How the west was won

Wisconsin was the first place that I encountered homophobic slurs in bathroom scrawl. I had encountered bathroom scrawl before, mostly in mens washrooms, but it was mostly of a more banal variety. I mean, some of it was sexist, most of it was idiotic, but it was rarely, if ever scary. At the med school in Davis, CA, I remember finding a note that said "I should have gone to Stanford instead," and after thinking about the long hours of thankless studying and demoralizing institutional culture, I sympathized with his feelings of learning later that an important choice was poorly met.

It's not what you're saying, it's what I'm hearing

One of the first times I was at the UW Milwaukee campus, a group of us were in the bathrooms in the Union, only to discover such uplifting commentary as "Die AIDS faggots". I was shocked. Somehow I just couldn't understand where the author was coming from. Was he a jilted lover, infected and left to suffer the consequences? Was he a right wing soapboxer? A closet case? Are we still trapped in the 1980's preconceptions of AIDS as a 'gay' disease? Does he somehow think a virus is going to morally differentiate between the virgin mary homo and the straight cum dumpster of tinsel town? What is he so afraid of, that he needs to share his opinions in this way?

Last week I had seen something in one of the stalls at work about somebody or other being a faggot. I didn't recognize the name, and it wasn't until today that I realized that all of the stalls in that bathroom were scrawled with "Nate Higgins is a faggot". And the more I sat and stared at the nondescript hand writing, the more I realized the less I knew. Who was this Nate? And did the author mean this literally, or was it some kind of slur against his masculinity? Is it fair to ask clarifying questions in this semipublic forum?

Ten minutes at the computer offered up the insight that this 'Nate' probably was not a co-worker or student in the building, but rather a hockey coach in the upper midwest college hockey circuit.

Which leads me to question of how to respond. Leaving it there seems to endorse the homophobia that it engenders. And yet removing it is censorship. After thinking about it for a while, I decided the best response was something that both calls this issue out into the open and obfuscates it by invoking other stereotypes of masculinity, colonialism and sexuality:

"Hey honey, there ain't nothing wrong with a little buttlove, it's how the west was won."

Coming Out

Coming out isn't something that I did once and then never had to face again. Admittedly, the first time felt absolutely cataclismic, but it's a process that repeated itself a thousand times in a thousand different venues. It's the "little death" that follows us to work, to the mall, to pumping gas and to the apathetic desk clerk at the DMV. Every time it gets a little easier. Every challenged assumption makes the world a little more accommodating for us all.

And now, after being out as queer for over 10 years, I'm having to start from square one. I'm facing all of the anxiety, all of the alienation, and all of the rejection all over again. It's even harder to explain transitioning in the context of being genderqueer. I don't have a 'pronoun preference'. I don't want to be a 'real man'. I just want to go about my daily life in a manner that doesn't cripple my ability to function.

I love being on hormones. I love the changes happening in my body. I love the way that it all seems like a natural progression of my life. I love the way that I feel like I have a future now.

But I don't know what words to use or how to explain what is going on to anyone else. It's this intensely personal experience happening inside my head with only vague external exhibitions. It was easy to explain being gay, I could summarize the situation in concise phrases like: "mom, I like girls". Would it be enough to say "mom, I'm genderqueer"? Or "I have gender dysphoria."

Would anyone understand my conscious decision to move towards gender ambiguity? Or would they automatically ascribe my actions to a grossly oversimplified gender binary?

Would they be open to deconstructing my perception of gender? Would I have to dumb it down to something like: "hey, I want to look more like a boy, but I'm still keeping my girl parts"? Would I have to say that the sum of my boyishness and girliness are not the sum of my being?

It took me a decade to sort out my gender issues. The years of barbies, Cosmos, tv, football, and tonka trucks weighs a heavy anchor on a child's soul. The systemic harassment in the school hallways and locker rooms took their toll as well. Being myself was something that I learned to hide to survive. So I spent a long time pretending to be a person who wasn't real, who didn't exist.

It took a really long time for me to get past the fact that I was never going to be one of those skinny girls that the media overhypes. I don't think I was overweight, but I had some fat going on. I definitely wasn't athletic or svelte. I knew that it wasn't healthy to want to look like a supermodel, I just didn't have any idea what the alternative was.

