Year’s Ending

My life this past year was bad. The musician Moby has an album called “Everything is Wrong,” and that phrase just about sums up my experiences since late last summer. I took a high-stress job that is usually given to someone much, much older than me. I moved to a small-ish town where I knew no one, lived alone (a bad choice for someone as extroverted as me) into a too-nice apartment in a gated community (yuck) in an attempt to seem like a “real” adult. I continued to live almost entirely stealth and closeted as I had for years prior (making no friends), and then faced additional challenges as the year went on, such as being sexually harassed at work. My identity was also stolen two months after starting my job. My lack of friends in my personal life meant that I became emotionally “needy” at work – wanting desperately for people at work to be my friends, which did not happen. My health took a nosedive – I gained twenty pounds, was told that my cholesterol, blood pressure, and liver function were not good, and had other stress-induced physical problems, like a month-long flare-up of costochronditis and two infections. After being told that I never should have been hired and having someone slam a door in my face at work, alcohol started making a much more frequent appearance in my life (more than I’m comfortable drinking) as well as gambling. I gambled away over $400 and realized that I didn’t even want to win money back – that I was going out, intentionally, to lose. That it was the losing that felt good. Probably worst of all was my eating habits. I started going 10 hours or more without eating during the day, and then eating food from a drive through became a daily occurrence. I don’t even like McChicken sandwiches or Taco Bell crunchy tacos, and I would be aware of that even as I was driving to these places over and over, forcing myself to eat this food. It felt exactly like it did when I was losing money or feeling the effects of alcohol – it felt good, knowing I was going to feel bad afterwards. It felt like I was being punished and that I deserved it.

 

You see, I wanted to feel bad. All year I just kept hoping I would get the flu so that my body would be sick and I could get a break from the mental/emotional sickness I was feeling. If I was throwing up, I thought, I wouldn’t have time to think about how much I hated my life, or how much I didn’t want to get up in the morning. How useless it all was. How much I hated myself. How much I hated everyone. I was seeing a therapist but he only confirmed my suspicions: “You have depression. You need friends. You need structure and meaning in your life.”

 

This job that I had was the kind of job where 200 people apply for one position. Some people spend their whole lives fighting for the job I was handed fresh out of graduate school. It is the first step to what could have been a “successful” lifelong career (literally it is nearly impossible to be fired after clearing probation), with a guaranteed paycheck and great benefits.When I announced that I was leaving my job, a number of people there took me aside privately to tell me they felt I was “very brave” to leave. It’s funny, though – I think it requires more “bravery” to endure unhappiness, to be mired in depression and muck on through it anyway with gritted teeth, than it does to seek out an escape route. I know those people at work were thinking about financial capitol – the “courage” required to walk away from a stable paycheck and financial security into the unknown and unstable world of potentially being unemployed and in poverty. But I’ve been unemployed and in poverty before. I’ve eaten out of dumpsters, and I get my clothes from thrift stores even when I do have a nice income. I don’t have children or pets, so when I’m broke ass broke, there are no innocent victims having to suffer the consequences (besides myself).

 

I just signed a year-long lease and will need to have money to pay rent. I need money to pay for my car insurance. But if it has to come down to it (which it probably won’t), I am less afraid of losing everything – losing my house, losing my car – than I am of losing my integrity and self-respect, which is what happened this past year. I am more afraid of having money hold me hostage in the decision to publicly support people in the trans community. I am more afraid of “respectability” trumping responsibility. I am more afraid of losing my community than I am about losing money or being seen as “successful,” which, this year, I realized is mostly an illusion. And to me, that’s not about “bravery” — it’s about being human, about being present in the real act of actually living a life.

 

I quit my job and I moved into the city and came out as trans and gay, and things are much better than they were, but there is still a lot of work to be done before I can honestly say I am “well.” I’m planning to post more about my vision for this soon in another post.

On the Up and Up (When it comes to being out and out)

I haven’t written much here in a while, and there have been some major things happening. Most importantly, I quit my job and moved into the city. And, along with the moving and the job quitting, I decided – as I wrote about a few months ago – that being stealth about my trans status (aka keeping it secret) and being closeted about dating men – had to come to an end.

