clubbing

Amsterdam is not much like what I expected—but I don’t mean that in a bad way. In reality, I did very little research on The Netherlands before I flew over here; I hardly even thought about how different Dutch culture was going to be. I pictured Amsterdam to be a loud and bustling city, alive with prostitutes milling about fish markets amidst clouds of marijuana smoke—but the picture was admittedly quite fuzzy. My most concrete expectation of the city was that of a thriving and pride-filled queer community; with gay flags, pride parades, same-sex-couple-hand-holding, and a least a handful of happy trans people (whose entire transition (hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery) was covered by their insurance). I thought that since gay marriage had already been legal for eleven years, there would just be tons of gay people everywhere celebrating their sexuality.

this is what it actually looks like

Well surprise-surprise, my total lack of preparatory research had not gotten me very far when it came to my knowledge of Amsterdam’s gay community. In fact, Amsterdam doesn’t really have a terribly strong gay community—which is not to say that the Amsterdam-gays are lazy or unfriendly or unorganized or anything like that—they just don’t need a “gay community” as much as us queer Americans do, because they aren’t as marginalized. From what I can see, gays are not made out to be such an “other” as they often times have been in American culture—when it comes to trans folk, however, that’s a different story. Allow me to explain…

My best friend in Amsterdam is an American grad student and self-described queer individual. Several weeks ago she invited me out to Amstel 54, a small bar off of Rembrantplein, for the Universitat Van Amsterdam’s queer student group’s bi-weekly drinking night. Twice a month on Wednesdays the organization, ASV-GAY, invites all of its members out to the bar for discounted drinks and various activities and merriment. My friend told me that the classmate who had invited her had informed her that the theme of this particular Wednesday outing was speed dating, although it was unclear whether the evening would consist of actual date-dates or just friend-dates, or frates as I like to call them. We discussed which type of dates the night might include with my friend’s partner over dinner before going out, and she joking asked me to keep an eye on her girlfriend in the case that they were date-dates. Then we made our way to the infamous Wednesday-night affair….

is this a date?

Having survived the slightly-tipsy bike ride in the dark, we locked up our metal steeds by the canal and headed for the bar. We ran into my friend’s classmate on the way over and she introduced us on the way in. Once inside we were introduced to more of my friend’s classmate’s friends, and so we congregated by a small table and started to chat. I learned that these girls were regular members of ASV-GAY and had been to the Wednesday-night outings before. We chatted about school and work and where we were all from; all the normal introductory stuff. I myself always have a hard time concentrating on conversation when there is loud music on, especially when I’ve had a few beers and the music just happens to be 90’s American-pop-R&B—you know what I mean, Beyonce, Spice Girls etc… I just can’t help myself, I have to dance. #gettingofftopic But the thing about the people who are out in the clubs in Amsterdam, is that they don’t really dance. I have heard from locals that people will dance sometimes, but not really until after 3 or 4am. And lemmetellyou, I like to be in bed far before that. Speaking of dancing and Amsterdam clubs and gay people, I feel like this is the appropriate time to get sidetracked and describe my first trip out to a gay bar in Amsterdam: #flashbackharp.

So the first time I went out to a bar was with this same friend. We almost didn’t make it out actually, because like me, she prefers to be in bed before too late. We had a lovely dinner at her place, but around nine-thirty or ten I started to get sleepy and tried sneak in a nap. BUT ANYWAYS, we made it out, biked to Rembrantplein, and went entered what I had been told was a lesbian bar. We each had a drink, and we tried to just stand and talk, but like I said, I’m just powerless in the face of easily-danceable pop music; “Bootylicious”, “Call Me Maybe”, I mean how could everyone else NOT be dancing?? And my friend and I were the only ones moving to the music. Let me just tell you, I have not been mean-mugged by so many lesbians ever in my life, and I was a bit scared. Amazed by how inactive the crowd was I turned to my friend and remarked, “what is everyone in here doing? Other than judging us…?” At one point later in the evening a girl near us started to dance, but when I said “look! She’s dancing too!” my friend just shook her head in despair; “No no, she was making fun of you…”

Oh.

