Long before there was wifi and smartphones, let alone language to define my identity, I’d envisioned a world in which a boy could feel comfortable living his true self in a girl’s body, and vice-versa – as opposed to one in which hormones and surgery, medical intervention masking a societal ill, would be celebrated as the Holy Grail to psychological wellness.
And after a bit of halfhearted trial and error playing a straight chick, I found that the radical act of simply pursuing my inner gay male desires freed me from caring how others perceived me. Once I left my tiny suffocating town for the Big Apple I became so enamored with exploring life outside my head to worry whether my physical form aligned with my actual being. Mainstream society could even call me a heterosexual woman if it chose – feeling like an undercover agent was sometimes kind of a cloak-and-dagger kick – so focused was I on being me to give much thought to labels. Besides, growing up in the desperately repressed Reagan 80s I was acutely aware I had but two choices – either tell society to fuck off or I would die.
Thus, to achieve this goal of being comfortable with the disconnect reflected in the mirror, embracing the gray in an era of black or white, I took certain steps I didn’t even realize at the time that I was taking. Every life choice was a means both to express myself, as Madonna had urged the teenage me, and to survive invisibility. (No need for a closet, of course, when neither gays or straights recognize that you exist.)
So for all those LGBTQ history aficionados I thought I’d offer just one highly personal account of how to live a genderqueer life back in the binary day.
Step 1
Become a high school theater queen and goth/hardcore punk/new wave music consuming rebel. Feel an incomprehensible longing while listening to lyrics like those to Book of Love’s “Boy.” (“I want to be where the boys are/But I’m not allowed/I wait outside of the boy’s bar/I wait for them to all come out/I’m not a boy/It’s not my fault/That I’m not a boy…”) Mix and match Salvation Army combat boots and purchases from the International Male catalog, with fishnet stockings and over-mascaraed eyes.
Step 2
Flee small town and graduate to 90s NYC club kid. Do lip-synch shows (always to lead singers of the opposite biological sex, naturally) alongside the drag queens at Pyramid Club till the wee hours of the morning. (Then drag sleep-deprived self over to classes at NYU. And as a keen observer/mimicker of how one is supposed to present, major in acting.)
Step 3
Get saved by the gloriously gender irrelevant world of BDSM – where tops and bottoms trump male and female.
Step 4
Build some sexy biceps through a decade-and-a-half of kickboxing. (A sport that comes with the added bonus of being surrounded by the smell of testosterone-heavy sweat.) Cruise a gay strip club in Times Square. Meet a gay-for-pay dancer, a bad boy bodybuilder who is also a Master, and fall down the rabbit hole of love for six years. Continue to sleep around during this blessed non-monogamous relationship – but only fuck the hot men you want to be.
Step 5
Hang out with a your gay brothers and varying shades of queer sisters. Spend quality time on Fire Island soaking up the hot summer sun. You can’t choose your blood relatives but you can most certainly choose your family. And always remember that family only knows the label of loved.
Photo: Ted Eytan