 

The first weekend I moved into the city, it was pride weekend, and without hesitation I jumped right into the opportunity to shake off the stealth and underground life. I volunteered with a trans* organization (where I didn’t know anyone) to put on an event for the trans community and our allies. It had been awhile since I had been around people who I instantly admired and respected the way I did the folks from this organization. I had fun volunteering with them before the event and made a new friend during the event (who was also volunteering). Once things got going, I saw some old friends, met some trans men friends I’d only talked to online and even spotted my Ex (an ally to the community), who I’ve lived in fear of running into for eight years! Of course I ran away, but at least I didn’t turn into stone or die on the spot or something.

 

I fell in love so instantly with this group and the work that they are doing that I also walked with them at the big city-wide pride parade. This turned out to be one of the most amazing experiences of my entire life. To walk with just a handful of other trans people (some who are obviously, visibly trans and do not care what others think of that) with the trans flag and transgender pride signs — in front of 100,000 people (many shouting and cheering for us), on a road lined with rainbow confetti — was like soul medicine. Not like a pat on the back that yay, I’m personally trans, and people are happy for me, but more because I could see all these faces as we passed… these little 15-year-olds whose genders were indeterminable underneath their bright blue or yellow or neon green hair, standing in little pockets… people who looked like old butch lesbians quietly saluting us… people who looked like gay men in eye shadow whistling and shouting, shirtless guys, their scars sharp in the sunlight, waving…drag queens, and couples who appeared straight but, when you looked again, realized they were both wearing dresses… we were such a scrappy, small little group but “our people” were suddenly everywhere. They weren’t walking with us, but we were walking for them. Pictures came back from the day and I am smiling in every single one, even the ones when I didn’t know a picture was being taken.

 

In the last few weeks since moving to the city, I’ve managed to cross paths with more amazing people, who I truly respect and admire, than I think I did all of last year. I think this has a lot to do with not being silent anymore about who I am, and who my people are. While the decision to be stealth is a personal one, and I respect that, for me, its time has come to an end — without regret. There is too much work to be done for fear (and shame) to be in the drivers’ seats anymore – being “normal” had its turn, but now it is time to actually inhabit this thing called my life.

 

Self-Improvement Plan for July 1

Back in March, I made a list of things I wanted to do by July 1. How did I do? Here’s the list again, with my report.

_________________________________

* Come out. By July 1, I don’t want to be actively hiding my trans status – or my sexual orientation – from anyone. That doesn’t mean everyone on the entire freaking planet will know. It just means I won’t actively be hiding it. Since writing this blog post in March, I have now come out to 15 people, including my thesis adviser and several people who I’ve known for more than two years. I also “liked” public and obviously queer pages on Facebook and joined trans groups on Facebook, and “unsubscribed” to about 60 FB “friends” who I don’t know super well (it would be awkward to personally email them to come out to them) but whose views are different than mine on social issues – aka they may not be a big fan of finding out that I’m trans/gay, though of course I don’t know, since I’m not coming out to them directly. (I didn’t unfriend them – I just stopped reading their stuff on Facebook (they can still read mine and we are still friends), so that the subtle messages of their posts would stop shaping my consciousness.)

I also volunteered to help with a public trans community event in June, an LGBT event, applied to help with a trans support group, and went to a pride event.

* Lose weight. This I did not do. I ate a lot of junk food instead and felt sorry for myself much of the spring, lost in the throes of depression that I had pulled myself into in the fall. In fact, many of clothes don’t fit now.

* Get familiar with the TV shows people I know and people I meet always seems to be talking about or really like that I know nothing about. My goal was to watch at least two episodes of the following:

-Orange is the New Black  Watched seven episodes.

–House of Cards Watched four episodes.

–It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Watched one episode, that was enough. (Sorry, Always Sunny fans – one episode was enough to show me that this show is not my scene.)

-Breaking Bad

-The Walking Dead

-Game of Thrones: Watched two episodes.

-Arrested Development

-Freaks and Geeks

-Venture Brothers Watched 1 episode. It was OK, but I think I might be too young to fully appreciate it.

-Archer Watched two episodes.

–Mad Men  I watched 1 episode on April 14, but could not handle watching another. (Sorry Mad Men fans – not my cup of tea.)

-New Girl Watched all of season One.

-Portlandia Watched four episodes

-Downtown Abbey

-Dexter

-Dr. Who

-Sherlock

*** Plus, I watched the following that were not on my original list: ****

Scandal – 45 episodes (yes, you read that right!!!)

