Part Four: The Things I Didn't Notice

Opening the Black Box

M—’s meditation app talks to me out of my smartphone, the soft voice of the woman who’s guiding me through the exercises gentle and warm as honey left in the sun. I’ve tried meditation a dozen times before, but I’ve never been able to quiet the rush inside my head before. There’s always the next thing I’m supposed to do, then the next, and the next. Provide. Support. Endure. Earn. Build.

Being a guy’s hard work. There are a lot of requirements, and you have to mind them carefully. In fairness, I’ve never done well in any situation that expects me to be quiet and lone with myself.

Meditation is working this time, which is novel, and I’m surprised to find that I really enjoy it. Just sitting cross-legged on the secondhand couch, in the center divot someone made before we got it, and focusing on my breathing is nice. Maybe I just needed it to be an actual, required step to enjoy it? I don’t know. The exercise ends. I relax for a few minutes afterward, just enjoying the quiet inside my head.

“Okay,” I say to myself, “trans thoughts.” I pause. “What the heck are trans thoughts, even?” I chew my lip for a minute, then—because I’m an academic—I figure the smart thing to do is research. I pick up my phone and, because M— suggested it, look up different kinds of nonbinary identities. Names and descriptions roll past. Genderfluid. Genderfae. Genderfaun. Apogender. Agender. Demiboy. Demigirl. A dozen, two dozen, more.

“So, what’s the common thread here?” I mutter to myself. The house is quiet; B—’s downstairs, talking to her own therapist, so I’m alone except for the cats. The younger one pushes her way onto my lap, and I pet her tabby fur absently. She’s always liked me best, for no reason B— or I can understand. I think, and reread a few of the article stubs.

“All right, I think they’re all about disconnection from your birth gender,” I say. My cat pushes my hand with her head, because I stopped stroking her. Obediently, I resume. “Yeah,” I say after a little more rereading. “There’s connection or disconnection with other parts of the gender spectrum, but all of them are at least partially disconnected from your birth gender.” I know the term is wrong—it’s your gender assigned at birth—but that feels a bit too close to affirming what I’m trying to disprove here.

“So, how do I feel connected to my birth gender?” I ask. I find I have no answer. That… feels strange. Okay, flip the question. How do I feel disconnected from it?

—7 years ago, give or take—

My little gold Kia Rio barrels down the I-88 toll road, hanging in there with the speed of Chicago traffic as I drive back—back to my home, my apartment, to grad school—after dropping B— off at the airport for a trip to her family’s place in Minnesota. Tears stream freely down my face, and Dad’s voice is mellow and steady from the Bluetooth earbud I’m wearing.

“I feel like I’m such a failure,” I say to him between choked sobs. Somehow, I’m managing to drive safely—probably because this stretch if I-88 is straight and flat in the way that you really only get in places like Illinois. Topologically, the place is literally flatter than a pancake. “I’m supposed to be providing for her, and I can’t!”

“You’re in grad school,” Dad says, very reasonably.

“But that’s not what men are supposed to do, Dad! It’s the whole provide and support thing, and I can’t! They’re paying me nothing!” This has been eating at me for quite a while, really. I don’t know why it’s overflowing now. Maybe because I had to stay home from the family trip that B—’s family had offered to pay for and work the garbage summer job I landed. It’ll help pay for our wedding. Dad’s silent for a beat, and I sniffle.

“Just keep putting one foot in front of the other,” he says gently. It’s what he says when he doesn’t know what else to say. Keep pushing. Don’t stop. Never stop. Always work. That’s what he does—what men do—and I’m trying so hard to be him. Not be like him. To be him. I’ve always tried so hard.

Being me, historically, has not been a very good move.

“I’m trying,” I say softly, sadly. He doesn’t have an answer for this. He never really does when I feel like I can’t live up to standards of masculinity. I don’t think he can even understand it.

Aside from B—, he’s the only person I’ve ever admitted my struggles to.

—16 years ago, give or take—

Mexican food in North Dakota is not known for authenticity. This restaurant? It’s embarrassingly Americanized, even by local standards. In any sense which takes actual Mexican cuisine into account as a model, it really isn’t even a Mexican restaurant. The enchiladas I’ve ordered aren’t coated in red sauce, or green sauce, or mole sauce, but some sort of brown, gravy-like substance. They’re not bad, technically. Just not Mexican. I’m pretty sure that if you served these to somebody’s abuela that she’d march back into the kitchen and give the cook a lecture. The rice and beans aren’t too far out of what you’d find somewhere decent, but I can’t imagine that a restaurant that couldn’t make refried beans and rice would stay in business for long.

