by Angus, 17
“Who the hell are you?”
One of my best friends looks down her pointed finger at me. She’s great at putting that accusation into her voice. It makes me laugh every time because it’s so bizarre.
Now, imagine you’re out to dinner (well, sitting in a crowded dining hall) with a bunch of queer people who you sort of know but still have that vague unfamiliarity. Three of these people are attached-at-the-hip, you have the impression that they’re close, and one turns to another and goes “Hey, what’s your name?” Who are these people? Do they just not know this third one? Why is he always around?
There’s a hilarity to being genderfluid. There’s always some joke to be made. One of my favorites has been one girl yelling at me “Your pronouns, put them in the bag!” as we pretended to be in a wild west holdup.
I have been genderfluid for a relatively short time. I probably wouldn’t have realized it for a lot longer if I hadn’t been hit with an acute beam of queerness when my school opened the lavender lounge, a small space for queer students. Immediately we took up residence. We are a subset of our school’s queer community, the lav lounge crowd. The group solidified quickly, even though some of us were in the fringe, there were people like me who are there every day until the building closes. There are several of us who spend more time lav lounging than in our rooms (or anywhere else on campus).
There’s a joke amongst us that we will “trans your gender.” One of our elders even had a counter labeled “Days since so-and-so transed someone’s gender.” (We sound like a TERF’s nightmare). You have to understand the dynamic. We’re all radical about gender in one way or another. We’re tearing gender apart. We’re giving people other options. And we believe that a lot of people are trans, just that society isn’t set up to handle that.
The lav lounge was even called “The Incubator.” I really like this phrase. We will bask you in the warm light of transness until you are ready to hatch. So much gentler than cracking an egg. We will keep you safe and warm until you join us.
This happened to me. My first times in the lav lounge were as a cis bi woman. I was a woman because I was “born a woman.” Obviously I don’t follow this line of thinking anymore. What I meant was that I was born AFAB, and at the time those things were linked for me. I didn’t care what others did, but I was a woman because I was raised one. Flimsy reasoning. It’s really not surprising that it took just a few weeks before so-and-so from earlier suggested we have a gender talk. I joked about my pronouns being on thin ice. Six trans people turned their eyes to me. My friend and I left the room, but one of my friends called after us: “Hope you’re trans when you get back!”
I was, and now I had a shiny new name that had been pinging in the back of my mind since I was fifteen.
People were happy for me (especially the ones that remained by time the gender talk was finished).
The thing was, I didn’t feel like either name captured me. My first name was sometimes dysphoria inducing and sometimes not, while my second name was euphoric, I missed hearing my first one. I’m not good at standing up for myself, but I am proud that I explained to everyone that my name changes. These are equally my names, I like them both. Both are mine. I even took a third. For funsies.
Sometimes I feel like my gender is obnoxious. Other people always guessing names and pronouns. But you know what? I get to take up space. I get to be annoying, or absurd. Coming from someone with low self confidence, this has actually been great for me. I have to let people know when I’m uncomfortable, and this begins to extend to other topics. Also, it’s reaffirming that even if my gender is weird and takes a little extra thought, no one’s mad about it.
I’ve had victories. Coming out to close trans friends, coming out to the full lavender lounge, getting my first he/him pronoun pin, trying a binder, going to a trans day of visibility gathering, and coming out to cis friends.
I still have more things left to do. Working on the courage to be openly queer, and introduce myself with my chosen names. Connecting with more of the trans community outside my college.
It’s been a weird six months, but it’s so freeing to make this change. I’m still working through self confidence issues, but experimenting with gender identity has helped ease that so much. And I have a feeling my journey with gender is far from over. I don’t even know if my label will be genderfluid in the future. But I am infinitely glad to be a part of this community.
Maine, United States
Bridge Ink 