Unrest Under the Umbrella
Posted: June 24, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: community, conflict, gender identity, genderqueer, lgbt, lgbtq, queer, relationships, trans, transgender Leave a commentThank you, rimonim, for your reply!
My buddy janitorqueer posed an interesting question to me a couple of weeks ago:
Have you ever come across someone within your own community who you strongly strongly disagreed with? If so, what action or non-action did you take?
I certainly have! This can take a wide variety of forms. As a Jew, I sometimes have strong disagreements with my fellow members of the tribe about Israel/Palestine, among other things. As a trans man, I sometimes have strong disagreements with others under the LGBT and/or trans umbrella. For example, I take issue with all forms of “trans enough,” “subversive enough” and “feminist enough” tests of individuals’ gender identities or expressions.
My responses have varied from situation to situation. The better I know the person, the more likely I am to broach the disagreement. With a solid rapport, even extremely challenging topics can be handled gracefully.
When I don’t know a…
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Winding down from the Philadelphia Trans-Health Conference
Posted: June 23, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: conferences, gender identity, genderqueer, lgbtq, meeting people, networking, non-binary, Philadeliphia Trans-Health Conference, queer, socializing, trans, transgender, workshops 3 Comments
The conference was totally awesome. My partner and I attended part of the day Friday, and all of Saturday. In the past, I have gotten really overwhelmed really quickly, and I have felt like I don’t belong (not because of anything specific – I think it’s one of the most inclusive and conscientious events for trans* people from all types of backgrounds – but simply because I couldn’t really handle it, socially.) This year, I did not feel that at all! I even met 6 people! I was networking (sort of)!!!
I’m going to list and summarize the workshops I made it to, and then just write a little more about the experience overall:
Manning Up: No Apology Necessary – This was a guided discussion led by 3 contributors to a new anthology put out by Transgress Press. They first read from their pieces in the book, and then opened it up for questions and others to talk about their own experiences. I liked that this was not at all about what masculinity is, and how to find our masculine voices, but rather about personal growth, however that ends up looking like, in terms of roles and gender presentations. Another blogger wrote some interesting thoughts on this workshop, here.
Community-Building as Self-Care: Building a Movement(s) for Non-Binary Trans* Communities – This workshop ended up being huge! The facilitator said they were only expecting and planning for 20-30 participants, and there were probably 150+ people in attendance. As a result, the workshop was pretty unfocused, really only skimming the surface, but that might be where these topics are at, currently… Things, in some ways, are just getting started in non-binary communities. I think that (or at least I hope) the conference/facilitators will be better equipped for these workshops in the future. It’s true – in past years, I’ve gone to a few about genderqueer and non-binary identities (and there are really only a few offered) and the turnout was not huge. Things are really changing in this area in particular!
Real & Unreal Worlds: A Fiction and Poetry Event with Rachel Gold and Stephanie (Stephen) Burt – Rachel Gold is a young adult novelist, the author of Being Emily, amongst others, and Stephanie Burt is a poet and professor at Harvard University. They both did some readings of published and soon-to-be published works and then opened it up for questions and answers. Stephanie got a little bit swept up in her own work, which resulted in not quite enough time for audience participation in the discussion. It was a great workshop to attend for the morning though, when I wasn’t quite with it yet, to ease in to the day.
2014 Youth Panel: Seen and Heard – This was incredible and eye-opening! There were 4 panel members from very different backgrounds, aged 13-22. They each took turns answering questions provided by the two (also youth-aged) moderators. Then the audience had a chance to step up to a microphone and ask questions as well. The room was packed, and as audience members stepped up to introduce themselves and ask something, it was clear they were here for all sorts of reasons: They were parents of trans* youths themselves, they were pediatricians, social workers, activists, documentary film-makers, etc. They were there because they wanted to hear personal stories from young people, and help make changes in their professions and their communities on behalf of youth. Some of the stories were really heartbreaking; nonetheless, the energy in this workshop was really amazing.
