mother noticed that there were no spares in my drawer and asked where the others were. She was rather aghast that this had been going on for so long and promptly got me new ones, but it was embarrassing and uncomfortable just to try them on. I refused to go with her to shop for them. 

Taking off that binder for my shower this morning, the chafing felt so similar to the sore marks made by the elastic on those three training bras stacked on top of each other. My 34B bras (my hard limit) and size "small" bracamis left the same angry red lines across my ribs. But whatever. It was better than the truth.

I used to fantasize about sex before going to bed, but especially as I've become sex-positive and developed sexual relationships, those dreams have lost some of their kick. Lately I dream about swimming alone in lillypad lakes with docks all around the shore, wearing nothing but a pair of swim trunks, feeling the morning sun against my bare chest and the water rushing past over my streamline hips as I dive into the water. Sometimes my dreams are about a surgeon drawing lines on my body to mark for expulsion all that excessive, confusing, cumbersome gunk on my body that had overstayed its welcome before it arrived. Sometimes it's a partner laying their hands on my chest and actually being able to move them across it.... being able to touch me normally.

I put the stretched-out binder back on when I'd finished my shower, but it wasn't enough. Just like puberty, when three training bras were "not enough," and my teens, when four layers also never felt enough. So I put another binder over it. It still wasn't there, but it was closer. It was close enough for today.