* Become more of an expert on TV shows that I already do like, so that when people bring up that “that one episode,” I know what they’re talking about:

-Finish watching Twin Peaks, 

-Catch up on the third season of Bob’s Burgers,

catch up on Parks and Rec, 

Re-watch “the ugly baby” episode and “the soup Nazi” episode of Seinfeld, because I love that show but somehow may have never actually seen these two (weird but true),

Make sure that what I think is the finale to The Golden Girls (which I have seen) really IS the finale, because I can’t believe that is how the show really ended!

Driving the Skidmonster // Coming out as a gay (trans) man

Back in the day, when I was in Driver’s Ed, our school had this car we all had to drive once around the parking lot before we would be allowed to pass the driver’s ed class. It was called the Skidmonster. The Skidmonster was an old sedan that had been altered so that once the car got above 20 miles per hour, the car would fishtail as if it was on a sheet of ice. We had to demonstrate to our driving teacher that we could handle a car in wintery road conditions in order to pass the class.

 

a photo of a kitted-out Skid Monster I found online

I put off driving the Skidmonster for as long as possible. When I finally had no choice, I got behind the wheel and started driving the car around the parking lot – at 12 miles per hour. “Let’s go!” Mr. B, my driving teacher, said from the passenger seat. “We are going,” I answered. “No,” he said. “You have to speed up so it will spin.” “But I don’t want it to spin! I don’t want it to get out of control!”

 

 

“But that’s what we’re here for,” he said.

*

I’ve been thinking about the Skidmonster lately because I’ve realized its a good metaphor for being alive. We’re all at the driver’s seat of our own lives – our own Skidmonsters. And I think it’s very easy to do what I did that day in the parking lot – to decide to drive in such a way that nothing ever leaves our control, to make sure nothing turns into a mess, to eliminate unpredictability, to do whatever we can to prevent our friends and other people (at driver’s ed, they were on the sidewalk, waiting for their turn) from pointing and laughing at us. But what made the Skidmonster the Skidmonster wasn’t that you could travel safely at 12 mph, like any other car.  What made it special was knowing, with absolute certainty, that the car was going to fishtail, that things were going to get a little crazy, and then, secure in that knowledge, intentionally hitting the accelerator.

*

When I was in college and was hanging around a lot of lesbians, we used to joke about the “phases” of coming out. You could always tell that a girl had just come out to her parents, or was about to, we used to say, because she would have just cut off her long hair, possibly in front of the mirror with a pair of scissors herself (or else at the hand of a friend), in some severe, unflattering, sometimes unintentionally funny hairstyle. Sure, it wasn’t true for everyone on the planet, but it seemed to hold true for all the women we seemed to know. It had been true for each of us. And every time we’d meet someone new, we would welcome them into our little circle while gently laughing at their terrible “newly out” haircut.

 

I first identified as a queer woman, and went through the sort of silly and extreme “steps” associated with coming out as a girl with a girlfriend, like cutting my hair. I listened to the Indigo Girls, got swoony over k.d. lang, and had every event in my house be a potluck.

 

Then I began to identify as trans and began to go through the “steps” involved in that coming out process. The predictable things, like correcting people’s pronouns, and the silly and ridiculous things, like sitting with my legs a mile apart to look more “manly,” wearing polo shirts every day even though I hated them because some website told me it was how “real men” dressed, and so on.

 

In the past few years, I’ve been wrestling with my sexual orientation, trying to come to peace with the fact that I’m really physically attracted only to men – that I really am a (trans) gay man. But, because I’m 30 years old and I’ve “come out” now multiple times (as a queer woman, as a trans man),  I was hoping I could move smoothly into this new identity quietly, sort of move in under the radar. Because I’ve already come out as so many other things. Because I want people to think I’m a credible adult person and not some teenager who doesn’t know how to act like I have it all together. Because other gay guys my age went through this shit years and years ago and by now I’m supposed to have all that sorted out and “be over” it by now.  Because, in short, I’m afraid of speeding up to 20 mph.

 

To learn to drive on ice, you have to let the car skid so you can know how it will slide. And to know yourself as whatever you are – bi, lesbian, gay, trans, whatever – and this is true for every single identity, separately, apparently (or at least I wasn’t offered a buy two, get one free discount)- there also comes a time when you have to accelerate, knowing that you are going to look ridiculous, knowing people are probably going to laugh at you, but doing it anyway.

 

Coming out for me as a gay man isn’t just about telling a few people I’m interested in men. I know, because I’ve tried it, and a funny thing happens – they forget. This has happened with multiple people, multiple times – I tell them I date men, and then weeks or months later, they tell me, “you just need to find yourself a nice girl to marry.” Not because they’re assholes, but because they have genuinely forgotten. Because telling people I date men is not the same as owning my identity as a gay man.

