Last night I went out after dinner. On a weeknight. And stayed out past dark in the summer when the sun doesn’t go down until past my usual bedtime. What ever possessed me to do so? I can honestly tell you that I am absolutely militant about protecting my sleep so it would have had to have been something extraordinary to get me out on a (gasp!) Monday night. It definitely was.
I went with some friends to see a comedy show by Alok Vaid-Menon. If you don’t know who this is, you really should find out. Alok is a gender non-conforming transfeminine poet, comedian, public speaker, and actor of Indian descent. They are amazingly intelligent, eloquent, insightful, funny, and compassionate. Prior to the show, I had listened to a number of podcasts featuring Alok and found them all to be mind-blowing. This is the kind of person who makes you think so hard with every sentence that comes out of their mouth that your head hurts. They challenge everything you ever thought you knew about gender, identity, personal expression, humanity, and most of all, love.
In order to understand why this is so significant to me, you need to understand where I have come from in terms of my own identity. I was assigned female at birth. My mom apparently wanted me to become a ballerina (I know this term is no longer used but it is appropriate for where my mom was coming from) and put framed pictures of such all over my bedroom. I hated those with a passion. When I was a toddler she would put me in dresses, pull my hair up onto the top of my head, and put a bow around it. I am told that I would immediately rip it out and toss it.
I have known since about kindergarten that I was not like the other girls. We would play this game on the playground that we just called boys against the girls. This involved the girls lining up against the wall with the boys some distance away. The girls would venture away from the wall then the boys would charge and try to grab a girl before she got back to the safety of the wall. I always played on the boys’ team. On occasion some boy would not realize this and grab me triumphantly. My response was to kick the crap out of his shins and scream, “I’m on the boys’ side!!” Apparently even at that age I knew that being the helpless hunted damsel in distress was not for me.
My first crush happened in grade one. Her name was Lisa and she moved into the area partway through the school year. My BFF (who is still my BFF by the way) and I befriended her and we became the Three Musketeers. When Lisa moved away a couple of years later I was absolutely heart-broken. It never occurred to me that I was much more devastated than my BFF was.
As I got older and realized I had absolutely no interest in boys, I wondered what the heck was wrong with me. My friends fawning over male celebrities and boys at school was absolutely incomprehensible to me. I brushed it off as something that might just happen to me later. It didn’t. What did happen was that I started developing even bigger crushes on girls. I was horrified. I had no vocabulary for how I was feeling. My entire childhood was spent thinking I was a freak and the only one on earth who felt this way. At that time no one talked about anything other than cisgendered heterosexuality. I knew absolutely nothing else.
It wasn’t until I finished university, moved to a city where I knew pretty much no one, and started in the work force that I finally discovered there was a name for what I thought I was. Sure, I had heard the word lesbian before but didn’t really understand what that meant other than a hurled insult, let alone that it might apply to me. When it finally hit home I embraced it and the community that came with the label. Who knew there was an entire (still fairly underground at the time) network of people who loved those of the same sex?
I finally started to feel more comfortable, but there were always some elements of it that bothered me. For instance, there are the man-hating lesbians who guy-bash at every opportunity. They are so scornful of anything masculine, and yet walk around in men’s clothing, treat more “feminine” women like chattel, and sometimes even stuff socks down their pants to make it look like they have a package. I’m sorry but this just doesn’t compute for me. Then there are the straight-hating lesbians who scorn you if you have actual straight friends because “they just don’t understand”. None of this ever sat well with me but they were my herd, weren’t they?
I lived the next several decades of my life under the lesbian umbrella but always felt like a part of me was still out in the rain. At some point my partner at the time started to push me to feminine-wash my wardrobe. I know now that her actions were driven by her own internalized homophobia, but at the time the people-pleasing me thought maybe she knew better than I did. So I gradually dressed “more like a woman”. I did this for years to the ongoing praise of many of those around me. Congratulations on cramming yourself into society’s constructs at the expense of your own dignity.