Well then.

So, the moral of the story is, most Amsterdam-ers are much too hip to dance, and those who do let loose don’t do so until very late. Or very early, rather. Perhaps they were just too hard-core for me, but honestly, when there’s only eight hours of sunlight a day, I tend to want to be awake for the majority of it.

i'm too cool for you guys anyway

Back to the story: when we left I was trying very hard to converse with new acquaintances and get a bit of dancing in at the same time. My friend’s classmate assured us that the evening would consist of only friendly dates. She then informed us that her goal for the night was to find the love of her life anyway. When she declared my friend as her wing-woman, I inquired, “hey, what about me?”

“Oh,” she replied, “Well I mean, I’m interested in girls, so she can help me out, but I assume you’re into guys?”

“Well, I’m actually trans, not gay.”

“OH, so you’re…heterosexual?”

“Um, yeah, I guess.”

“So you just came to accompany her? How nice of you!”

 Um.

Wait.

No, not how nice of me. I mean, not to say that I wasn’t being nice, but I wasn’t doing anyone a favor. I had come for me as much as for my friend, as I was under the impression that this was an LGBTQ organization, and I was just as bit as queer as anyone else in the bar. #lgbTq

After a few awkward minutes, it was time for the speed-friend-dating to begin. From what I gathered, the leaders of the club stood up on the table at the back of the bar and explained how the whole ordeal was going to work. My friend’s classmate translated for me, and I learned that the new-comers would be given a card with someone’s name on it, and that they would have to find the person with the corresponding partner, like John and Yoko or Hanzel and Grettle. The idea was that this would give the new incoming members a chance to get acquainted with the older members. Thankfully each little card included not only my name but also my partner’s name; otherwise I never would have been able to find Fukke as Sukke. The first two rounds of frating were not particularly good or bad. I met two female Dutch students who were working on their masters at UVA and had helped to start the group a couple of years back. We talked about our respective programs of study and where we were from etc. etc.

It wasn’t until my third frate that I outed myself again. Luckily for me, this girl was very sensitive and intelligent and we actually had a very nice conversation about sexuality and gender. She asked how my transition was going this far and whether I’d gotten many negative reactions, and I explained that I was very fortunate to have an exceptional family and wonderful friends and that the only problems had been the occasional off-color comment from acquaintances or strangers. She told me that she too was fortunate to have accepting parents; “My mom is gay,” she explained, “So is my dad. My parents are divorced…” When the bell rang to signal the switching dates, I was in high spirits. It was getting late, but now that I was having such a nice time I thought why not stay for just one more?

Sigh.

Ok, let’s pause for a minute here. We’ve all had this thought: just one more. Whether it’s one more date, one more dive off the rocks, one more jump off the swings, one more helping of mac and cheese, it’s always that last one that gets you into trouble. Or at least, that’s how it has historically been for me. Whenever I catch myself thinking, one more, I say to myself “Stop self! This is it! You’re done!!” because it always turns out to be one too many. How did my oldest friend break his wrist skateboarding in fifth grade? He decided to drop in at the skate park one more time. How did my sister almost break her back on the swing in the back yard? She decided to jump off the ladder propped up against our tree just one last time after dad asked us to take it down. Why did I throw up in the backseat of my friend’s car on my nineteenth birthday and spend my birthday money on having her car detailed? Because I thought several times over the course of the night that it would be ok to have one more drink.

WELL YOU THOUGHT WRONG, CRABTREE!!

too much of anything is always a bad thing

I know I’ve gone a tad off-topic, but this is one of the most important life lessons I have learned in my existence thus far. You don’t need that one more time. Don’t risk it, don’t throw the dice, because now you’re just being greedy and unreasonable and you should walk away from the craps table with the cash you have instead of trying to double your money.