 

Within 24 hours of leaving my most current job (um, about four days ago), I got a more “gay” haircut for where I live (more of a drastic fade) and got one of my ears pierced. Yes, just one, and yes, the “gay ear.” I KNOW it’s not a “thing” anymore for men to get just one ear pierced -that stylish guys who have any kind of ear piercing (straight and gay) nowadays get both at the same time and that it’s the fashion now. I don’t care. I didn’t do it to look like someone who is fashionable who might be straight or might be gay.

 

I’m not fashionable, for one thing, in any manner of speaking, so there’s no need to mislead people there. And I’m not someone who might be straight or might be gay. There’s no “might be.” It’s not ambiguous. I’ve tried to play the ambiguous card, the casual card, and that’s when people start forgetting and I have to come out to them multiple times. It’s also when I start feeling guilty about who I am, feeling bad that I’m trans and that I’m someone attracted to men, like it’s some terrible crime. ….I’m done. I’ve had enough. I’m an unfashionable, male-looking person who likes to have sex with male-identified persons, preferably those who look like Tom Hanks in Castaway after he’s been on the island for all that time. Or Guillermo Reyes. Whatever – I’m flexible. The point is – I  know that maybe all this is a little silly.

 

But a strange thing happened yesterday. A devastatingly handsome man in his 50s made eye contact with me at a store and clearly, obviously checked me out. And, as if that wasn’t enough – or if I had any doubts – I ran into him a few minutes later and it happened again. I haven’t been checked out by a man outside of a gay bar in…. I don’t know how long. And sure, it’s narcissistic to dwell on whether or not you’re seen as attractive by someone else/anyone else at any kind of length, but his measurement of my attractiveness wasn’t what mattered to me. What mattered was that he saw me as someone safe to visibly and obviously check out in public: what mattered was that he read me as a non-straight man.  In the trans community, we talk a lot about “passing” – about how it feels to be “sirred” instead of “ma’amed” that first time, how validating it is when people start to interact with us as the people we believe or know ourselves to be. That’s what it’s like for me now, all over again, as I begin the process towards projecting myself as someone interested in men.

 

Yeah, to people in the wider world, I might look stupid. Hopefully not as stupid as I did that fateful day when four girls on the college rugby team snipped off my ponytail to welcome me to the lesbian club — but I really don’t know. And yeah, inevitably, people are probably going to laugh at me or make comments as my “car” swerves and slides , because just like everybody else, I have to learn as I go, and there are no shortcuts or free passes. But oh well. It’s time – let’s go.

Drum Story

I own an etched copper doumbek hand drum, an instrument traditionally used in belly dance. I bought it for myself as a graduation present when I finished my Bachelor’s degree eight years ago. I knew very little about hand drums at the time, and nothing about Middle Eastern percussion (and nothing about belly dance), but it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen, and when I held it, it felt like it was designed for my hands. Leaving the store, that felt like a very, very good decision.

 

About a year later, though, I decided that buying a drum had been a mistake. Everyone I knew that played hand drums were (white) hippie lesbians. Of course, they all played djembes, which are very different from doumbeks, and djembes are originally from West Africa anyway, and not white hippie lesbian-land, but at the time, none of that mattered to me. I was someone who had been born female, who people saw as a masculine woman (and who people assumed was a hippie lesbian), but who was actually a guy! And I was beginning a gender transition — asking people to change my name and to refer to me as “he” rather than “she” — and so I wanted to separate myself from hippie lesbians as much as possible. A hand drum, I thought, would not help with that. I needed an instrument that would affirm who I was.

 

So I sold it back to the music shop. And with the money, I bought a harmonica. But, it turned out, THAT was the real mistake. As soon as I sold it back, my heart ached for that doumbek drum. I was able to get enough money together to buy it back from the shop in just a few weeks, before someone else bought it, and it traveled with me to the three states I moved to after that, and I got to play it in several drum circles. Unfortunately, though, a few years back, because the drum counted as “luggage” on one of my flights somewhere, I decided it was a good idea to save on space and packed three shirts inside of it. This led to the head being stretched out, rendering it unplayable. I’ve taken it to several music shops since then. But I haven’t been able to find anyone who has ever worked on a doumbek, and no one has known how to replace the head (it is not pre-framed). So I’ve been lugging this broken drum around with me for four years.