Incredibly, it was the pandemic that shook me of out of my zombie compliance. Being a health care worker, in the early stages of COVID when we didn’t really know how it was transmitted, I had to strip off all of my clothes and put them in the laundry every day after work. Out went the fancy “lady clothes” and in came more practical simple clothes that were easily washed. Things like quick dry pants and t-shirts became my go-to outfits. Some part of me breathed an unconscious sigh of relief as those clothes in which I never really felt comfortable got pushed to the back of the closet.
Several years later when I left that relationship I finally had the space and peace of mind to truly let myself explore my own identity without judgement or need for explanation. To make a very long story short, what I have discovered is this. I know two things for sure – I definitely do not identify as a man, and I am not at all attracted to men. The next question was then whether I identified as a woman. Man-hating straight-hating lesbians aside, did this label really fit me?
This one was a bit more of a struggle. Having been assigned female at birth and having spent the first 50+ years of my life living as a woman I can certainly identify with the unique struggles. Women’s health issues, particularly now that I am post menopausal, are a very real part of my life as well as my career as a health care provider who works mostly with women and babies. I also have children, and nothing is sweeter than being called “mommy” by young beings whom you love with all your heart.
But does any of that actually mean I have to accept a female identity? If I reject society’s ideals of how a woman should look, act, think, or manifest does that mean I have to reject the label? When all is said and done, does the label even matter?
In the end, thanks in large part to listening to Alok’s wisdom, I have decided that I don’t need to decide. As Alok says, gender is a social construct and the binary ideology is just that – ideology. Ideology is defined as a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy. The gender binary is political. It is a policy put in place to allow the oppression of those born with vaginas. Seriously, listen to the history of it.
As such, I choose not to buy into any of it. I don’t feel I fit into any of the ideological boxes. This includes the “non-binary” category as some feel, myself included, that this legitimizes the binary concept. In a recent conversation with a friend who also doesn’t fit into any of the neat little boxes, they used the term “gender queer”. As I let that one settle onto my shoulders and into my heart, it finally felt right. At long last something fit like my favourite pair of jeans.
But change is never as simple as that, is it? While gender queer felt like it worked for me, I had to struggle with my own issues around it. When you are not cisgendered and/or heterosexual there is a lot of self-hate to deal with, whether you want to admit it or not. Trust me, the struggle to accept being a lesbian was EPIC. Was this gong to be just as difficult?
So after many months of wrestling with this, I awaited Alok’s performance with much anticipation as they speak often about this exact issue. If they can convey so much on a podcast, imagine what a live performance in front of an audience of queer people and their allies might be like.
Arriving at the theatre, I felt like I had found my peeps. There were people there from all walks of life, with everyone expressing what appeared to be their authentic selves. I suddenly felt seen in a way I’m not sure I ever have, not in small part by my own self. For once I didn’t feel like people were looking at me askance for my half shaved head, gender ambiguous appearance, and casual clothes that I felt comfortable in as opposed to what I thought maybe I should have worn to go out. When I went to the washroom it had been re-labelled as gender neutral. I was able to walk in freely without having to worry about anyone giving me the side eye or actually confronting me for being in the “wrong” bathroom. OMG. Why doesn’t this sort of freedom exist everywhere?
The show was phenomenal. There were informative moments, poignant stories, laugh until you almost pee your pants jokes, warmth, compassion, and humanity. Oh the humanity. Alok possesses and promotes our common humanity on a scale with the Dalai Lama. No exaggeration. They confront harassment and assault on their person with caring and compassion. When they are attacked online they remind themselves that the attacker must be hurting and hating some part of themselves, and so respond with wishes for healing. In an age where trans people are being murdered at ridiculous rates and politicians are attempting to legislate them out of existence, Alok urges common understanding. And most importantly they urge self-love in all our glorious flawed fucked up-ness.
And so I sat there laughing and crying, and through Alok’s words, accepting every part of myself. In all my gender queer, visible minority, marginalized self I saw beauty, strength, love, and compassion for all. When asked how they find the courage to present themselves to the world as they do, Alok responds with ‘Why would I deny the world my beauty?”
Indeed, why should I deny the world my beauty? At long last, I have finally come home.