Anyways, as you can probably gather, my last friend date was less than enjoyable. It started off normally, but then she asked me if I was gay, and after I told her I was trans it all went down hill.

“Oh, so you’re not gay?”

“Nope.”

“So you’re a transgender?”

“Well, yes.” (Transgender, is not a noun. No one is a transgender, but some people are transgender humans/individuals.)

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Well, I mean, I’ve always felt this way.”

“Have you had surgery and everything?”

“I’ve just started hormone therapy this summer.”

“But are you going to have the surgeries? So that you can be a real man? That’s what you want, right? To be a real man?” #barfight #justkidding #butisortofwantedtohither

stop, you're making a GIANT ASS of yourself.

“Um, well…I’m thinking about chest surgery for next summer…”

“Oh but it’s going to hurt so much isn’t it? And it’s so expensive. That sucks.”

“Yeah…Um, are there usually many trans people at the ASV-GAY functions?”

“No, I’ve never met a transgender before. I mean, it is called ASV-GAY, so it’s really more for gay students.”

“Oh, I thought it was just for queer students.”

“Well, I think that gay people and transgenders are really just different. They just don’t really belong together.”

I then excused myself to go to the bathroom.

So obviously there were several things wrong with this conversation. First of all, she tried to use the word transgender as a noun several times, and this upsets me not only because of my OCD tendencies when it comes to incorrect grammar usage, but also because you don’t just go and call people, “transgenders.” That’s offensive in my opinion, and I know that other transgender individuals, feel the same way. We’re humans, people, individuals, just like you, just like everyone else in this world. Also, labeling is a dangerous, unnecessary, and altogether foolish practice. So please, refrain from calling anyone, “a transgender.”

Next, she implied not only that I “wasn’t a real man,” but also that I would have to acquire surgery to become one. First of all, what did she even mean by “real man”? From what I could gather, she assumes that a “real man” is defined by his physical body, and not his gender identity. I’ve always been real, and I don’t need to conform to her, or anyone else’s, standards in order to be so. If I didn’t feel--and hadn’t felt for my entire like--like I was really man on the inside, then why would I be subjecting myself to the stress and pain of transitioning? Surgery will not make me any more “real” than I already am, thank you very much, it will just make me happier and more comfortable. I am not pursuing surgery so that I will fit in with what the rest of the world defines as a man. There are many transgender individuals who cannot afford or do not want surgery, and this does not make them any “less trans,” or “less real” than the rest of us. An individual is the only person that can define their gender identity, and no one else has the right to require “proof” of someone else’s gender identity.

Then, she said that “gay people and transgenders are really just different.” Wow, thanks for that, lady. First of all, we’re all technically different from each other, right? No two people are exactly the same; I think we can all agree on that point. Secondly, why would you categorize people in these two different groups and then say that they don’t belong together?? Yes, we’re all different, but as far as homosexual people and transgender people go, we are queer, and I thought that the point of this group was to celebrate that particular similarity.

the same, yet different

People in minorities need to stick together, for support and understanding that is not always available from the majority. You, lady, are what is wrong with much of the world. Never try to declare that two different groups of people just don’t belong together, for chrissake this is how wars are started. #dramatic

Anyways, I don’t want to bash this girl too hard; she probably wasn’t trying to be super offensive, and she DEFINITELY does not represent the Dutch Queer community as a whole. BUT, she certainly put a sour taste in my mouth for the rest of the night, and so I thought I would use her ignorant statements as an example of what not to say when you meet a transgender person.

Remember, we’re all people. Transgender individuals, gay people, bi/queer/straight/asexual/blue/purple/tall/fat/rich/poor/fuzzy humans are ALL PEOPLE. #kumbaFREAKINya

And we all deserve to be treated as such. 

guilt

Today I would like to talk about a topic that I think a lot of transgender/genderqueer/questioning struggle with: guilt. It is certainly easier for some to rebel against the norms and structures that society builds for us than it is for others, but I really think that this feeling of guilt, as irrational as it may be, affects more people than most realize.