 

I also managed to acquire a small hand-held steel drum from Trinidad. The drumsticks for this drum were recently stolen (they were in my backpack that a thief stole from my car), and it is very out of tune, and I have no idea how to play it.

 

So I got to thinking the other day that maybe I was a drum person at one time, but maybe that time has passed now, since I haven’t played either of these instruments in so long and obviously haven’t taken the care to get them fixed. In fact, I haven’t even really looked at them much at all.

 

I got to thinking about how I used to own a guitar and how, even though I only managed to learn two or three chords, how much I liked owning it. (I’m a big folk music enthusiast, and also a poet, two things guitars come in handy for. Plus, it’s good to have one around for camping trips with people, because someone’s bound to know how to play). So I thought – maybe it’s time to trade in these two drums – and to get another acoustic guitar.

 

I packed up my drums and went into a music shop this morning. My plan was to initially get an estimate for repair and tuning, and if the cost was more expensive than the drums themselves (which I assumed it would be), then to ask about trade-in possibilities and potentially walk out with a cheap acoustic guitar. But a weird thing happened. As I was standing there talking to the cashier guy, who had never seen a drum like my doumbek before in his life, and who was stalling for time for his manager to get back, I suddenly felt very defensive. He told me that if they would be able to repair it (it turned out they weren’t equipped to repair it – his manager let us know that just a few minutes later), it would take ten business days. I found myself saying, “ten business days?! that’s a long time!” not wanting to surrender my instrument for so long. It might become lost or something in that span of time.  Something might happen to it!   After the manager came, he told me that no, they would not be able to repair it, after all (they aren’t equipped to work on doumbeks there), and he sent me away with the name of a potential repair shop sixty miles away.

 

I walked out of the shop and realized I was tapping out an alternating rhythm on the rim, base, and broken head on my way to my car like I used to back before it was broken. But my drum was still broken. And I did not have a guitar in my hand. And yet, I felt — victorious. I felt — happy. Like I had successfully accomplished some narrow escape.  I would like a guitar, and I would like to learn how to play. And maybe I will get one. But now I know it will not happen if it means having to give up being a “doumbek person,” whatever that might mean.

Human, for a Moment

Definitely for the past year, and maybe for much longer, I’ve mostly felt uncomfortable with almost everyone I interact with. I thought it was because I was stealth about being trans/dating men and that the power of the fear of being “outed” that was causing it. And this is part of it, for sure. But it isn’t entirely it, because I’ve felt this way with people who know I’m trans, too, and with people who know I date men. With old friends and new friends, acquaintances and coworkers and everyone in between.

 

Just, for one reason or another — and there is always some reason – that we’re inconguous, or incompatible, like how you might feel about someone during a first date when you realize you absolutely do not want this person kissing you goodnight. I thought it was me — that I needed to change myself to fit in better with people, a strategy I’ve tried my whole life, since I’m clearly the one common denominator in all of these interactions. And I felt terrible about it, you know, sort of like a robot or android, that no one could get near emotionally, like my heart was just absent, like I had some kind of terrible heartless disorder. But my (current) therapist just laughed when I told him this, and he said, “you just haven’t found your people yet, that’s all.” Then he added, “but when you do, you might just feel surprised.”

*

The other night I was at a gender support meeting, and there were some folks there I hadn’t met before. A guy was there who was just starting out (clearly nervous, clearly excited), and two other guys were there who had started transition way back when (further back than me) who I hadn’t met before, as well, who had been friends with each other for a long time. I don’t know what it was about these two guys – we get so many different people in gender support, at all different stages of transition  – but there was something about them that made me instantly like them.

 

When the meeting was over and we went outside, the guy just starting out realized his car battery was dead. I carry jumper cables in my pickup and offered them even though I don’t really know how to use them, and these two other guys offered to direct operations. They guided me on how far to pull my truck up in the dark so that our vehicles would be close enough and then they connected the jumpers to both of our vehicles. In just a few minutes, the new-to-transition guy’s engine was purring to life.  And we were all heading out in our different directions.

 

It was a small thing. It really was, I know. But as I drove home, something I haven’t felt in a long time was gently coursing through me: I felt like a person. I didn’t feel like a robot. I felt like, even just for a brief moment, that I belonged somewhere, even though it was really just a random group of strangers, for a small moment, in a parking lot in the dark, and that maybe I do have the ability to be a part of something that actually helps somebody in this world, small as it may be.

