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.

 

My Pickup Truck, My “Happy Place”

I don’t like my apartment. It’s in a gated complex, for one thing, which is so not my style (I was trying to be somebody classy when I moved here – THAT was my mistake, since I’ve never been a “classy” individual in my life and am certainly not about to start). And even though its “small” by apartment standards (600 square feet), its way too big for just me. I don’t have the “stuff” necessary to make a dining room, living room, and bedroom all feel “homey.” Plus, the stuff I do have is just odds and ends I managed to throw together from garage sales and thrift stores when I moved here so the place wasn’t totally empty. My apartment really doesn’t feel like my home at all, even though I’ve lived here now for eight months -it feels like a storage unit for someone else’s stuff. It’s a sad place for me. I’m constantly reminded of my own loneliness, and the disconnect between how I see myself, and how I am projected (or, rather, not represented) in this space. Of course, I’m planning to move in two months, so there is that. Though, of course, I’ll still own the same “stuff.”

My office at work is a similar story. I actually hate having my own office. It is even more lonely than my apartment, because I know there are people nearby talking and stuff (probably?), but I’m supposed to sit in there quietly working. This is hard to do as an extrovert who already lives alone. (Again, I’m also leaving my job in a few months, so there IS that – and I don’t think any of the jobs I’ve applied for involve having an office by yourself.) Everyone kept commenting on how empty it was in there when I started at this job, so again, I picked up random stuff at thrift stores and shoved it in there. But again, I don’t feel a sense of anything over much of that, except for a handful of books that have traveled across the country with me.

I’ve never been someone who puts a lot of stock in the monetary value of material possessions. As a transgender person, though, I’ve learned how material possessions (such as clothing) can and do serve another purpose, which I DO find valuable when it’s working – reflecting and affirming who we are to ourselves. That’s maybe why it’s so depressing to me that my clothes/physical appearance these days also doesn’t quite seem to match with how I see myself, either. Sure, I identify as a dude and I look like a dude, so the gender part is right. But because of my years of deep stealth, which I’m currently trying to work my way out of, everyone who meets me assumes I’m straight. People at my current workplace literally come to me to complain about gay people (this has now happened at least three times in the last seven months, different people each time) because they think I will be a sympathetic ear. Because I’m a masculine (albeit quite short), “normal looking” (to them) guy. I look conservative-ish. I look “clean”. They look at me and see themselves reflected back. They do not actually see me – poster child for the LGBT acronym – someone who has identified as every single one of those letters in the span of the last nine years. Which means I either roll with peoples’ comments about how I just need to get a girlfriend and nod and smile, or else I have to make a big production of coming out, and I’m not really crazy about either of those options. Plus, I’m out of shape and look like someone who probably likes to sit on the couch and play video games (I haven’t played a video game in at least five years), rather than, say, going kayaking or camping, which I do prefer — it’s just been awhile and so I don’t look like someone who would want to be active in that way. Just like my apartment and my office, I’m irritated with my physical body’s current inability to reflect me back to myself.

Today it was warm and sunny out. Frustrated with some BS going on at work, I left my dismal office a little early and came home to my equally dismal apartment, where I skulked for a few hours, doing mostly nothing except continue to feel frustrated and depressed (as usual). Around 6 I got the energy to go run some errands.  And three minutes later, once I was in my truck and on the road, all my frustration, sadness, and depression was almost already forgotten.

I like my pickup in general. It cheers me up. I look at it and I see myself reflected back. I’m from a working class background, and when I was growing up, almost all the dads I knew had trucks to haul stuff with.  Nobody wanted to be that guy who had no way to take big things to the dump for his family or no way to bring home a Christmas tree. Plus, my grandfather’s pickup was perpetually rigged up for fishing trips, with a mattress in the back and fishing poles ready to go at a moment’s notice. I like that I have a vehicle that grants me that kind of independence. It is also 15 years old. The windows are not electric. You have to open the door with an actual key. Sort of like me – the person whose cell phone’s most sophisticated ability is to send text messages, and who has no idea how a smart phone functions.