NOW, I’m not saying that I feel guilty for transitioning, or being myself, or FINALLY living how I’ve always wanted to live, that’s not it at all. I am extremely happy with the decisions I’ve made to start transitioning and how far I’ve come, but it’s much more complicated than that. Some of the feelings I’m about to talk about were a part of my coming out process and don’t affect me anymore, while some are still very present, and others still are a confusing mess of the two.

Allow me to explain…

I’m gonna go in chronological order here so that this will make some kind of sense HOPEFULLY. Just tell me if you get lost. Keep you hands inside the vehicle in the event of a crash oxygen masks flotation device in-flight meal service blah blah blah HERE WE GO.

Let’s go back in a time several years to when I was just a small child. I was a pretty normal kid, I liked to play outside, build with legos, hang out with my friends, and I often had the thought “man wouldn’t life just be so much better if I were a boy?” And LEMME TELL YOU, I had this thought A LOT. I didn’t think much of it when I was very young. I didn’t know a ton about gender roles, other than the basic surface level stereotypes I saw every day; I didn’t know much about gender inequality or prejudice. That’s part of the beauty of childhood; kids just want what they want, without feeling guilty or ashamed or worried of how things might turn out, that is until society and growing up beat that brave naiveté out of us. Anyway, back then I didn’t feel guilty about my feelings I just FELT them #feelingfeelingsfelt #twss

Anyway as I got a bit older I became uneasy, I thought “oh no, I’m not supposed to feel this way, this is wrong.”  I felt very guilty for wanting to be myself. I constantly wondered what I was doing wrong, and thought that if maybe I just tried to fall into this role that had been carved out, then maybe I would fit happily into society. Maybe I would feel RIGHT.

Needless to say, THAT didn’t work out. Let’s fast forward to not too long ago actually, my sophomore year of college. One of the biggest turning points for me has been allowing myself to just FEEL my EFFING FEELINGS. I remember sitting across from my therapist one day, wondering aloud what the eff was wrong with me, and him just looking at me and saying, “it’s ok for you to feel this way, you know.”

So matter-of-factly.

Like it should have been obvious.

I mean it SHOULD have been, and yet…

For so long I had be not allowed myself to WANT what I WANT. Lemmetellyou, THAT was a big huge step. So I started to play with the idea. It brought me a ton of relief, honestly. It wasn’t like I went around telling a bunch of people or anything, I just stopped trying to stuff my own feelings down, stopped trying to control and monitor my own thoughts. I mean, it was like I had hired myself as a security guard to stand outside the cell that my genderqueer thoughts inhabited night and day, for years and years, and never given myself a break, until that day when I let go.

Butterflies are freeeee to fly, FLY AWAYYY

WOW
What a novel idea, right?

OK so that was step one, I was done feeling guilty for just wanting to be a boy.

Great! Let’s call it a day-NOT SO FAST.

Then the second wave of guilt started to creep in.

Although I had decided, in my mind, that it was OK to feel this way, I was still afraid that my feelings would somehow hurt other people. PLUS, having just admitted to myself that I had always wanted very much to be a boy, I was still nevertheless very embarrassed by these thoughts. I was, of course, also afraid that my feelings would also enrage and/or disgust others, but those fears had less to do with guilt.

Those I was most afraid of hurting, were my parents. I was afraid that they would feel like they had failed me, and that it would hurt their feelings that I was so unhappy with myself after everything they had done for me. I had watched several (dozen) documentaries about transgender children, and it seemed that many parents of transgender kids felt like they were “losing” their child, and gaining a different one. I didn’t want my parents to think that this would be a symbolic (or literal) death of their first daughter, and I certainly didn’t want them to think that I was committing symbolic suicide because of something they had done wrong. I also didn’t want to come across as ungrateful in some way; for everything my parents had done for me, for myself and my body and mind which they had worked so hard to protect and feed and entertain and love.

