I have spent the entire last seven years on a journey to discover both my gender identity and my sexual orientation. And, man, has that impacted my writing.
I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s in a fundamentalist Christian church with a literalist interpretation of the Bible. The kids at school, like our larger society, assumed I would be cis and het. They assumed everyone would be and should be cis and het. And anyone who wasn’t was mocked, bullied, and/or beaten up.
I noticed a few tiny things about myself in middle school, and a few tiny things about myself in high school. But the “God hates gays” claim hung over my head, and I didn’t even learn about trans people until 2002 on a talk show.
I was rammed through the usual het flaming hoops and trained to do the standard gender protocols. But by the time I was 28, I had learned enough about gender to realize my gender was in some way either unstable or not fitting me right.
But it took until I was 40 to reach escape velocity.
It’s funny how I can look back and see now how obvious it all really was. It was obvious I wasn’t straight all the way back in elementary school. It was obvious I was trans no later than either sixth or seventh grade. But I had alternate explanations for why I was thinking and feeling the way I was. Explanations that would keep me from facing The Wrath of an Angry God.
Now I can see I was colonized by the dominant narrative of our culture. Whether you’re Christian, ex-Christian, or most other religions, there is a blanket assumption that “normal” people are straight and cis, and that this is everyone’s default. Then, the “abnormal” people like me realize we’re “not normal,” and then people say we need conversion therapy or whatever so we can be “fixed.”
It’s all so hateful and stupid.
Well, I’m not cis, and I’m not het.
I’m in the social transitioning stage, and I’m pondering how much surgery I want to endure. Wearing the right clothes decreases my sense of dissonance greatly, and it makes me reflect on how I was already “cross dressing” at home in middle school by wearing the “wrong” hand-me-downs. But since my parents wanted to save money, they didn’t stop me. After all, it was always only at home.
The trickiest part is figuring out my authentic identity. Am I trans? Or am I gender non-binary? Sometimes I think I’m literally agendered, and for almost a year, I’ve been using they/them pronouns instead.
As for dating . . . my life partner is gender non-binary and uses they/them pronouns. We make very different choices from each other and for very different reasons. But we respect each other and what we need.
This has, of course, greatly impacted my writing. I prefer to be authentic, so I gave up on straight main characters and het romantic subplots. Now all my main characters are either bi, pan, or gay. (I think I would have to say I’m pansexual. Perhaps even sapiosexual.) Many of my main characters are trans, gender non-binary, or intrasex. (Intrasex people deserve representation, too.)
I’m not sure where my journey of self-discovery will lead me. Will I keep the they/them pronouns? Am I trans? Or am I agendered? There’s just so much unpacking to do when you’ve been forced to live your life in the cis/het box and been told that if you consider leaving it then you’ll go to hell.
Well, I’d rather live my life as my authentic self. I’m tired of wearing masks to appease other people and their religious beliefs. I’m tired of having to present my body in ways that make other people more comfortable or that please other people.
It’s my body, and it’s my life.
I no longer believe I’m going to hell, but if I do, I’d rather be in hell than share heaven with a God who clearly is not Love after all, thanks.
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