Trucks in our culture are, of course, seen as “masculine,” so my truck by default is more “masculine” than another type of vehicle, maybe (kind of like me – I generally present as masculine). But with my truck, it is a “queer” sort of masculine. It is a bright, pretty distinct color, for one thing. And with a bed less than 6′ long, it is also small (like me) — actually small enough to fit into spaces marked “Compact.” The big rainbow sticker on the back also helps in that department. Once I get in my truck, I know that people on the road will see me in ways that (for better or worse) other people don’t, in ways that are true.

But today there was this sort of special layer added on because of how beautiful it was outside. Once I drove out of my apartment complex, I rolled down the window. A light breeze zipped through the cab, and I turned on the radio  and switched to a few stations until I got to the classic rock station, where “Bohemian Rhapsody” was just starting to play, and turned up the volume. Yes, a small thing, but for those two or three minutes before the library’s parking lot came into view, it was absolutely glorious. If anyone in other cars was paying any attention to me and my truck, I know what they didn’t see – somebody making a real concerted effort to try and “fit in.” And based on what they definitely heard & what they might have assumed based on what they saw — well. The man driving that pickup truck, probably queer (because of the sticker) is a terrible, horrible singer. Which is absolutely true. But I don’t care.

My truck is my “happy place” because, for better or worse, when it comes to other people, it is the one place in my life where what they see and hear is what they get. And because for me, when I’m on the road in my truck, for better or worse, there’s no coming out required.

Revelation / a night at the gay bar

I’ve been into (mixed) gay bars before, so it’s not brand new territory for me or anything. There’s one a few miles from my parents’ house that I’ve been to three or four times with a friend from high school. In the town where I lived when I went to graduate school, there was a place with a full restaurant and a beautiful patio, and in the summer, everyone would sit outside and hang out. I went there once or twice with a buddy of mine for dinner. I went into one in the biggest major city where I live now with a coworker a few months back for a drink. And when I was passing through Toledo, Ohio once, I randomly stopped in at one of the gay bars there for a drag show. Still – the gay bar scene intimidates me. Sometimes that intimidation is justified, okay, because the people there are snotty or whatever (gay men, in particular, sometimes, can be very judge-y in certain settings, where you have to be very skinny or muscular and “beautiful” to be accepted – and as a trans man I don’t always feel welcome in those spaces anyways), but by and large, that isn’t the reason. Really, it’s the anxiety of being seen by people who I might *actually* also be interested in. Like, I get anxious thinking about interacting with attractive strangers. Very fifth grade, right? Anyways, this is a “fear” I need to get over, I decided.

So last weekend, a friend and I went to a gay bar/club near my house. I was very resistant about going in (scared) but she basically forced me, by giving me an ultimatum: Either this bar, or the other gay bar in town. Fine, I said, this one. We walked in, had one drink, walked around the dance floor to scope out the scene, and left (maybe 30 minutes total). And I survived.

Last night, a different friend and I went back to that same bar. Again, I was anxious, but made it inside without being forced. Because I had been there before, it wasn’t *quite* as scary this time.  Last night, friend #2 and I stayed at the bar for almost three hours. We spent most of the time sitting at a table by ourselves, drinking, and the rest of the time on the edge of the dance floor, not dancing (but watching other people dance). My friend at one point told me I should go out and do it, but I realized that the reason I wasn’t dancing wasn’t actually because I was afraid of the other people in the bar – it was because I felt weird about it with her there watching. This realization felt very profound. Maybe I am less afraid of attractive strangers, I thought, and more afraid of what might happen with people I already know, who know me in a certain way, when I begin to fully embrace things about myself especially related to dating men and fully participating in things, rather than being an observer on the outside? For instance, how will my friends feel if I suddenly become someone who hugs people (which I wish I was but I am not currently – my current reputation is as a “non hugger”)? How will our friendship change if, instead of wanting to sit on the sidelines and people watch, I want to be out on the floor? 