I knew that I was not symbolically killing myself, and that I didn’t even hate my current self; all I wanted to do was make my body match my mind. But I certainly did hate my body sometimes--a lot of the time. But how to explain that that I wasn’t ungrateful? I was happy to be healthy and have straight teeth and good vision and all my limbs attached and working properly, and yet there was always something very wrong.

At this point I was still very VERY confused, and my confusion and lack of clarity and explanation for my feelings certainly didn’t help when it came to the terror and guilt I felt when I thought about telling my parents.

My mom had told me the story of my birth many times; at least once a year around the time of my birthday she told me how she had wished and prayed for a girl. She used to joke to my father that her water had broke when it hadn’t, and when it was actually time, he hadn’t believed her and had rolled over and went back to sleep. No, I was not born on the kitchen floor or in the tub; it didn’t take long for my dad to realize that my mom meant business. Anyway, she had been so ecstatically happy when I turned out to be a girl, and the same went for my two younger sisters. My mom was always commenting on how glad she was to have her “three girls,” and how we were just what she had always wanted. How could I tell my mother that I was not happy this way? That I didn’t want to be one of her “three girls”? I was sure I was going to break her heart, and I felt infinitely guilty about that.

Dramatic recreation--do not attempt at home. 

Of course, now that I think back, I shouldn’t have felt guilty at all, but it was all part of the process, and not wanting to hurt my parents feelings was a big part of my process…

I also felt guilty in a more societal way. I wasn’t sure why I had always wanted to be a boy, and as I was still coming to terms with these feelings and my acceptance was still fresh and raw, I was extremely insecure about the reasoning behind this whole situation, and I began to get bogged down by other people’s opinions on the matter. Losing sight of my actual thoughts and feelings, I began to apply other people’s points of view to my situation, trying on each “explanation” for size to see if it fit. As I watched documentaries and read up on other trans people and the transgender phenomenon, I wondered if what some of these people were saying was true; was I just unhappy with my place in society? Uncomfortable and unable to accept myself as gay? Unable to present as typically masculine in a female body because society said that this was somehow the wrong thing to do?  Was I giving up on the body I was born into because it was too hard to be a woman, and a lesbian, in modern American society? These thoughts haunted me for a while, and I began to feel guilty for wanting to abandon my female place in society for the more privileged and dominant role. I was sure that the queer community would reject me for “choosing privilege", and that women would look down on me for the same reason.

Of course, when I actually reflected and looked inward I knew that I didn’t want to transition for any of these reasons. I had simply wanted a male body all my life. It’s not like being biologically female had stopped me from wearing and doing what I had wanted for most of my life anyways, but I really couldn’t get around the fact that I desired a male body.

The more I thought about it, the more I actually wished I could just be happy as a lesbian. If I could really have just been genuinely happy with myself as a female, everything would be so much easier. Plus, I thought being gay was just cooler than being straight. In fact, I rather liked being gay.

I liked gay bars, gay pride parades, rainbow t-shirts; I liked feeling like I was instantly part of this cause, fighting for gay rights and gay marriage and equality. And I liked the gay dynamic of my gay relationship. The gender binary wasn’t a part of my relationship, and so we didn’t fall into the typical gender roles that I felt sometimes dominated heterosexual relationships. (Or at least that had dominated the one heterosexual relationship I had been in (if you could even call it that. #hardly)) We were just equal. I felt like we were two people, much more than we were our genders. #doesanyofthismakesense?

Of course, you do not have to BE something in order to support something or fight for equality and believe in equal rights, and I still identify as extremely queer (I believe that’s the scientific term) BUT at the time I was afraid of being estranged from the “gay community.” The whole sexuality thing is another big conversation, so we’ll save that for another time. #ohboy

When it came down to it, I knew that I could never be truly happy and true to myself if I tried to stick it in a female body.