I’m considering the authenticity of my food intently because B—’s sobbing, and because I did it to her. I want to curl up in the corner and die.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter. I can’t find the power for anything more audible.

“Why not?” she manages, and I glance up. Her long, brown hair and hazel eyes are beautiful, even now, and I love her more than I love myself. I mean, that’s not exactly hard, but still. I can’t believe I’m saying these things, admitting out loud a truth I’ve never said to anyone, ever.

“I…” I try, and run out of stem immediately. I think, and change tactics. “I want to be with you forever and ever. It’s been what? Nine months since we met? I can’t imagine life without you, B—. But getting married is just…” I shake my head. We’re not even thinking about getting married anytime in the foreseeable future, but I just told B—that I never want to get married. Ever. The idea of being married, of being a husband, is repulsive to me. It’s wrong. I can’t explain it. I change tactics again.

“The best relationship I’ve ever seen is Aunt E— and Uncle F’s. They’ve been dating since they were fifteen, so… what, over thirty years now? And they never want to get married.” This feels better. Not about me. “And F— told me once that he loved dating, and not being married, because it meant that he had to get up every day and decide to do whatever it’d take to stay with E—. That it kept him from ever taking her for granted. That’s what I’ve been trying to do with us.” I catch my breath. Her tears have slowed.

“And kids…?” she asks. Right. The other half. Kids. Not now, not even in the foreseeable future, not even for sure something she wants. Just as a possibility. A dancing hypothetical. My mind flickers over the idea of being a father, and I get a sick feeling in my stomach. The enchiladas look nauseating now.

“I…” I say, unable to continue. “It’s complicated.” I can’t even really explain what I feel.

—Now—

“Okay,” I say to myself, even as other memories crowd in. Crying in B—’s arms. Hating my clothes. Constantly feeling guilty for being a man, like I’d violated some profound cosmic rule. My chest is tight, but it’s always tight, always waiting for the doom, the catastrophe, the other shoe to drop.

“Okay,” I say again, and brace myself for that sense—a sense I’ve always had, since my earliest memories—to crash down on me, like it does whenever I fail as being a man. “I don’t like being a guy.” No disaster. No crush of need to live up to the many, many rules of masculinity. It feels true, though. I take a breath.

“I hate being a man.” The words hang in the air in front of me, irretrievable. Huge. True. And, said aloud, I can never deny to myself that I’ve admitted it. I sit back on the couch. I think, feeling the edges of this new truth, trying to understand it. The insistence of the trans thoughts are there, but they’re cool, calm, like now that I’m inviting them in, everything’s all right.

I’m okay with this. It’s surprising enough that I laugh a little bit. I shift in my seat. Okay. Next step. If I don’t like being a man, what about being a woman? Do I feel some sort of connection there?

My train of thought crashes. It’s not panic, like before, but an out-of-context problem, where my ability to think through the question simply ceases, in the same way that a sentence meets a period. What does it even mean to be a woman, much less feel like you have a gendered connection to that experience? I have no personal experience with the concept itself, so how can I assess my connection or disconnection to femininity?

Regroup. Pull back. I stand and walk to the bathroom. I do my business, and wash my hands, focusing hard on scrubbing. Mirrors have always been kind of weird for me. I don’t like them, because seeing my reflection there always feels substantively off—like I was expecting to see someone or something else, but instead the face I’ve always had is there. Usually, I’ll turn my back to the mirror and use one of the big, red bath towels to dry off after instead of the hand towels next to it, but this time I look up. I meet my own gaze.

My eyes are me. The rest? My gaze skitters around: brow, chin, nose, mouth. I can’t really form a whole face out of it. I’ve never been able to. It’s kind of like someone made a mask with my features and I have to wear it all the time. Photos are even worse. I’ll do just about anything to stay out of one. It’s creepy.

“You’re Zac,” I tell myself. I don’t really know why. I know it’s weird, and that people don’t do this sort of thing. I’ve done this since I was a teenager, but only when I’m sure nobody will be able to hear me. It goes without saying that I’ve never told anyone about it, even B— or M—. Sometimes there are little variations—there you are, or yes, that is definitely, certainly me. Always the same meaning, though. Remember your identity. Track it. Don’t forget it.

I dry my hands and leave.

Couch. Phone. Website. I read the entries on demiboy and agender again. Agender can come in a lot of different flavors—no gender, a gender independent of either man or woman, identifying more as a person than any gender. That’s too much for me to wrap my head around right now.

Demiboy can describe someone who was assigned male at birth, but who feels barely attached to that identification, but for whom that disconnection isn’t usually bad enough to cause dysphoria. I chew on my lip.

“I hate being a guy,” I say. The doom I always feel doesn’t grow any greater than its base state. I take another chance. “I’m mostly not a man.”