Because, now that I’ve slept the drinks away, I’m realizing that this is what must actually occur. Not just at the bar, but everywhere, across my life. I have to find a way to become that person, to move beyond the narrow confines of where I’ve been living in my mind (where I have become trapped) and genuinely become a part of things, out in the world. And I think that’s extra hard when you’re feeling like you can’t try things out because someone is there watching you with certain expectations. So, of course, the next step for me and this bar by my house is that I go there by myself. There will be no excuses then for standing on the edge of things.

And I’m beginning to suspect that maybe that is true across the board. There is no doubt that change has to occur – but do I really have to try things out in all their messiness, in all my first-try-failed glory, in front of, say, my Facebook friends, or even a well-meaning old friend or two? Wouldn’t it be better to be able to try things out on my own, gaining knowledge of what I genuinely like or don’t like (before I’m evaluated or judged by another person – letting myself be the judge of that), and then, once I’ve gained confidence at something, be the one to invite them in to join? I’m someone who feels like I must constantly be accountable to someone else, but – I’m actually the only one who knows everything that goes on in my life. I’m the one writing that story. And right now, quite frankly, it’s a pretty boring story. But I am afraid of what might happen when things change. Afraid that my life will become something exotic and unexplainable and incredible. I think I might even be afraid of being unafraid. And all of this makes cute boys seem like nothing to be afraid of at all.

Report From Singlehood

I’ve spent five Valentine’s Days in relationships out of the thirty I’ve spent on this planet, and I hated it just as much in a relationship as I did when I was not in one. It seems to me to be just a (very) thinly veiled ploy by companies like Hallmark to make extra money for no reason. I mean, do couples need another day to celebrate their love for each other, when they already have anniversaries, and when they already celebrate each other’s birthdays? Um, no. Do we really need another day to draw attention to monogamous (mostly heterosexual) romance? Um, no. Just step into a movie theater any day of the year and you’ll find a romantic comedy there that will rekindle your belief in love overcoming all.

In a relationship / dating situation, Valentine’s Day has always been awkward.
One year my not-quite-ex and I were very close to breaking up, so I used Valentine’s Day (along with some recorded Elton John music and a surprise reservation at an expensive Greek restaurant) to try to patch things together. She ended up crying uncontrollably, which I realized later was the cry of someone coming to the ultimate realization that someone else’s best is never going to be enough. Another year, when I was dating a more masculine-leaning woman, I bought her a remote-control truck for Valentine’s Day instead of flowers, thinking that was a good idea. It wasn’t. About five years ago, I wound up on a first date on Valentine’s Day at IHOP with someone I believe to be a future serial killer, who told me in great detail about his love of torturing animals.

So being single on Valentine’s Day has never really bothered me much. While other people went on and on about “Single Awareness Day,” I would just happily think: I am SO glad I don’t have to deal with THAT.

Until, for some reason, this year. As of this year, I’ve now been technically single for 6.5 years. And though that seems like an arbitrary number – 6.5 – it is apparently my threshold on tolerance and contentment in the ongoing single life. Don’t get me wrong; it was bothering me before Valentine’s Day, too. It’s actually been bothering me since the fall, just after year six rolled around. I’m just now getting around to writing about it, because the curious questioning of coworkers and acquaintances last week, “have an exciting date planned on Valentine’s Day?”, accompanied by their mischevious smiles, believing my answer would, of course, be yes — but which were instead followed by my resounding Grumpy Cat “NO” — brought it all into severe focus.

I haven’t been in an official relationship with anyone since I started my gender transition.
In those days, I was quite unstable, often launching into emotional tirades, including frequent crying and yelling. I did not like sex in general, as I was uncomfortable in my body and did not know why because I hadn’t found the words yet. I also hadn’t realized that I’m sexually attracted to men. I had never had a full-time job, and I was broke – my last official relationship, I was on food stamps, and the relationship before, I was living on student loans. It was also before I started my current career (which began in late 2008), and before I went to graduate school, which I’ve since finished.
In short – it was a very long time ago, and though, by all counts, I would have been considered less “dateable” then than I am now – apparently, the opposite was actually true.