No Longer Transsexuals, Not Quite Dysphoric: Who Are We Without a Diagnosis? – I find this topic to be highly interesting and, again, I left with a sense that we’d only scratched the surface. The guided discussion (when we got around to it) was very stimulating, but quite a bit of time was used up at the beginning of the session going around the room, introducing ourselves, and saying what brought us to this workshop. (I’m talking about maybe half of the session was used up doing this. I understand the facilitators wanted everyone to be involved, and they genuinely wanted to know why we were there, but this approach took too long.) We then discussed diagnoses for insurance purposes, stigmas attached to diagnoses, the DSM and the ICD (the International Classification of Diseases – this was new to me!), and how things are done in different parts of the world. A woman from India stood up toward the end, and talked in an impassioned way about how none of this applies to her and her country. And she went into details about some gruesome conditions in India, where it would be accurate to still refer to modifications as undergoing a “sex change.” I’m glad she had the courage to tell us about it, from her own perspective.
A Gender Not Listed Here – I’m going to do a separate post about this workshop, soon, because I loved it so much. So, this is just a teaser about that. Haha.
We also attended the Blender! Showcase after the conference, on Saturday night. There were some really amazing and intense performances, in the vein of spoken word, dance, and drag.
My networking accomplishments: I actually talked to some people! This is kinda huge for me; I don’t generally do this. I met Rhys Harper, a photographer raising funds to do a nationwide tour, a book, and art openings. I met and talked to two trans*guys from Transgress Press. I met Ezekiel of firsttimesecondtime.com! And I met two other internet friends, something I’ve never before experienced. We even went out to dinner with an internet friend, along with eir partner and another friend, and our friend from Philly. It was cool! We ate dosas.
1.25 years on T without noticeable masculinizing changes
Posted: June 18, 2014 Filed under: Testosterone, Uncategorized | Tags: androgyny, gender identity, genderqueer, hormone replacement therapy, lgbt, lgbtq, mental health, non-binary, queer, testosterone, trans, transgender, transition 14 CommentsI’ve been previously writing this ongoing series as “__ months/years on T without physical changes,” but I decided to change the wording from “physical changes” to “noticeable masculinizing changes” …a little more accurate. There have been some physical changes. But, ultimately, they have not added up to a more masculine gender presentation, which has been what I’m aiming for.
A quick rundown of the physical changes I have seen:
(All of these occurred within the first 2 months and then plateaued out, except the ones that have an asterisk – they started to become noticeable around the one year mark.)
- muscle growth, mostly in shoulders, chest, and abs
- moderate clitoral growth
- smell stinkier, need to shower more, get sweaty and sticky, get grosser quicker
- more peach fuzz on face, mustache teeniest-tiniest bit darker
- hairier butt crack*
- slightly more hair on thighs, where I apply the gel*
All these changes are so slight. I don’t think I look any different. Also, my voice sounds the same to me. I would say my range has shifted oh-so subtly (like when trying to sing or make high pitched or low pitched noises, which I like to do a lot), but my speaking voice is the same.
Here are a couple of pictures:
1.25 years on testosterone
one year on testosterone
before testosterone
Also, please note my new summer fashion, in the first photo. I cut the sleeves off of a couple of western-style shirts, to wear over t-shirts or tank tops. The placement of the pockets & snaps helps hide what’s going on with the fact that I have a chest. In the winter, I just layer, and it’s awesome. In the summer, it is hot! Right?! If I can get away without wearing a binder, I will. (And I am grateful every single day for that.) This layered look just might do the trick. I do imagine that I will get top surgery one day. I always start thinking about it much more in the summer. What an incredible feeling it would be to just wear a tank top and be done with it!
