Non-binary Identity: A Never-ending Journey

I'm back! I haven't had time for this blog (or my other blogs, or my music writing) since about mid September. Before NaNoWriMo even got in the mix, my freelance work really started to pick up toward the end of September, so that I was pulling 18 to 20 hour days for a while. Now things have calmed down a little so that when I do get freelance work, it usually only means a 15 hour day (yay O.o) and when I don't, I sometimes actually have free time! (It's been so long that when I do have it, I don't know what to do with it. Chores? Sleep? Eat chocolate and stare at the wall in a daze?)

I have been thinking about things and about writing, though. I want to write about Zella Ziona, the Transgender Day of Remembrance, and Seneca Valley High School's production of The Laramie Project (and I'll probably cram those all into one post, just because). But I got inspired to steal the time to get back on here because over the past few days I've read pieces about non-binary identity by two of my favorite bloggers (Sam Dylan Finch and Pax Ahimsa Gethen), and I thought it was time to throw my hat in the ring.

In his post about creating spaces that welcome non-binary folks, Sam talked about how he was kicked out of a non-binary group because he had identified as transmasculine and therefore someone in the group considered him a trans man and thus not non-binary.

As Sam goes on to explain, this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of non-binary identity and the fluid nature of gender in general. And I think it also shows a lack of understanding of the term "transmasculine," which is a much broader term than "trans man" and can include anyone who is AFAB (assigned female at birth) but leans toward masculinity.

It also struck home with me because I myself identify not only as transmasculine, but as both a trans man and a non-binary, genderqueer person. I identify as a trans man because I am part of the group of people who were assigned female at birth, but have taken steps to change their lives to live as male instead. Even though I don't think of myself as "being a man" as strongly as some other trans guys might, my experience of transitioning to and living as a man are so much in line with theirs that I do see myself as a trans man.

At the same time, I've known for a while that my internal sense of gender is unclear and/or nonexistent, and lately I've been thinking more and more that I really do not have a gender. I'll have moments when I see myself just as a person, with no gender, and that's how I feel most comfortable thinking of myself.

I am actually genderqueer (non-binary), even though I live largely as a binary-appearing trans man.

In his post, Sam talks about how non-binary identity can include fluidity and uncertainty, and may not look like how cis people expect it (ie. androgyny and complete disavowal of the binary genders). That is, non-binary identity can include elements of the binary genders, and non-binary folk may even look or act like binary gendered people.

That doesn't make their non-binary gender identity any less valid.

I want to add that non-binary and binary shouldn't be mutually exclusive. That would be setting up another binary, between the completely androgynous or genderless, and the completely male or female, and leaving no room for anything in between. I don't see myself as completely male, and definitely not as female. But I do identify a lot with masculinity, to the point that I'd generally rather people call me by male pronouns and perceive me as a man. I'm living in the binary, but not of it.

After reading and reflecting on Pax's post, though, I also discovered that I seem to lean a lot more toward non-binary than I thought.

In their post "Be a Man," Pax, who also presents masculinely while identifying as non-binary, wrote a line that resonated with me strongly: "I cannot “Be a Man.” I can play the part of a man in public..."

I identified a lot with that line. As I've written before, I present as male, ask people to address me as male, and hope to be perceived as male, while not necessarily actually feeling that I am a man. And Pax's post led me to think about whether I do that because it's what I really want, or because it's easier to be accepted that way, as a trans man, than to try to explain to people that I actually have no strong sense of gender at all, and easier to not be seen as female if I clearly present as male.

I'm pretty sure I do like presenting masculinely - wearing big cargo pants, having a flat chest, well defined muscles and a deep voice, playing "the guy" in a relationship. But thinking about Pax's post made me wonder: do I really want male pronouns, or would "they" be better instead? Do I like being my girlfriend's boyfriend, or would I rather be her partner? Do I really want to be called "Mr." and "sir"? I'm constantly telling people - everywhere from the bank to the dentist's office to organizations I volunteer with - to call me Mr. not Ms., because it's a concise and effective way to get the point across and get them to stop doing something hurtful (ie. addressing me as female). But is it what I really want or just the easiest way to avoid what I don't want?

If I were to tell people to use 'they' pronouns and refer to me as my girlfriend's partner and not to use any formal titles at all, I'd probably get a lot less cooperation, a lot of arguments about how 'they' can't be singular, and a lot of misgendering since people might default back to female pronouns and forms of address rather than neutral ones. Part of the reason I swung over to living as male rather than as genderqueer was that I could not get away from being seen as female while living as genderqueer. I couldn't get people to stop treating me as female until I gave them a "valid" reason by coming out and living as a trans man. A binary trans identity is given a lot more credence and respect that a non-binary one.