Oh sure – I’ve had my share of little flickers of romance. There was a guy I had a one-night stand with that turned into a two-night stand. There was a stranger whose name I never learned but whose gentleness with me still makes me cry once I’ve drank enough whiskey. And, for the first time ever in my life, I fell genuinely in love with someone. This person behaved as if we were together, but claimed we were only friends who slept together & cared deeply for each other, though, and that we were not in a relationship (a distinction which still confuses me); someone who, in the end, did not feel the same way I did.

But for general intents and purposes, my dating life went underground after starting transition. The reaction I’ve received from some people after telling them I date men (after transitioning to live as a man myself) hasn’t been particularly positive. Really, it makes folks uncomfortable. “Why transition if you just wanted to have sex with men?” seems to be the big question. For this reason, I’m “closeted” as a gay man in most areas of my life. Because I don’t want to deal with the flak that will ensue from my aunts, uncles, cousins, and acquaintances who know that I’m trans, it also means that men who I could potentially date do not know I am interested in dating men, either.

My job – now that I have one – which is a public, professional job, has also impacted my dating life. Online dating that involves posting pictures (such as to a dating website) is out, because people finding my stuff from work could be a very bad situation, even if it was all G-rated. Even anonymous online dating can be awkward, since I have to find a way to be sure someone isn’t affiliated with my work before telling them that I’m trans or whatever. And trying to meet people in person at a bar or wherever people meet these days is also difficult because 1) people generally assume I’m straight, and 2) everyone assumes I was born a man and have the… ahem… equipment one would expect with that, which leads to awkward conversations and possible accusations that I “lied.”

But because of the not always very positive experiences I’ve had, I find myself reluctant to jump into anything with anyone. Relationships historically have brought out the worst in me (see above, re: crying and yelling), and I worry sometimes about undoing all the work I’ve done. And yet… I’m really not that happy being single now, here, at year 6.5.

Is this an “I’m feeling sorry for myself” kind of post? The kind you should probably never post? Yes, it is. I’m posting it anyway.

Actually, “meeting a nice girl” wouldn’t solve my problems, but thanks coworker!

I told a coworker today that I spend my time at work socializing because I don’t really have friends around here that aren’t people from work. “I should probably meet some,” I said. “Or you could meet a nice girl!” she said. I didn’t have it in me to try and respond, so I just said, “Ehhh!” and walked away. She thought it was because she embarrassed me or something and shouted after me “aw! you can take it slowly and make friends first! I was just kidding around!”

… These kinds of things seem like normal things to non-queer folks. It doesn’t cross their minds that this might be an awkward thing to say to someone. They may not realize that these kinds of comments put queer folks in a situation where we either have to come out to them (“or a nice boy!” I could have said, but didn’t) or else react awkwardly, like I did. This is because it doesn’t cross their minds that people might be queer at all, unless those people fit their stereotype of how a gay man “should” act (stereotypically feminine) or how a lesbian “should” act (stereotypically masculine).

On the one hand, it’s no one’s business at work who I sleep with. I get that.
On the other hand, though, when these kinds of comments get made, it does kind of become relevant. Not because *I’m* making it relevant but because *they* are.
Sigh.

/rant

Worship at the Temple: A Stranger and A Hotel Room

Sure, we grow up hearing “your body is a temple,” but for many of us that phrase is akin to “everyone is beautiful.” People say it, but they are words in theory, not in lived practice. Those who weigh more than society thinks we should, those who are not considered “able bodied,” those whose penises are “too small,” those who have survived breast cancer and whose bodies tell that story, those who are survivors of sexual and/or physical assault, those who are struggling with sexual orientation, those who are transgender and whose bodies have betrayed us since middle school – for some of us in these categories and for many more, our bodies can feel closer to prisons than to temples. Sex for us may not be a frolick. It may be a walk through shame and apology, for even as “everyone is beautiful” floats through our minds as a sweet abstraction, we still beg for the lights to be turned off, and afterwards, we move as quickly as we can to the bathroom, hoping to get the door closed before we start to cry.