I have not missed a day yet, applying 1.25 grams of Androgel 1% per day. The internal effects make it more than worthwhile. A quick rundown of those:
- lower levels of anxiety
- higher sex drive
- less instances of dissociating / more present in my body
- increased ability to experience bodily sensations
- more awareness of the world around me
- increased sensitivity to pain
- ability to let things just roll off my shoulders
- a lot of these are rewording similar themes: basically, a greater sense of well being!
If you wanna look back at where I’ve been, here are some past posts about this topic:
- Five months on T without physical changes
- Eight months on T without physical changes
- Eleven months on T without physical changes
- One year on T without physical changes
And also, a video about it, at the one year mark.
I am not “your,”or anyone else’s, janitor
Posted: May 12, 2014 Filed under: Janitorial work, Uncategorized | Tags: class issues, gay, gay male, janitors, lgbt, lgbtq, manual labor, power, power dynamics, queer, relationship, relationships, work, working class Leave a commentDear (anonymous) Sir,
A few days ago, you asked the internet through a google search, “does my janitor who is a male like me and im a male (gay)?” And the internet took you to my blog, in the hopes it would help you find your answer. (Yes, the internet does have its own hopes and dreams!) I highly doubt you found what you were looking for, so I decided to fill in the blanks, in case you try again in the future. I will be taking some liberties and making some assumptions, in order to create a concise response. If I am off base, please, call me out!
I’m sorry to let you know, the internet cannot answer questions that are this specific to your personal experience. You can glean a whole lot of information that might help you put words to your feelings, which is super helpful. But the internet does not know your situation, does not know your janitor, and does not know anything beyond whatever it is that people write on it. Is there a chance that your janitor wrote about you on the internet? Yes, maybe. But you will not be coming upon that writing by asking in that way.
In order to learn more about this, you would have to interact in real life. Also, you may want to ask yourself instead, “Do I like my janitor, like, do I like like him? And if so, do I want to do something about it, despite potential consequences?” You might want to weigh the pros and cons. You might want to feel out the situation in more nuanced ways before jumping to conclusions or potentially propositioning him directly. You could ask for advice from people you trust and are close to. Hell, you could even anonymously ask for advice in myriads of places online (again, I’d suggest focusing on your own feelings and not your janitor’s)! But you will not come upon much success by googling it.
Equally important though, please disregard everywhere in the above paragraphs where I indulged the idea of “your” janitor. He is not your janitor. You do not own him. You may not know this, but he doesn’t actually even work for you! I am going to assume you are not his direct supervisor, and are instead someone who works in a building (as a lawyer, businessman, teacher, or some other profession where you work in a space.) And he cleans your space. You, in a way, do own that space. It is sort of “your” desk, “your” trash can, “your” chalk board, etc. That is fine. But, again, he is not “your” janitor.
Let’s go out on a limb and imagine you are his supervisor. In this case, and only this case, it could maybe be appropriate to call him your janitor. My supervisor does this – she will refer to us (the people who do work for her) as “my guys.” This has the potential of fostering a sense of camaraderie, like we are a team, and she is our leader. This could be OK. But to singularly be someone’s something, even in this context, would be strange. If you are his supervisor, I’d suggest cutting out the “my janitor.”
I’m just going to say this directly, as a janitor who cleans classrooms. I am no one’s janitor. I am employed by a school district. My salary is worked out through the annual budget, which comes from taxpayers. I am in a union; I pay a union due, and they do work on my behalf. I clean classrooms that are, spaces owned (in a way) by teachers and utilized by students. I do not work for teachers. If teachers have a problem with my work, they could go to the principal and/or my direct supervisor. The reason she is “my” supervisor is because, ideally, she has our collective best interests in mind. And because she is above me, on the power scale, and it is therefore obviously not actually owned by me. It is more appropriate. “My boss.” “My professor.” “My doctor.” “My therapist.” These are common and straightforward. “My busboy.” “My waitress.” “My maid.” “My landscaper.” This is a different story; this is slippery. Watch your step.