 

It was only a few minutes. I don’t know that I’m that much closer to knowing exactly who “my people” are or any of that. But at least I know that in small doses, at least, I can actually feel like something besides far away.

Things I love about the TV show Scandal

….Besides the fact that it’s, well, scandalous (and always ends on a cliffhanger, which makes it very easy to binge watch)!

1. There are very few passive, or flat, characters on the show. In one way or another, every person on the show is a “power player.” They all have either a personal agenda or else some kind of ability that no one else has. Mellie is not just the president’s wife – she’s a major force. James is not just Cyrus’s husband; even when Cyrus thinks he is and brushes him off, James proves him wrong. People also don’t tend to put up with other people tarnishing their characters or reputations – they are always standing up for themselves and their needs/wants, whether it’s people in the White House, Olivia’s clients, or members of Olivia’s team (like when Quinn tells Abby off when Abby is being mean to her early in Season 2). Even how David ends up wriggling his way into the team. I like this much better than the standard TV show, where you have primary/dominant characters and then passive sort of sidekick characters that just fill up space (aka the wives, girlfriends, feminine men, “comic relief,” “backdrops”).

2. People of different races kissing.

3. Gay people on this show who feel genuine love for the United States as a country. This is the first time in a LONG time I have seen other LGBT people (either fictional or in real life) who feel this way. In our (LGBT) community, this attitude is usually scorned. “Loving the country” is for rednecks and conservative Christians, not well-educated queer people, whose job it is to be cynical and talk about moving to Canada — or something like that.

I grew up in the Girl Scouts and regularly served as the caller for the Color Guard in flag ceremonies for years. Watching a worn or torn ceremonial flag burning brings me to tears — and these days, I can say not many other things do. I feel strongly about following flag etiquette (no flags up in the dark, knowing why a flag is at half-staff), etc, and I know all the words to “This Land is Your Land.” As stupid as this may sound here in writing, it is nice to have this affirmation that it actually IS possible to be both queer and to be happy to be in this country ( even if it does have a problematic, oppressive history) — that, you know, this land can be our land, too, that it is worth it to fight for changes here, within our borders, rather than just leaving, etc.

4. Guillermo Diaz, but I already mentioned him earlier.

5. The switch up from the typical cops/criminals dichotomy shown in shows like Law & Order, Criminal Minds, etc. — and into this idea that morality is a gray space. There really are no absolute “good guys” or “bad guys,” and Olivia’s cases aren’t about right and wrong (black and white), just about “fixing” — damage control not being the same as justice under the law. I like this because real life really is like that. It is complex and difficult and “right” and “wrong” all depend on your perspective at any given point.

6. There are actually places where the viewer isn’t hit over the head with information and must figure it out for themselves. This is also refreshing to me.

….There are things I don’t like about the show, as well – mostly, how Olivia (so far, anyways, and I’m almost done with season 2) seems powerless in standing up for herself with men.  She’s basically a powerhouse in the world at large but seems to have no ability to stand up for herself in a romantic situation, whether it’s requiring a man to accept that no means no, or, you know, the part where guys seem to just kind of mow over her, letting themselves into her home after she tells them she doesn’t want to talk to them, etc. I hope this is explained in later episodes, because I would like to see some recognition at how messed up, and inconsistent, her passivity is in that particular department of life, rather than having that kind of behavior be portrayed as “normal” or “OK.” (because she’s a woman or whatever).

Still – I’ve never had this kind of obsession with a show before. I’ve watched over 30 episodes now in less than a week!

 

Celebrity Crush: Guillermo Diaz

So I started watching  the show Scandal this weekend. I’m not someone who feels attracted to actors in movies or shows very often (I can count the number of times it’s happened in my lifetime on one hand, with fingers left over) — so imagine my pleasant surprise to be introduced to the character of Huck on the show. Er, I mean, the actor Guillermo Diaz. I mean, just look at this guy:

 

I haven’t been this swoony since seeing Tom Hanks in Castaway after he’s been on the island all that time and has that ferocious beard.

But do you want to know the best part? Guillermo Diaz isn’t straight. That means that for the first time ever, I have a crush on a male celebrity who is actually into men.

Well, well, a boy can dream… and a fact like that certainly doesn’t hurt those dreams! ….And…On that note, I’m off to bed. Good night!