This isn't something I was really consciously aware of when I came out as transmasculine in September 2014, though. I was just doing what I thought I needed to do to live authentically and have my wishes respected. At the time, being seen as a man was something I definitely wanted, and it's hard to say whether I wanted that for its own sake, or because that would mean definitively not being seen as a woman. Around the time I made my appointment to start HRT, I even identified as a man, no trans prefix attached. But funny enough, the further I go with my physical transition, the less I feel like being a man. When not being seen as a woman was founded entirely on my insistence that I'm not, that I'm trans and a man, then it was an important point to make. Now that my muscles, facial structure and deep voice help make the point that I'm not female, I no longer need to belabor my identity so much.

Not being seen as female has freed me up to consider what and who I really am. Male? Agender? Something in between? Sometimes one thing and sometimes another?

After a few days of thinking about it, I still don't know. But I don't necessarily have to know right now. Something Sam talked about in his post, and which is an important but often overlooked aspect of non-binary gender, is being open to uncertainty and fluidity and questioning and exploration. This is a struggle not just for binary people, but also non-binary people who are figuring themselves out. It's hard to live with uncertainty. But seeing as there is no obvious answer, it's something I have to learn how to do - to "hold the questions," as Pema Chödrön says.

Carving out one's identity as a tran person isn't easy in the first place.  There will be times of feeling like you don't belong simply because you weren't socialized or don't have the same physiology as cis people of your identified gender. For a long time I've longed to be "one of the guys," yet when I try, even now when I "fit in" a little better after 9 months on testosterone, I don't always feel like I belong or am doing it right. And I don't know if that's simply because I haven't yet learned how, or because the type of guy I am isn't quite traditional, or because I actually am not totally male.

I don't know if I'll ever know. The moments of genderlessness I've been feeling lately, which tend to happen when I'm alone and stem from how I see myself rather than how others see me, seem to indicate that genderlessness is a key part of my identity. But what about being male sometimes too? I don't know about that part. The only thing I can do, though, is keep on going with my gender journey, trying on new hats (to borrow that metaphor from Sam), seeing which ones fit and feel good and which ones don't, keeping the good ones and discarding the uncomfortable ones. And if some hat fits for a little while - whether the reason is my own identity or how I am perceived - it's ok to keep it as long as I need, and then discard it if a time comes when it no longer fits.

After all, there are no rules or boundaries to being non-binary. That's what it's all about, transcending a limited view of gender where you have to be definitely one thing or the other - even to yourself.

I Reject Your Gendering and Replace It With My Own

Of late, I've gotten more and more comfortable with simply mentally telling people to bug off when they may be making incorrect assumptions about me based on my appearance. "Assuming makes an ass out of u; but me? I'm awesome."

I've seen "non-consensual gendering" mentioned in a couple places recently, and I think it was this concept that gave me the grounds and confidence to finally grow a sort of armor against other people's misgendering of me. (Of course, the fact that I'm on HRT, which is changing my body and thereby causing misgendering incidents to be drastically fewer than before HRT, helps too.)

It clicked for me over this past weekend. On Saturday, I went to the county fair and then to a folk metal concert in Baltimore. Since I was going to be spending time outside, I wanted to wear a tank top; since I was going to a folk metal show, I had to wear something with a fitting band on it. I had the perfect shirt to fit the bill: a tank top I made out of a too-big, brightly colored Amon Amarth shirt by cutting the sides into lots of strips and tying them back together.*

*I know, I know, Amon Amarth isn't folk metal, but it's about Vikings, so it's relevant.

Just one problem: I made said awesomely colorful Amon Amarth tank top two years ago (the year Amon Amarth brought their Viking ship to Mayhem Fest, and one year before the start of my gender journey). So it's of a somewhat form-fitting, "feminine" cut. On top of that, those sort of cut-and-tied-back-together T-shirt tank tops are generally seen on women.

Well, screw all that, I said to myself. I wanted to wear my Amon Amarth tank top. So I would, and a mental finger to anyone who might misgender me because of it.

But the first gendered comment I heard that day? "Nice shirt, man," from a passerby at the fair.

Apparently even in a "feminine" tank top, I am "man." That comment gave me a boost of confidence that carried me through the rest of the weekend.

It also made me question, for the umpteenth time, which restroom to use while out and about with my kid. If even in that tank top I was "man," then was I going to get called out for going in the women's restroom? (Which I still do with my kid for safety reasons.) I decided to stick with my plan, though: use the women's restroom with my kid until someone calls me out. That will be my sign that even with my kid, I need to start using the men's room.