Sincerely,
Not Your Janitor
While I was “out,” Pt. 1 – trans* related linguistics
Posted: April 10, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: big data, community, culture, gender identity, genderqueer, language, lgbt, lgbtq, linguistics, non-binary, pronouns, queer, trans, transgender 12 CommentsI’ve been out of the office (and by office, I mean table in the dining room) quite a bit lately because I’ve been working a series of 12 hour shifts at my real job – filling in for my supervisor plus doing my own work. But that’s not really what I’m writing about right now…
For a few years, I was very much disconnected from the trans* community, and I’ve been recently back in some big ways (online at least… for now). Where was I from roughly 2007-2013? Why was I not involved? How was I involved before that time period? Why did I decide to come back? These questions are basically teasers for right now. I’ll be elaborating on all of that in the near future, but in this moment, I want to focus on some things that have changed in that short time period, linguistically speaking.
When I started to dip my toes back in the water, I started at LiveJournal, a space I’m familiar with and had been an active contributor in the past. I joined a group that’s all about non-binary identities but was quickly confused by a bunch of phrases and acronyms I’d never encountered before. I had no idea what AFAB/AMAB, FAAB/MAAB, DFAB/DMAB, CAFAB/CAMAB* stood for, or why there was an asterisk now attached to the word “trans*.” The most commonly used gender-neutral pronouns, last I was aware, were “ze/hir/hirs.” In fact, I hadn’t even heard of any others, not even “they/them/their.” !!! I’d never come across the honorific, “Mx.” I had not heard of the terms “neutrios,” “agender,” or “bigender,” although these were easy enough to figure out. In fact, in the past, I had identified (and I still identify) as genderqueer, but at the time, I strongly wished there was a better word (and maybe it was there, all along – I just wasn’t aware of it). I would have definitely identified as “agender” or “neutrois” if I’d been familiar with those words then. Now, not quite so much.
(I’m getting bogged down by trying to link everything! Here is an additional good resource, and I’ll just leave it at that. Nonbinary.org The internet is, you know, pretty search friendly anyway. You can do the work yourself, haha.)
Coincidentally, I came across a book at the library last week, called Uncharted: Big Data as a Lens on Human Culture. I’m only 36 pages in, but it’s already one of the most interesting books I’ve EVER read. Highly recommend! (If you’re into quantifying things and looking at social trends.) Basically, the authors teamed up with Google and created this website. Google has been digitizing over 30 million books over the past 10 years, and they’re just getting started. What that provides (among many things), is a database for how frequently words and phrases are used within languages and over great spans of time. And these guys came up with a search engine lens to chart this stuff. I decided to see what a graph would look like between 1980 and now (it cut me off at 2008, unfortunately) for the phrases “female-bodied” vs. “FAAB” vs. “AFAB.” It looks like this:
(You can click on it for a clearer image)
What does this all mean? Well, it means we can look at how words and phrases shift over time. (We can also see how infrequently these words/phrases are used, but that’s beside the point, a little bit…) It’s incredibly exciting to me that I could have been out of the loop for roughly 6 years – a very short time, relatively speaking – and when I came back to these dialogues, there was a bunch of new terms I’d never heard of! The trans* umbrella is an amazingly rich and dynamic area of changing identities, linguistics, politics, health initiatives, etc. It feels like there are endless things for me to write about and stay up to date with! Let’s continue discovering…
________________________________________________
*What do all these acronyms stand for?!! Well! here is the long string: Assigned female at birth / Assigned male at birth, Female assigned at birth / Male assigned at birth, Designated female at birth / Designated male at birth, Coercively assigned female at birth / Coercively assigned male at birth. These terms are gaining traction over “Female-bodied, Male-bodied,” which was previously the dominant way to describe someone’s birth sex, I believe…
Office work and Trans* YA fiction
Posted: January 29, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: gender identity, lgbt, lgbtq, office work, trans, transgender, volunteering, YA fiction, YA novels, young adults 6 Comments
As of last week, I’m now a volunteer at the local gay alliance, doing office work from 10AM-1PM on Fridays. I have never done office work in my entire life. Aside from dropping a call instead of transferring it, I think I did alright. Oh, also, at the end of my shift I walked out without the letters I was going to mail and had to go back, ring the bell, and be let back in to get them. Actually, now that I think about it, I was a condensed bundle of nerves. But I acknowledge that it’s going to get easier really fast, and I can be a friendly person on the phone.