 

This is the kind of friendship I want

I know it’s really bad, and passive-aggressive, to go on your anonymous blog to complain about your friends. To be clear, that isn’t quite what I’m doing here. But I HAVE been thinking a lot lately about the kinds of friendships I want to have, and that’s because I don’t seem to have these kinds of friendships right now.

I want these two types of interactions to be the norm in my friendships:

Either, OPTION 1

Me: Hey, Friend X, would you like to go do activity ABC with me (skydive, eat squid, etc)?

Friend X: Yes, let’s do it. (We go, and we do activity ABC together and have a great time.)

OR, OPTION 2

Me: Hey, Friend X, would you like to go do activity ABC with me (skydive, eat squid, etc)?

Friend X: You know, I’m not into activity ABC (I don’t like to skydive, eat squid.) How about we do activity DEF (have a picnic, go for a walk) instead?

Me and Friend X continue to negotiate until we find an activity we are both interested in. Then we go and do that activity together and have a great time.

________________________

Here is what I do not want to be the norm (yes, ok. I’m ranting. I’m just tired of this.)

Me: Hey, Friend X, would you like to go do Activity ABC with me (skydive, eat squid, etc)?

Friend X: Yes, let’s do it.

….Then we go to do this activity, and Friend X not only refuses to participate in the planned activity (While in the plane: “I’m actually not into skydiving at all. Let’s just sit and watch.” or  “I actually prefer cookies to squid. Let’s just sit awkwardly in this squid restaurant and not order anything”) but also basically forces me to not participate in it as well. Even though we’re already at the location to do whatever it is. Even though we maybe have paid money to do whatever it is. Even though I’ve been excited to do whatever the thing is – especially if this was something I was planning to do by myself but then the friend ended up tagging along.

It’s fine if someone isn’t into something. I’m happy to do many things with people. But I want friendships where people say upfront, “No, I’m not comfortable participating in ABC. Let’s do something where we will both be comfortable.”

If you’re not into skydiving, that’s fine! You don’t need to be my skydiving friend. I won’t like you less because you tell me straight up that you don’t like to skydive. I will like you more, actually, because it will mean that when we hang out, having a picnic or petting kittens at the shelter (not attempting to skydive), you will be in a happy mood. Plus, you will not be the person who is keeping me from skydiving or enjoying my squid.

When I do the things I do, I want to engage fully in those things. I’m not actually into skydiving at ALL, by the way, and I’m also not that into squid, those are just examples. Another random example would be a meditation class. Friends would be welcome to join me – as long as they want to participate. If I’ve invited you to class, it doesn’t mean I want to sit on the sidelines and observe other people meditating. It doesn’t mean I want to talk shit about other people meditating. It doesn’t mean I want to get all the way there and then suddenly wind up at McDonald’s instead because you’re only now telling me you think meditation is lame and would rather eat french fries instead. (This is not including social anxiety or panic attacks about something – I understand those are legitimate things. I’m talking here about just having a negative attitude – not feeling nervous, which is different.) If I invite you to participate in something with me that I personally enjoy, it’s because somewhere along the line I got the idea you were genuinely interested in participating. If you aren’t, that’s totally fine! But please set the record right from the start by offering an alternative suggestion, and let’s plan to do something else together. Also, please stop being offended when, once I learn you are totally indifferent to, or are not actually interested in meditation (or whatever), I plan a meditation trip that does not involve you and you see pictures of it on Facebook or whatever — and invite you to do something different.

I’m tired of being held back from participating in things by other people’s bad attitudes. Unless it IS something like skydiving – where it IS totally legitimate to change your mind at the last minute (for real) – you should be able to know in advance whether you want to do something or not. For instance, you should be able to generally know whether you want to try a meditation class, or go on a picnic, or whatever. I make friends with adults, and adults should be able to articulate these things. When I ask, “are you sure you’re interested in doing this?”, please don’t lie in the moment only to have the truth come out later, too late, while we’re both having a crappy time.

The obvious solution here is for me to do things by myself, and I am doing that more and more now. By going alone to things, maybe I’ll meet other people who ARE interested in those things genuinely, and we can become friends through our mutual interest. Yet this problem still persists. Friends think that if I’m going somewhere alone, it’s an open invitation for them to tag along and then hold me back from participating. Friends get uncomfortable when they find out I did something they’re not even interested in without inviting them. When I think about what I want from friendships, it is to be around people who are dynamic, who do lots of different things with different people, who respect that I do as well, and who understand that we may not both always be interested in the exact same things, and who are OK with that difference, rather than pretending otherwise.