I thought this might be the time. It didn't help that as we were about to go in the door of the women's restroom, my kid said to me, "But you're not a woman."

"I know," I said in a weary voice. "But we have to go in here."

And still, nobody said anything. Even though I now have a deep voice and kinda visible mustache hairs and macho arm and shoulder muscles.

I had to wonder whether, in this liberal suburb of Washington, DC, the message of "pay no mind to that person of questionable gender in your restroom" has gone home so deep, that out of respect and politeness, no one said anything.

Or perhaps I was accurately read as a trans man, and therefore "not a threat" in the women's restroom - problematic thinking, even if it did save me from harassment.

Whatever the cause, my kid and I got in and out of the restroom without any hassle, and surprisingly, no damage to my self-esteem. As an avoider of conflict, I was relieved no one questioned me, but I also found it hard to believe. Someone had just called me "man." And yet I was also acceptable in the women's restroom?

I guess maybe I come off as gender ambiguous, until some factor (such as a metal band shirt and my macho appearance, or my going into the women's room) causes people's perceptions to swing one way or the other. Most people aren't equipped with a box for gender-neutral/ambiguous/less, so they have to force everyone they see into either male or female. Someone who is questionable has to be figured out and sorted into one of those two.

This is, of course, nonconsensual gendering. Even if someone does seem to clearly fit masculine or feminine norms, you still can't say for sure that they're male or female, since presentation and identity don't always correlate. Take me, for instance. If you saw me at a metal show, with my cargo shorts and band shirt and arm muscles and sprouting facial hair, it might be easy to assume I'm a man. But I'm not - I'm a masculine-presenting genderqueer person.

The thing that I grokked this weekend was, "It's not me - it's you." (Ok, maybe not you, dear reader - you're probably my friend and/or supporter - but other people in general.) There's nothing wrong with me, or they way I present myself. The problem is with other people, with society's forcing of male and female and their attendant restrictive gender norms on everyone, to the point that people feel compelled to force everyone they see into one or other of these boxes, without asking, without taking the whole picture into account, and usually based on superficial features like the shape of my chest and butt.

So fuck all that. I'm-a do what I want. I now care a lot less how other people judge my gender, because you know, they are often ignorant and just plain wrong. Usually through no fault of their own - it's the fault of social conditioning - but it's not my fault either. Fuck society's idea of what makes someone "male" or "female." I reject that and replace it with my own declaration: I am male, genderqueer, and myself, no matter what the fuck I'm wearing, or which bathroom I'm using.

Anyway, the folk metal show went great, and gender was not an issue at all (more about that in my upcoming review). And the next day, I felt enough like honeybadger that I spent all day in, and went out shopping in, just a sports bro rather than a binder. (I thought I was only going to wear it for sleeping and for the drive home, and planned to shower and put on a clean outfit including binder before running my errands, but my watch broke in the mosh pit on Saturday, and the place to get it fixed was along the way home, and after going there in just my sports bro, I said "screw it" and wore it all day.) There was a very slight bulge, too low to be pecs or manboobs. T has considerably deflated by moobs, though, so it was just barely noticeable. And it was so amazingly comfortable wearing just a sports bro, after having my whole torso squeezed by an Underworks 997 binder for most of recent memory.

I was tempted to just wear a sports bro to work today - but I didn't. It was mainly for the reason of consistency. I've been flattening my chest more and more since last summer. Wouldn't it seem strange if I suddenly stopped doing so? Might I start getting more looks and questions in the men's restroom again? And I gotta admit, even though a sports bro is much more comfortable, I really like the "masculine" look of my chest in a T-shirt when I've bunched my moobs up inside my binder so it just looks like I have kinda big pecs. It's not as obvious with a button-down shirt on, but there is a slight difference, which I can see every time I go to the restroom and see myself in the mirror.

And ultimately, that's what matters - what I see, what I want to see. Not what anyone else sees or thinks of me because of what they see.

At this point, I have to admit that part of my freedom - to wear what I want and to feel confident doing so, largely without fearing or experiencing harassment for it - stems from the privilege of living in a liberal area and being a trans man. Like I was saying above, I think people around here have learned to respect trans* people (the concert venue I went to was even a designated Safer Space). And as a trans man, I don't call down the waves of sexism, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia that trans women are subject to. I do get to do what I want freely, because people around me really don't give a damn, most of the time. The worst I might get is being called "miss" or "ma'am" at a store. It's a far cry from the verbal abuse, discrimination, and violence that often happen to trans* people in other places or situations.