Being in the office made me realize how my mannerisms and movements sort of clash with a tiny, confined space! At my regular job as a janitor, I make big sweeping motions all day long. I work standing up. And when I sit down to take a break, I slouch and sprawl. I was doing this at a tiny desk, only half-realizing while I was mid-act or mid-motion. For example, I was stuffing some letters, and halfway through the task, I realized I was standing up. I think all of this is fine, but I want to watch it because I don’t want to come off as uncaring or aggressive.
I decided to volunteer finally because I’ve been doing a whole lot of nothing lately. I don’t particularly care about office work, but I care about the LGBT community and would like to see some of the goings-on. Eventually, my dream is to be the facilitator of the gender identity youth group. Due to my janitorial hours, I’m not able to do this in the foreseeable future, but it’s on my radar. They meet once a week during the evening. I’m at work every evening. But! If one day I get the position of a head custodian, my hours would switch to daytime, and I’d have evenings free. I would like to work with kids in this capacity, even though it’d be super difficult for me, doing all that talking and directing and stuff.
In the meantime, I’ve been reading some YA books that kids thinking about gender identity might enjoy. So far, these have included:
Parrotfish by Ellen Wittlinger – about a high school junior starting to transition from female to male. Focuses heavily on family dynamics and reactions and also issues at school and with his best friend. I read it a year and a half ago, so my memory is a little fuzzy, but I recall the narration being a little bit fluffy, only scratching the surface about what it might feel like.
Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher – Again, it’s been a year and a half since I read this, but I would not necessarily recommend this to a young adult thinking about gender identity. It was definitely gripping and fast paced, but to the point of being sensationalistic. Some moments were poignant and realistic, but others made me want to ask the author, “Did you really have to go there?” It’s about someone who is a stealth MTF high school student, and what happens when her secret is revealed.
Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kirstin Cronn-Mills – By far, my favorite so far. It’s a quirky story of someone who is FTM and is able to split aspects of his identity by being a male radio DJ by night, and making progress in trying to come out in his daytime worlds. He has a strong bond with his older neighbor / DJ mentor / friend which just feels realistic and hopeful, even when other connections with people are not going the way he might want.
I am J by Cris Beam – I just got this out of the library yesterday! I’ll have to write about it after I read it.
Has anyone else read some YA fiction they would recommend? I’m hoping to relate to the young kids these days by reading books about them, haha. So that one day I can be a successful youth group facilitator.
This year felt different… in a good way
Posted: December 31, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: anxiety, genderqueer, non-binary, recap, same-sex marriage, testosterone, therapy, trans, traveling 2 CommentsIt’s really hard to quantify these things, but I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that this past year was the best year of my life. A lot of great things happened, I got to travel a lot, I got married (as I’ve been mentioning in every single recent post, haha)! And all those things are awesome. But the reason this year was so good was because I felt so different. I’d been struggling with some pretty crippling anxiety for like, forever. And I’d made quite a bit of progress over the past 2 years in therapy, but basically, I had constructed much of my life in ways to insulate myself from the things that were anxiety provoking. And no amount of therapy was going to help me strip that all away if I was still experiencing such unpleasant physiological reactions. Then I started taking a low dose of testosterone on March 18th and POOF! Anxiety dissipated into thin air, and I’ve just kinda been reveling in how good everything feels for the rest of this year. I hope I get to keep reveling for years to come… We’ll see. Here’s a couple of other things that were awesome:
– C and I went on vacation to Asheville, NC. It was our first grown-up vacation ever, by which I mean we flew there, rented a car (I’d never done this before), used Airbnb to find lodging (we always go somewhere on vacation where we can stay with friends – don’t get me wrong, I love seeing friends, but this just felt so different.), and just did a lot of local things – restaurants, microbreweries, hiking, cultural arts center, etc.
