Jump ahead nearly a decade, my gender expression is essentially naught. While I am well-paid for manuafcturing labor, I am exhausted working through the pandemic on a manufacturing floor thoroughly disinterested in wearing any clothing I care about to work and too tired to changed and socialize afterward. I have code-switched and camoflaged myself so …
my gender identity, part 3
During the first half of my post-college adulthood, the personal gender concept I established in college held firm, if not back-seated in my brain. I didn't struggle with or dispute it in any way. I simply embraced it and tucked it in and never really engaged in conversations related to it. In these years, I …
my gender identity, part 2
As I approached college, my journey turned toward my sexuality far more than my gender. I didn't encounter anyone discussing gender separately from sexuality, or I didn't realize it if they did. So I continued to treat it as a personal internal experience. As for my sexual being, at nineteen, I experienced my first external …
a closer inspection
I came across a familiar quote today, by Alexander Leon: "Queer people don't grow up as ourselves, we grow up playing a version of ourselves that sacrifices authenticity to minimise humiliation and prejudice. The massive task of our adult lives is to unpick which parts of ourselves are truly us and which parts we've created …
an unbearable pause
It is profound what can be found in the tiniest of silly things. I have joined TikTok and it is peeling away my armor and exposing the heap of trauma responses masquerading as an out and proud queer. Yesterday, I received a notification that I have access to the new three minute feature, not that …
the breaking off a fragment
I have spent most of my adult life mourning bits of me as they were broken off and left behind on the trail of my life. Eventually, I learned from She-who-is-never-not-broken that I can find my power here, in these broken moments. Today is a different sort of shattering apart: my heart is cracking to …
my gender identity, part 1
There are specific markers in my life, flashing buoys at critical points of my developing identity. Even though the day-to-day experience of my life was experienced as though I was a constant unwavering being, I can delve into memories and pinpoint "ah-ha!" slices of time where the tiny little sidestep has significance. Thirteen was an …
my lost extrovert
I'm not even sure when it happened. It is more than the effects of social distancing through a global pandemic: I have lost my social butterfly. Small talk is nearly impossible, and borders on painful. I am consoled by the current state of not going out in public, of not socializing. I miss my friends, …
the forgotten maker
This self has never really splintered off, nor has he had the spotlight as prime in this lifetime. A brief glimmer perhaps. My jewelry maker. I made a lot of things growing up. My brain buzzed non-stop and making with my hands was the only satisfying option I found to thrive through the noise. My …
my over-the-top pansy-poker
In a previous life, before surviving cancer and chemo forced "grown-up" choices that included company provided healthcare, I was an award-winning, top-notch, out-of-the-box floral designer. And, frankly, I miss it to fuck and back right about now. Both in Ohio and Arizona, I had the best times of my life poking pansies into vases and …
quantum man 