So nonconsensual gendering is about more than just hurt feelings. Making assumptions about other people's gender, whether it's because of their body, clothing, name, gender marker on their ID, or any other factor other than their own stated self-identification, is cissexist, transphobic, and plays a part in transphobic violence. It's time for our rigid obsession with sorting everyone into male and female boxes to end, so that everyone can be free to be who they are. To do any less makes us all assholes.

Local metal photographer Tigran Kapinos caught me running around

in the pit in that Amon Amarth tank top. Check out his other photos

from the show; they're awesome!

At Ease With Uncertainty

There's a platitude that the only constant in life is change. Nothing is certain; everything changes. We all know this, and yet it's a hard fact to live with. We want to be sure of things in our lives; when uncertainty rears its head, we get anxious.

Uncertainty about my gender -- who I am, and what to do about it -- has been a source of anxiety to me for over a year now, but especially in the last few months. Since making the decision to start HRT, I've been angsting about even more stuff than before, though you'd think the opposite would happen. Am I "all the way" transgender or "just" genderqueer? Am I really trans* at all? Do I really need to transition medically? Am I ever going to "get there" with transition?

When I made the decision on January 14 to start T, I thought I had all the answers. I was a man. I wanted a male body. It wasn't long, though, before the doubts started. I wrote about feeling like I was in a no-man's land, having left the shore of femaleness definitively behind, and yet not having reached the shore of being perceived as male. I didn't know who or what I was. Eventually I started to question whether I actually was a man. I still wanted to look like one, to be one physically, but I didn't feel like one inside, or outside. I felt like I couldn't be female, but I didn't know if I could be a man, either.

Oftentimes, this stemmed from noticing something about my body or my appearance that rang the "female" bell in my head. You wanna be a man? Uh, nope - your waist and hips say otherwise. Or your chest in that sports bro says otherwise. The way you're walking, or sitting. The way your voice comes out high when talking to your kid, or on the phone, or speaking in Chinese. (Yep, although I'm doing all right in English, I still haven't learned to speak Chinese with male intonation >.<)

I can't even tell if I'm comfortable being perceived as a man, because most of the time, I think I'm not seen that way. I don't want to be seen as a woman, and knowing that I am (for instance, when I hear female pronouns or words like "ma'am") rankles me. I prefer to hear male pronouns and male forms of address. But does that make me a man, or just more masculine than feminine? Is my way of "being a man" sufficient? Is "being a man" something I want to do?

I just want to be myself, but at the moment I don't really know who or what my self is.

Part of that is because gender, once you open yourself up the idea that it can be more than just binary, is far from clear-cut. There is no right or wrong other than what your gut instinct tells you - but I'm so unused to trusting myself that I can barely make out what my gut is saying. (Even when it's hungry, I have a tendency to ignore that feeling, too.)

Part of it is that my gender -- my understanding of it and my expression of it to the outside world -- is in flux. I am looking more and more masculine, but I'm not at the point yet where I'm broadly perceived as a man, or even by myself. I feel a disconnect with femaleness and an affinity with maleness, but I'm still learning about both these things. I don't understand women and I don't know enough about men.

And so, I've been having a lot of moments where I don't know where I'm going, or if I'll get there, or why I'm doing this.

But you know what? It's okay.

For the past week or so, I've finally been feeling okay with the uncertainty of my transition. I think I've learned to "hold the questions" -- a phrase that I think comes from Pema Chödrön, but I can't find the exact quote right now. It doesn't mean to stave them off but rather to sit with them, to let the questions be and not seek after answers, to accept uncertainty. After all, nothing is certain in life.

Not even the self. I am not the same person I was in high school, in college, when I was 25, or even five minutes ago. The only way to be yourself is just to be. Yes, the human mind likes to label and categorize. I would feel more rooted if I could proclaim "I am transgender!" or "I am a man!" with absolute certainty. Letting myself drift in the vagueness of "genderqueer" and "masculine" doesn't feel secure. But that's reality. Nothing is certain. Everything changes.

And I think I'm finally learning to relax and go with the flow, at least as far as gender is concerned.

Because more important than the other shore, which I may or may not reach, is what's going on right here, right now, where I am. Where I'm being me, making myself in each moment, just by doing what I'm doing. It's okay to just be, without even knowing how.

No one told me about this part...