– We went on a bunch of other smaller trips: to Toronto twice (we went to the Toronto Comics Arts Festival and to the Sister Spit Tour), to Philadelphia (Trans Health Conference!), to NYC (Brothers Quay exhibit at MOMA!), and I went on a solo trip to Worcester and Boston.
(Here I am at the Toronto Comics Arts Festival, making a ridiculous face – I’m in line, in the middle, the short guy. I found this pic on the Fantagraphics website – er rather, a friend came across it and sent it to me, and Fantagraphics captioned it: “Then the magical Ulli Lust made her appearance. Leon Avelino of Secret Acres and The Beguiling’s Peter Birkmoe showed up but were sadly outdone by the BEST CON FACE EVER. Thank you, Toronto.” I’m highly amused by this, haha.)
– Like I mentioned, I started using a low dose of testosterone in March. Best. Thing. Ever.
– My supervisor and I started to actually get along at work. We now work really well together (so far), whereas in the past, we have had some pretty major clashes.
– I read 26 books. This number is way down from the past few years, but for prior to a few years ago, I wasn’t reading anything at all, so it’s still kinda a big deal for me!
– C and I got married and went on a fun weekend getaway!
– I met a new friend, a really introspective, really effeminate and handsome queer guy.
– I got a new bike, but did not really ride it nearly enough.
– I was in a really fun play and did a couple of drag shows.
– I started this blog!
There’s probably more, but that was pretty much what 2013 looked like for me.
Happy Randomtimes, today
Posted: December 17, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: anniversary, co-habitating, fake dates, gay marriage, homeownership, homeowning, housemates, lgbtq, randomtimes, relationship, same-sex marriage Leave a commentToday is the day C and I have been together for 7 years. This anniversary, which we refer to as “Randomtimes,” trumps the recent new date on which we got married, for sure.
How we met (this would be a medium length version): We met briefly twice, through a mutual (more than) friend, in the winter of 2005/2006. I was buying a house the following summer, and she was looking for a place to live that wasn’t her parents’ house. I phone-interviewed her; she had previously lived in a co-op with a bunch of people. She moved in that August, into the tiniest bedroom ever. She painted it bright blue with mint green trim and had a bunk bed. Two other people also lived there. It was cool times; it felt important to me, this household identity. She and I were both in relationships that imploded, exploded, and / or fizzled out within a few months. We started to hang out a little bit, tentatively. She was working downtown, and I invited her on a few “dates” on her lunch breaks. These weren’t indicators to her that I was interested. She thought maybe they were fake dates, whatever those are. : )
Finally one night in December, I wrote her an email from across the upstairs hallway, being a hell of a lot more direct. I had been out late dancing, and felt pretty good about myself right then; she was asleep. I told her I like like her and would she want to talk about it in person with me? It was a very long email – but that was the gist, haha. She did want to talk; a couple of days later, we went for a walk and talked. And talked and talked (and then made out!), and talked some more because, dang, it was kinda complicated – we lived together, yet didn’t know each other super well yet. But we decided to risk it and see how it felt.
It felt pretty great, but was also anxiety provoking, at least for me, at first! But ultimately, awesome. And since then, we’ve always lived with 2 other people, who have come and gone. (Although C moved out of the tiny blue room with bunk bed, and into the biggest room, which has the access to the attic, which is my room / where we sleep.) Up until a couple of weeks ago… the gentleman inhabiting the tiny blue room with bunk bed moved out, and our other housemate is potentially moving out within a month as well. (We asked them to look for a new place to move within the next 6 months.)
This is the first time we’re going to be living on our own, ever. What’ll that be like?!!