My relationship to my own body has been a strange one. I am transgender, of course, the kind known in common parlance as “born as a girl, now a guy”, which naturally leads to certain assumptions: People assume I’m interested in women, for one thing (“why would you transition if you’re interested in men?” people have asked. “Why not just stay a girl?”) and also that I should hate every “female” part of my anatomy. And I’ve spent the last twelve years or so questioning what attraction even means. I’ve wondered: if I think someone is nice, funny, cute – but if sex does not once cross my mind – is that still attraction? Is it attraction if someone says “I’ll sleep with you, I guess, even though you don’t have a penis?” These questions may sound ridiculous – the kinds of questions twelve-year-olds ask – but I always thought the things people said about actual attraction somehow did not apply to me. I’ve always been outside easy exchanges and supposed instinct, subtly encouraged to “make do,” to not ask for too much.

I’m writing this now, though, knowing it wasn’t just because I’m trans. It’s also because desire is something buried, something secret, until we choose to share it. No one can speak to us about thirsting our want unless they actually know what it is we want. And though we may carry it within ourselves for years and decades, that doesn’t mean anyone else – anyone else on Earth! – knows what that is, unless we tell them, which means that until then, anything they tell us about it is, suggest to us about it, should be completely and utterly disregarded. And it also means that we should get down to the truly important business – reaching into ourselves to pull our desires out of the shadows and into the light so we can get a good long look at them.

I’m writing this because, a few weeks ago, I spent two hours with a stranger in his hotel room. A stranger who was one of the hottest men I have ever seen. A stranger who probably very few people in my life would imagine me being attracted to. Most people in my life think that I’m interested in women, even if I’ve told them otherwise. But even those who know I like men, I think, imagine I like gentle, men, – boys they can imagine as non-sexual if they try, boys who they can imagine me cuddling with rather than having sex with. But this stranger – a man who was kind, but strong, a grown man, who was clearly a sexual being – and I did not gently cuddle. And I did not question, even for a fleeting second: What is attraction? I’ve been on this planet for around three decades, and for the first time ever in bed with another person, I did not feel broken.

Yes, in some ways, this is just a story about a one-night stand.

But it’s a story of something else, too – a story about holiness. When we think of the word baptism, we usually think of a body of water: a pool, a river, a lake. But when we become washed in the dual tides of genuine want and genuine pleasure, when we become anointed by sweat converging in slick, sweet patches, when we realize that “I” no longer lives in the head, but in the toes, the shoulders, in the body of another whose edges are blurring with our own — we do not enter the sacred as broken or striving; we enter the sacred as whole, as complete. We are transformed because we are, in that particular moment, in that particular place, fleetingly, but, for once, ourselves, and it is so unlike the heaviness of what normally hangs above our shoulders. We realize, suddenly, that we are not the answers to all of the complex questions that hound us. We are simply a collection of muscle and laughter, of surrender and wanting. We are, in that moment, in that place, blessed beyond the mumblings of any priest, beyond the singing of any choir. We are blessed beyond any measure; we are transcendent – because we can truly see that we are human and that we are alive.

I’m writing this because I know now that the answers are not easy. Not for me, and maybe not for you. But just because they are complex for us, it does not mean we are exempt, that we are outside. I am a transgender man who is attracted to men, and maybe that doesn’t make sense to some people. And I’m drawn to men who like my centaur body for what it is, not those who like me “even though” I’m trans, and maybe that doesn’t make sense to some people, either. But here’s the thing: It doesn’t have to make sense to them. Those “shoulds” are not determined by law or by ethics, just people who have very particular ideas about gender and sex that are different from my experience. Because what I’m talking about here – it’s about adults, attraction, absolute consent, and joy. And the last time I checked, there is nothing that doesn’t actually make sense about that. It’s about basic things that others take for granted: wanting and being wanted, feeling whole.

I’m writing this because all of us have a right to these things, even those who might need a reminder.