Because my build was so womanly, I spent many years fighting with my body. I have an hourglass figure: narrow shoulders, sizable bust, narrow waist, sizable hips and thighs. Women's clothes are cut for an average build across the spectrum of body types, so I had the devil of a time finding clothes that fit. After a while I learned what kind of cuts were flattering and for the first time in my life I could walk into a room and heads would turn. Lovers started undressing me like they were unwrapping a special present. My body stopped being a medium to be tolerated and became an asset to be reckoned with.

It took me almost ten years to establish a realistic standard of beauty, and it wasn't until then that I started to really be able to face the rest of my gender issues. Ironically the very elements of my physical appearance that I thought were attractive also started to elicit crippling emotional responses.

Why did I want to cry when a lover fondled my breasts? By any standard, including my own, they were nice breasts. Why did my heart wrench itself inside my chest when lovers tried to worship them? Why would I look down at our naked bodies and feel like the body I saw couldn't possibly be my own? Why would it make me despair to see myself looking soft and curvy curled up in bed?

Being naked meant letting my guard down. And the moment that happened, the expectation that my body should look more boyish would come pushing in like a hole in the dike. By that time, I had finally learned to muffle my body behind my clothes. But I could only hide behind them for so long. Naked in my lover's protective arms, I lay vulnerable to the rising tides of a gender that couldn't live with my body.

I don't know why I couldn't cope with it. I don't know why I couldn't get used to living with it. But I couldn't. My whole life was falling apart. Every gendered situation would send me home depressed and alienated. My relationships were falling apart. My job performance was abysmal. I felt like a double agent, committing treason on both sides. I couldn't bear to watch the things that I love most in the world slip through my fingers.

Something had to give.

It seems criminally arrogant to say "I'm at odds with my body, therefore my body needs to change". But on the other hand, this life is a composite of elements at odds with nature. Clothes, birth control, airplanes, pacemakers and space travel all fall outside of what is "natural". But why only are some of those acts considered "unnatural"? Why are some of them considered "progress"?

I spent 10 years trying and failing to come to terms with the situation. And since I started hormones less than 6 months ago, things have improved immensely. I didn't so much care what needed to change, I just wanted my life back. It seems easy for outsiders to overlook the fact that my whole life was falling apart, and the locus of that destruction was my gendered body.

I'd be the first to admit that the situation is not ideal, but to what alternative? If you can't live with your body, you die, either mentally or physically. It really is that simple.

And I didn't want to die just yet.

Too Much Foucault, Not Enough Bra Burning

I'm fucking tired of discussing what I have or haven't got in my pants. I want to talk about the fucking haves and the have nots; I want to talk about a generation lost between the privilege and the weight of the knowledge of it. I'm tired of having to make a stand on gender, tired of being a little girl, a big man, tired of the boxes and the rage. My fists are what I'm fighting with, lets talk about them. What am I fighting for? Did I block that uppercut? Did I miss it? Is that why I'm reeling? Lets talk about my skills without having to box in my nuts or qualify my tits.

I don't work on cars because they make my dick hard. I don't cook to please my man. I didn't unclog the drain so that I could rescue you from distress. I don't clean so that I can be a good wife. I didn't wear a dirty t-shirt to make an antisocial political statement.

I work on my car because I can't afford a better mechanic. I cook because I'm dying of hunger. I cleared the drain so that I could take a shit without being up to my ankles in it. I clean because I can't hack it with the filth. My shirt is dirty because I'm up to my elbows in it.

I'm sorry you can't relate to me as a woman, I'm not that kind of girl. I'm sorry I don't pass as a man, I'm not that kind of boy. I'm not your possession, not your provider, not a facade to chip away at.

Two Pounds of Flesh

Beneath the layers of fibers and print
and everyday bravado
that sound like acquiescence
are the two pounds of flesh
closest to my heart.

Is my manhood enough
to warrant the price
of the two pounds of flesh
closest to my heart
cut away to pay off the debt
to a gender that won't own me?

Is my womanhood enough
to warrant the price
of the two pounds of flesh
closest to my heart
cut away to pay off the debt
to a gender I can't own?

Beneath the layers of fibers and print
and everyday bravado
that sound like acquiescence
is a gender that pays
no debts and makes no apologies.