 

Extraordinary Ordinary Pornography

Last night, I found myself watching, and then re-watching, a homemade porn video online. It had been filmed with a cheap camcorder set on a tripod. It was twelve minutes long, filmed straight through with no zoom-in shots, no cuts, no fade-outs, no editing of any kind. It was not an S&M scene with fancy dungeon equipment. It wasn’t a group/orgy scene, or shot on “location” at some destination like a beach or a doctor’s office. It didn’t even open with someone undressing someone else, which is one of my personal favorite parts of amateur pornography. The clip opened in a pretty ordinary looking bedroom, showing one guy from the waist down, already naked, and another guy, from the waist up, also already naked. In the first ten seconds, the second guy moved his mouth to the first guy’s penis, and then the guys had sex in several positions, until both of them came. It was, like I said, homemade, so these were not actors, and the camera was secondary to the two guys just thoroughly enjoying each other’s company.

In short, the video had the premise of the most ordinary homemade porn videos on the internet. And this is exactly why, the first time I watched it, as this video came to its close, with the guys laughing awkwardly about cleaning up, I found myself crying. It was the first time I had ever, in my whole life, seen two men – one who looked like men I am attracted to, and another who looked like me – genuinely experience pleasure together in a way that made it seem as if that is an ordinary —  even, dare I say, normal — occurrence.

Of course, guys who look like me aren’t especially common, since I’m a trans man, which is a small percentage of the population. And guys who look like me who enjoy sleeping with men are a small slice of that already small group. Images of visible trans men in romantic relationships with other men are almost entirely non-existent. No romantic comedies show us out on dates; no grocery store commercials show us arguing over cereal. Even in the world of pornography, where the “exoticness” of our bodies could be used to draw in viewers based on curiosity alone, we are not particularly known, with the notable exception of the porn star Buck Angel. Bi, gay, and queer trans men are left to craft our desire like birds’ nests, cobbling together every spare scrap that could possibly, maybe, be useful in helping us inhabit our sexual selves.

My own desperate  search to find trans men like myself participating in sexual activities with others has included finding pictures of a trans man from the BDSM community dressing in women’s clothes again while being whipped in public. It’s led me to learn about all sorts of other kinks, some of which I might never have otherwise known I was interested in, and some of which gave me nightmares, in my quest to piece together something resembling a sexual orientation.

I’ve been asked in every corner, even by well-meaning friends: “are you sure you’re not into girls? Really sure?” I didn’t want to be sure about that. I wanted there to be another option. I wanted to be something that was known, something that existed. And it was only with reluctance that I finally began to admit, that yes, I was sure I’m a gay trans man.  Out loud, anyway, I said “gay trans man.” It has only been inside my head that I have translated that phrase to mean “freak.” And as everyone knows, freaks can really only have, you know, freaky kinds of sex, involving, oh, orgies in dungeons with sadistic Masters who require them to wear dresses at the threat of whippings.

My own experience has proven this wrong; all the men I’ve been with have been, above all, gentle and kind, and the time we spent together would probably put most hard core BDSM enthusiasts to sleep. But it’s easy – and here is where I start sounding like a crazy person, but – it is easy to think sometimes that I’ve imagined all of it. Because in a culture where men like me are invisible– and on the rare occasions we aren’t,  are seen as part of a one night only freak show – when this is the story about reality being told day after day, week after week, year after year, it becomes very easy to question my own memory, my own judgment. How is it actually possible, I wonder sometimes, that a guy who could have had sex with anyone would have chosen to have had it with me, with someone with a body like mine? Clearly, I have been thinking to myself, I must be delusional. Clearly, I’ve been thinking, I must be slowly but surely returning to my childhood habit of creating imaginary friends.

But yesterday these doubts weren’t so clear. Yesterday, for twelve minutes, the concept of the possible that lives inside my head – memories of skin against skin, daydreams of the future – matched up with the idea of possible that was outside my head.  This otherwise ordinary video had no moment where someone began to unzip anyone else’s pants, no moment where someone began to tug at someone’s clothes- no moment I usually love most, the moment before bodies are entirely revealed and I can still pretend that one of them looks like mine, before it is clear that none of them do. No; all this video hadwas a fleeting moment where one man’s hands slid neatly down the long scar of the other man’s chest before fitting into the curve of his undeniably feminine hip bone, seeming to fit perfectly there – lingering just for a moment – just before they both began to make the unmistakable sounds of two men undeniably enjoying each other’s company.