April 12, 2009

• Coming Out: Eli, Queerish Preview

  Cuz there is no short version.

  I am going to apologize right now for this being a novel of a post.  It is quite long, but it reads well.  You'll be my best friend if you read the whole thing though....  And you'll also know me pretty freaking well.  So, do it?  Dooo iiiit. *peer pressure*
  
  
  

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  As a trans person who is pre-everything (and therefore visibly queer), I have to consistently correct people that I am not a dyke lesbian.  While people rarely assume I'm a heterosexual female, which is nice, they also rarely read me as male, which is less nice (and actually kind of sucks).  Most people assume I'm some sort of queer, and most assume I like women.  So the second thing I have to disclose is that I do not exclusively like women.  If I'm already disclosing those things, I generally disclose that I'm asexual.  I mean, since we're having that conversation, why not clear up everything?  People automatically think when you're interested in someone you want to be sexual with them... and rarely (very rarely) is that the case for me. 

  One of the big things I am thinking about in trying to decide how I feel about medically transitioning is coming out post-transition.  I don't really feel transsexual; I feel transgender. (Dean Spade made some excellent distinctions in his coming out letter, which you can view here.)  The distinction between the two terms is actually quite large, and while I always feel TG, I really only feel TS when society flaunts the fact that the girls I like don't see me as a member of the gender of interest, or I can't use a restroom, and stuff of the "binary" nature.  I feel simultaneously invisible and too visible and, in those moments, I wish I were biologically male.  But transitioning, I feel, would make my life a lot more complicated in many ways.  

  Trans people have a different set of questions concerning coming out:  How do you compensate for your past?  When do you disclose to those you are interested in that your body parts don't match the outward exterior? (Most trans guys look 100% like a member of the biological sex they've transitioned to once on hormones.)  What should your family say when asked about "the old you" by their friends and extended family?  How you answer these questions ties into how and when you come out.  Simple stuff like, "How is [birth name] doing?" which is okay now, could really disrupt my parents' lives and generally mundane conversation after I come out as Eli.  It's a lot to think about.  (And no; I am not out as Eli to my immediate family.) 

  These questions make me have a lot of compassion for intersex males who do not have penises or have micropenisis because they were born with that body.  When do they disclose this?  When does the intersex person disclose their information?  When does the infertile person disclose that they can't have kids?  A lot of people want someone who can make babies with them.  What do you do with that?  There are quite a bit of bodies (and minds) that are abnormal.  When do they disclose their abnormalities?  It really makes you wonder.

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  When I first came out to myself, it was in 2006 and I was really unaccepting of it.  It had been pretty drilled into my head that same-sex attraction was wrong and went against the natural order of things and disgusted God.  I was also heavily (very heavily) involved in ministry at my church at the time.  (I believe I was in something like 11 ministries between 2003 and 2006.)  While it was early on in 2005 that I realized the unreasonably strong feelings that had developed for this one particular girl, it took me nearly a year to admit to myself or anyone else that I liked women because I kept telling myself, "I don't like girls, I just like this one girl, and it's not because she's a girl, it's because she's awesome."  (Girl crushes #2, 3, 4, 5 kind of changed my mind....)   It was so much more than that, though; beyond "I don't like girls" it was "I can't like girls" -- and the fact that I knew I did, made me hate myself.  I entered in to a pretty deep depression, pulling myself from all my ministries, and I withdrew from my family because I understood that their position on homosexuality was very negative.  I didn't want anyone to get in my way of figuring myself out. 

  I had no access to anything "queer" my first year or so of my journey; none.  I never read any articles about gay kids or coming out or was given any advise, I didn't know a single gay kid, I didn't know I could present as anything other than feminine, no one in my life bent gender or even wore their hair short, I hadn't seen any queer representation in the media, and "alternative lifestyle" (which is what all queer-themed websites fell under) was one of many categories blocked by the parental controls my father had installed on the family computer.  It being an "outside influence" is out of the question.  I was close with both parents, too, to dispel that myth; my lack of a relationship with my father is an effect of being queer, rather than a cause.

  Still, even with no one to help me, I was pretty smart in how I navigated coming into my identity (according to the article we posted).  I sought out people I felt would accept me--namely gays and lesbians--afraid that those who were in my life at the time would judge me or ask that I change (which my boyfriend at the time did do, along with some other "friends").  My willingness to change was at about... 0%, as I had never felt so alive as I felt when around the girl I liked.  I'd heard about romantic attraction before but had never experienced it.  It was overwhelming to me how "real" my feelings were, and I was very apprehensive to tell anyone who might suggest change was possible.  I felt that if change were possible, I would be obligated to change, because I identified as a Christian and felt that was a Christian calling. 