We took the plunge!
Posted: November 15, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: agreements, ceremony, coming out, create-your-own, genderqueer, getting gay married, honeymoon, lgbt, lgbtq, marriage, non-binary, relationships, rituals, trans, wedding 2 Comments
We did that thing – we got married! And! In the process of getting married, I came out (sort of) at work! But first thing’s first – we got married on Saturday, at a nearby park with a stream and some little waterfalls. We went to brunch first at a vegetarian Greek restaurant, with all our parents, who had yet to meet(!) after all this time. Then we went to the park from there, where 3 friends, and 2 of my partner’s siblings all met up to do this thing. My partner’s brother officiated, and she and I came up with all the wording ourselves. Everyone stood in a circle, we did a go-around where everyone introduced themselves and said what brought them here, and then we played a song on a boombox. Then C (I’m going to switch to “C” instead of always writing “my partner”) and I gave a 2 part lecture on the nature of love, which probably lasted over 10 minutes! Hope no one was sleeping! After that, we said some “agreements,” in which there was a lot of laughing and we agreed on some things. Then we kissed (a huge deal for me because I can barely get myself to take her hand in public), played another song, and had everyone join hands and do some hippie-like circle formation dancing and spinning. It was pretty great. Then we broke and handed out fancy sodas, like the kinds in glass bottles, and clinked glasses and took some photos.
It was very close to how I pictured it going in my head. Which was a huge relief, because a hang up about getting married at all, for me, was that wedding ceremonies and traditions? I don’t get it, and don’t connect with that, at all. So we created something we did connect with.
Right after, we took off for a fun 3 day weekend in a town about 2 hours away. We went to some restaurants, saw 12 Years a Slave (nice “honeymoon” movie pick), went to some botanical and herbal gardens and an arboretum, went to an art museum, went record shopping, and just relaxed and stuff.
So, nothing really feels different, other than that C can now get on my health insurance! Wheee!
The thing that actually feels like a bigger deal than getting married, is that I told people at work about it. Basically, no one at work knew I was in a relationship until 6 months ago, at which point I told my co-worker, my supervisor, and the head of the kitchen. But… I’ve been in a relationship for 7 years, and I’ve worked there for 6 and a half. And I’ve even wrongly implied that I’m single. So finally, those 3 people knew (I decided to share because I was going to be working closely with them all summer, and thought it was time to be more open.), but there were so many more people I see every day and never ever say a single thing about myself. Teachers, admin. assistants, the principal and assistant principal, the school nurse, etc.
And I didn’t really have a plan or goal to share my news. I was actually planning to (by default) not share. I started last work-week that way, and it just started to feel really shitty. Like, I was about to be getting married, and no one even knew I’m in a relationship. I imagined they could guess I’m gay (I’d prefer queer and genderqueer, but imagine people might think I’m a lesbian), but I’d never said a damn thing. I wonder if one day I will come out as non-binary, genderqueer, trans*, ask for a different pronoun, everything along that line… We’ll see; one day at a time.
So by midweek, I decided to take the risk and share my news. I wondered, how many people would I have to tell before they start spreading the word and I don’t have to do the work anymore? I guessed 5. In the end, I surpassed that goal of 5, and told 10 (and I’m still telling people)! And the word did start to get around; people were coming up to me and congratulating me. People were gushing with excitement and wanting me to bring in pictures for them to see. People had all kinds of questions about what we were going to do. I got a card from the whole school with a gift card in it. The first grade teachers pitched in and gave me a gift basket. It was as if my dark and dreary, mysterious and reserved, shy and distant demeanor at work got a huge boost, and I’ve been trying to run with that.
I could be a totally new person at work (slowly, little by little)! I even took my hat off! (I’ve been wearing military style caps every day as long as I’ve worked there, and it was getting old – I was tired of hats, but I couldn’t seem to get myself to take it off. Now? It seemed like no problem! Hat gone!)
janitorqueer 