No one told me about this part of transition. The part between the celebratory highs (my first shot! My first time injecting myself! My T party!), between the moments of joyous realization that my body is changing (muscles! peach fuzz!). I don't mean the part where I don't pass yet, or the part where this change or that change hasn't happened yet, cause I knew that would take a while. I mean the part where I feel lost, everything feels wrong, and I still can't bear to look at or think about myself, just as in the worst moments of dysphoria pre-T.

It's not that no one told me there are tough parts to transitioning. Among others, my girlfirend (who is a trans woman) has always been careful to give me an honest, balanced, and realistic picture of what transition is like - that there are lows as well as highs, that it takes time and I must be patient, that there will be setbacks even if the overall trend is upward. Still, I wouldn't have thought that after T, I might feel so groundless - disconnected from being female by the extra 25mg of testosterone percolating through my body every week, by the fact that I have fuzz on my face and my muscles are growing while my butt is shrinking (not to mention by the fact that I never felt female to begin with), while also feeling like it's impossible for me to be male, because I do still have curves, and even worse remnants of femaleness.

I'm nothing at the moment, which is ground I thought I wanted to inhabit last summer, but not now. This no man's land of not this and not that, or too much of this and not enough of that, is harder to bear than I would have thought. I expected the confusion of strangers, the continuation of misgendering, for at least a few months more. But I thought I would feel hopeful, happy, excited - at least, no worse than before. Instead I feel farther than ever from masculinity, despairing of ever achieving it, loathing toward my body and disappointed and uncomfortable with how I look and am perceived by others. Things were supposed to get better. I was supposed to look and feel more male. But at the moment, I feel like hardly more than a girl in drag. (Which is silly, because I don't feel like I'm a girl, and feminine articles are what feel like drag to me. But this is what I think my outward appearance seems like at the moment, and that's why it hurts so much, because it's the opposite of how I feel on the inside - I'm not a girl; these male clothes belong on me and are not drag.)

I know in a few days I'll probably feel better, because I'll notice some new change or further development, and I'll remember that things really are getting better, bit by bit. Having written this down, I feel a little better already, because the big picture is back in sight. There are things going on which I've barely hinted at, because you just don't want to know; it's gory and graphic; but that too will pass - it may take months, but as long as I keep sticking that needle in my stomach every week, things will keep changing, and even the worst parts of female anatomy will fade. I may feel lost in fog, but at least I have a compass - I know which direction to go. I just need to keep picking my feet up and putting them down, one after the other, until I get there.

Isn't it enough?

Is this good enough?

Every now and then I look in the mirror, and I'm happy enough with what I see that I think to myself, maybe I don't need to change myself physically after all. Yesterday (when this picture was taken) was one of those days.

It probably helped, of course, that I didn't leave the house at all, so no one noticed my girly face or my not-quite-flat chest. It probably helped that I was wearing some of my favorite clothes - camo cargo pants and this shirt that Someone handed down to me, which is so soft and comfy yet doesn't emphasize my curves; in fact it does the exact opposite. And that I could wear my hair down and messy - death metal hair.

If I could look like this every day, would I be happy? Well, for one thing, I can't. Sometimes I have to go to work and tie up my hair and wear things that aren't cargo pants and T shirts. Sometimes I even have to wear a military uniform, and oh boy is it tough to be a guy with long hair and a girly face and high voice when in uniform >.<

And sometimes I have to undress and come face to face with my curves. I try to ignore them as much as I can, but sometimes something forces me to confront the fact that my body is shaped like a girl's body, and it makes me feel sick.

And then there's the fact that no matter what I wear, I still get called "Ma'am" sometimes (or "Mom" when I'm at my kid's school), I still get weird looks and awkward questions in the restroom, I still hate the way my voice sounds when I answer the phone at work.. It's not all about passing, but do I really want to live the rest of my life having people assume I'm the wrong gender, and getting them to acknowledge the right one only as a favor or through sheer brute force of will?

Yes, in a way wearing my favorite clothes and my death metal hair is enough - for now. It will get me through. For every day of being miserable while being constantly misgendered in uniform, there will also be a day of feeling good cause I'm wearing what I like and think I look tough and metal. But it's a bandaid. It's the bare minimum of being myself. Wouldn't it be cool if I could be myself no matter what I'm wearing? If being myself wasn't just an outfit that I have to take off at the end of day, but my actual physical reality?

I don't know what I'll look like after hormones, what extent of physical changes will truly constitute enough. Facial hair or no facial hair? How big of muscles? How small of a butt? A face that's only slightly less girly, or a lot less girly? I think I'll just know it when I see it. One day I'll be able to look at my body and not feel like it's a bad costume, but rather that it's me, really me.

And then finally my death metal hair will be just a part of a truly badass whole.