  I hated myself pretty intensely, and I called myself out as a "bad" Christian because even though I was praying every night for God to take away my feelings for this girl and make me straight, part of me was terrified He would actually take me up on it and I would miss feeling those things for her.  Feeling like my prayers were empty and dishonest really made matters worse, especially when the feelings I was apprehensive to get rid of were feelings I could only label as "wrong" "unacceptable" and "unnatural."  I began to do an overwhelming amount of research on what the Bible had to say about being both homosexual and Christian, reading arguments from every source I could find and weighing the (terribly contradictory) evidence.  I didn't even consider myself a homosexual... but I couldn't tear myself away from my research. 

  What I found was that the church is nowhere close to unified on the issue.  And that the church IS nowhere close to unified on the issue.  Churches range from gay-bashing to accepting of the person but not his or her "lifestyle" to readily embracing the person and his or her "lifestyle".  This signaled a problem with Christianity, in the end, and a bigger "how to interpret Scripture" problem plaguing the churches.  And after a lot of researching and soul searching and crying, I decided to leave Christianity in 2007.  It wasn't as difficult a decision as it might have been a couple years prior, but my church went through a huge divide in 2005 and members of the church who I had considered family my entire life stopped talking to other members of the church family... and no one explained what happened.  It was like a divorce, a bad divorce, and I wanted no part of any of it.  I was bitter with the church for abandoning me when I felt I needed it most.  In fact, I was rather happy to leave.

  But we are moving away from my story…

  I made an official declaration to my parents about my queerness in November 2007 because I felt that it had become obvious over those past two years and I wanted to make sure what was assumed was understood as truth.  So I wrote them a six-page letter detailing my attraction to Girl 1, my relationship with my boyfriend at the time, the words I used to describe myself (androgynous, pansexual, and asexual) and what I needed from them (their acceptance).  As far as I know, my dad still hasn't read the letter.  He doesn't want to know.  My mother, on the other hand, essentially said, "I may not always agree with what you do, but you are my child and nothing you could ever do would make me love you any less" which is in many ways comforting to hear and in other ways discouraging (I want for what I do to be accepted too).  To this day, we do not discuss my orientation or gender identity.  They have watched me go from feminine girl with interest in guys to feminine girl with interest in girls to masculine girl with interest in girls, to the queer boy I am now, without ever discussing it once.  We are very "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in this house.  Conversations that may be awkward or confrontational are avoided at all costs, and all the girls, guys, and trannies I bring by are "friends."

  Speaking of trannies... even though I have been going to gay clubs and other gay things for a year, it wasn't until early 2008 (after writing the letter) that I met anyone who identified as "genderqueer" or "transgender" or anything outside the binary.  And it wasn't until April I would say that I was introduced to my first community of trans men.  I felt an instant connection, something clicked; I had an immediate reaction that this was the community I was searching for.  It's been a year and a half in that community, and that's still how I'm feeling.  I also feel a lot more community with lesbians than I ever had before, though, so I'm not sure what to say about that.  Essentially, I'm mad at myself for thinking that there was a way one could "feel lesbian" and since I felt more like a heterosexual male when I liked women I thought I wasn't part of "their" community.  Wrong.  I loves me some lesbians.

  There is a lot more to my story that I have not touched on, both past and present.  I am currently figuring out my trans identity and what it means to me so that I can accurately come out to my parents.  It has been causing me a lot of anxiety and distress not knowing what exactly to tell my parents about me this time around, because I feel that they do not know me and thus cannot fully respect the person I feel that I am.  I want to tell them, but I don't want to tell them the wrong thing.  I'm also not sure I could handle hearing my birth name and female pronouns in association with myself after coming out to them.  When they use those now I brush it off as them not knowing any better, but later on I'm afraid I will get hurt and offended.  I realize that I have had a year to come into my identity and they may take just as much time (if not longer) but I'm honestly unsure I can be that patient.  It's very hard right now.  I have been very discontent, with myself, them, and society at large.

  I struggle with both internalized homophobia and internalized transphobia.  It's cool for people around me to be gay and trans, but I have a hard time accepting it in myself.  I have strong days and weak days and, overall, I find that I am both terribly proud to be queer and terribly ashamed.  I am trying to crawl out from under the rocks and stones people have throwing at me my whole life (including myself) but has not been easy.  Thank you, Queerish community, for helping alleviate some of the pressure caused by these boulders.  I appreciate your kind support.  If I come out to my parents as transgender, or to myself as something more concrete, I'll be sure to let you know. 

  Oh, and as always, questions and other random feedback are welcome.

  • 8:29 pm
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