But the question still remained in my mind:

Did I REALLY want to be a heterosexual white male in America?

I'm sorry about this.

 Ugh.

I love you guys.

Seriously?

So very much. 

Yes.

Unfortunately. (Or so I thought)  

This fact confused and worried me for quite a while.  

It took me some time to realize that I couldn’t choose who I felt I was inside, and that I couldn’t choose my identity. After a while I realized that I didn’t want to be something I wasn’t; all this time I really just wanted to be what I was.

The other sort of guilt I felt was of the physical kind. After I knew that I didn’t want to change my soul or my personality or my essence, if you will, I still felt guilty for wanted to alter my physical body. I mean, my body worked perfectly fine for what it was. I performed all the necessary tasks that one needs a body for.

I could use my voice to express my thoughts—but I wanted it to sound lower.

I could use my tiny hands to write and play drums and draw—but I wanted them to be bigger.

I could use my cute face to get out of trouble—but I wanted it to be beard-ed.

I could bear children (technically, not realistically)—but I wanted to impregnate someone else.

Ok

Maybe these aren’t the best examples, but I think you know what I mean. My body worked really well, it just didn’t work for me.

Did I really want to pay thousands of dollars to have a surgeon cut into my perfectly fine body, and lop off large chunks of my flesh and then stitch me back together, rendering me immobile and pain-stricken for weeks? #Imabouttopassoutonmylaptop Why, I thought, would anyone CHOOSE to do that??

            ASIDE: I have been known to grow faint and even pass out at the sight of blood. Once in high school, I was helping build a set for the drama club’s summer musical. Inexperienced in the field of power tools as I was, the drill I was using slipped and I ended up putting a small hole in the nail on my left index finger. And when I say small, that’s an over-statement; it produced literally one drop of blood. I yelled to my friend—she is very caring and always carried her first-aid pouch—to see if she had a band-aid, but she wanted to wash out my minute puncture. So she dragged me to the sink, and washed my finger, and the whole time I was trying to think about my cracked nail and what was underneath it—it’s really texture that freaks me out more so than actual blood. I think a pool of blood in theory wouldn’t freak me out, but thinking about how all the blood left someone’s inside is what actually makes me feel sick. I told her I didn’t feel good and she said I was fine and that we needed to put some Neosporin on it to prevent infection, so she dragged me to find the assistant director. All the while I couldn’t stop thinking about the texture of it all and so when we found the assistant director I passed right out. Luckily, they caught me.

          Needless to say, having flesh removed from my front, and then being stitched back up, and having nipples created (do they still feel like nipples?) and held on by stitches and having drains coming out of my wound which would secrete some sort of flesh-juices and thinking about how pulled-down flaps of skin would have to re-attached to the fat and muscle underneath was NOT AT ALL MY IDEA OF A GOOD TIME.

I know, I know--I'll stop now, I promise. 

And yet, that’s exactly what I wanted.

I felt so conflicted. When I told my therapist of my inner turmoil he told me a story;

“My mom never let me add salt, or anything else to any of the food she made for me,” he began.

“Alright…” I replied.

“She said that it was perfectly good the way it was, and that it didn’t need anything else,” he continued. “Still to this day, I don’t add always add salt to food, even when I want to.”

He has a very clever way of telling me things without actually saying them outright.

“Do you think I should have been able to add salt to my food?” he prompted.

“Yes,” I understood.

“Because even though it was just fine the way it was, it wasn’t good for me, it didn’t work for me, no matter how good it was to other people.”

My body was fine, in excellent condition even, but it didn’t work for me, and so I decided it was ok to alter my physicality, so that it worked for me, and so that I could feel whole and complete and at peace. And I would do it right, carefully and meticulously under the care of experienced doctors, because although my body wasn’t quite right for me, I still respected it, and wanted to take great care in altering myself so that I could remain healthy and come out the other side in even more excellent condition.

And so that’s what I’m doing.