I wait. I don’t feel crushed by my own failure to sufficiently perform my own masculinity. It feels… if not true, then certainly plausible. Fits the data. Obviously, I don’t feel dysphoria, and never have. This might have legs.

I do like parts of traditional masculinity, I reason. Woodworking pushes itself forward in my mind, and I glance over at the oak dining-room table that Dad and I built a few years ago. It’s all right angles and routed legs, magnificent in its gleaming homemade polyurethane imperfection. Surrounding it are six black-painted chairs, upholstered in blue with silver circle bursts. I built them last month. I smile, a little pride warm in my chest.

“We like those things,” Mae shouts from the comic in my memory. “There’s nothing inherently male about any of that crap. It’s all just stuff.” I pointedly ignore her when no other masculine attachments suggest themselves to me. Down that path lies panic.

Footfalls on the stairs. I look up, and B—’s short, bright blue hair crests from downstairs. She smiles at me, and I smile back.

“Hey, hon,” she says. She looks a little tired, like she does after a cry—eyes a bit puffy, cheeks drawn.

“Rough therapy?” I ask, ignoring her. The answer’s obvious—this week has been hell. At least things are quieting down now. Still, she’s got a right to her own story.

“I’ve been really worried about you,” she says, and kisses my forehead. She edges past me and slumps onto the other couch. I appreciate the way the sunlight curls around her face and bounces off of the hazel of her eyes. I’ve never been able to hold her gaze too long when she looks back at me—it feels piercing, like it goes down into me to a depth that nobody’s supposed to see.

I reach out for her hand, and she gives it to me. I squeeze twice, and we let our connection hang there, suspended in the warm light of the late July morning. Time passes. We don’t really pay attention to how much. Her pulse is warm and soft against my palm. It feels like home.

“So, I’ve been reading about demiboys,” I tell her, and it’s easy. Not a relief, not scary, just easy. I keep going, walking her through my thinking. I tell her three times that I don’t feel dysphoria, and that’s why I keep circling around to demiboy. She listens, quiet.

“You sound like you’re okay with this,” she says. I nod—not emphatic, but a slow agreement.

“I was surprised at that too,” I agree with her unasked question. As bad as things have been over the last week, as much as she’s held me and worried over me… well, it’s more shocking that I’m so okay with the idea of this new part of me.

“So, wouldn’t that make you trans?” B— asks. I shrug and look away a bit, but I don’t release her hand.

“I mean, technically?” I hedge, feeling a little uncomfortable. “It feels kind of a little unfair to say something like that.”

“Why?” she asks.

“Well. If I’m a demiboy, I’m still a shade of guy, kind of,” I say. “It’s not like if I were a girl, you know? It’d mean that all of this is good to know, but like… what would actually change in my day-to-day life?” I shrug again and look at B—, smiling just a little.

“I don’t really know,” she says. I blink, a bit surprised, while my brain catches up to me.

“Well, it’d make it kind of a for-your-information thing, wouldn’t it?” I say. “I mean, what, am I going to transition from being a boy to being a different kind of boy?” I laugh a little and roll my eyes. “Even if I do something like that, it seems kind of unfair to compare it to what trans women do. That’s just amazing.” I don’t even think about trans men, or the many, many nonbinary folks who transition. My mind brushes through memories of R—, of B—, of C—, and similarly fail to notice how much I admire their transitions. Them too, as people, but their transitions, independent of the women who’ve done the work of transitioning.

I realize I’ve been lost in thought for a bit, and push a smile back onto my face.

“Anyway,” I say, “this went pretty well. It’s kind of like giving myself permission to ask the question made it not scary.”

“That’s good,” B— says, and the smile that splits her lips is like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.

“I was thinking we could try the crossdressing thing tomorrow morning,” I say cheerfully. I’m not expecting much of anything. I’ve read Dreadnought. I’ve seen R—’s outfit-of-the-day posts. C—’s gorgeous rockabilly dress, resplendent pink with black polka dots. I know how big a deal clothes are for trans folks. Whether I’m a cis man or a demiboy, I can’t imagine that it’d mean much of anything to me. “I’ll need a little help, of course,” I finish.

“Sure,” she says. We play a board game that afternoon, and I make some pasta from scratch for dinner. I know I’m supposed to set aside my consideration of trans identities now that I’ve done it for my hour, but I’m enjoying the rock tumbler-consideration, now that I have permission to do it.

I go to bed, eventually, and fall asleep easily. Tomorrow should be easy.

Continued in Part 5.

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If you’d like to play the minigame for this part, count how many kinds of dysphoria I missed when I was working my way though these questions. See if you can find them all. 😉