Be Myself! - 23. Peeking Out of the Gender Closet

“Oscar, I think I’m a guy.”

Olivia was not looking at me. Just like when Charlie had made his speech and when Luce told me her story, my girlfriend kept a tight grip on her trousers and lowered her head until her chin almost touched her chest. She was anxious and scared, and I could not blame her. I was feeling pretty much the same.

“What do you mean?” I asked, trying to sound less shaky than I really felt. Olivia still did not dare to look at me, and her voice made it obvious she was close to tears.

“I was never comfortable with girls’ things. I used to think it was fine because mum always said girls don’t have to like girls’ things just because people tell them to, but… but then why does it hurt so much when people tell me I’m a girl and when people call me ‘she’ and even use my name…?”

“It hurts?” Luce had not mentioned anything about being hurt by names and pronouns. They were just words, how could they? It was not like a couple of sounds could make a fist and hit someone’s face.

“Yes, it hurts.” Olivia’s hand left her leg and closed around her chest, in the area just above her left breast. “Every time someone uses my name, calls me ‘she’ and refers to me a as girl, it’s like a thousand poisoned needles piercing through my heart. And then it hurts not only in the moment I hear it, but it keeps hurting afterwards because the poison is still there and is still spreading, and I feel like I’m dying from the inside.”

Olivia was definitely crying by now. I wanted to hug her, comfort her, and make sure she was going to get through this bad time. Then the words I had just heard hit me for real; and I understood what they meant. And then I realised I had been hurting Oli too. Just now, as I thought of comforting this person who had been so important in my life, I had used the words ‘she’ and ‘her’ over and over again. I had used ‘Olivia’ and ‘girlfriend’ without realising the effect they were having on Oli. Those little words had been everywhere in my mind, and if each had the power of a thousand poisonous needles, then just these few paragraphs of thought would have caused Oli an immensurable amount of pain if spoken out loud.

At least so far I had kept those vile words to myself. But if I kept thinking in those terms, if I kept thinking of Oli as a ‘she’, how long would it take me to say it out loud again? How long would it take me to hurt Oli for real?

I decided to keep my mouth shut until this was over, if only to make sure I did not say the wrong thing by mistake.

“I hadn’t realised it hurt so much until Charlie asked about it on his first day. His words made everything fall into place. I saw the pain for what it was: it hurts not because of being ashamed of not fitting in with the girls, it hurts because I’m not a girl in the first place, and being forced to be with them is upsetting and scary.” Luce approached Oli. As I tried to force my mind to think of my partner as ‘not-a-girl’, I realised that Luce had from the started used the name ‘Oli’. Luce had known from the moment they met, and had done her best to keep Oli from being hurt even more.

I felt like a really bad boyfriend in comparison.

“It’s bad enough to be put in a place you don’t belong, but then there’s also the fact that no matter how much you know you don’t belong, people still think you do and will see nothing wrong with keeping you there,” Luce said, holding Oli by the shoulders. She was comforting my partner, letting Oli’s head rest on her stomach. Luce sounded like she knew exactly what Oli was going through, like she had lived through the same thing. I could see and feel they had a kind of connection I would never be able to completely understand.

“It’s horrible,” Oli agreed. “It’s so wrong. It makes me sick now.” Oli hugged Luce’s waist. “How could I not see it before? It hurt for so long and I couldn’t see why…”

“It’s very understandable.” Luce caressed the top of Oli’s head. I wanted to trade places with her, be the one who made my partner feel better, but I felt it was not my place to do it. “Not everyone knows from birth or from early childhood. Sometimes it is because they’re brought up in such a gender-essentialist environment that they never imagine it is possible to be someone other than what doctors told them. Even if they feel something is not right, they know that if they don’t do what is expected of them there will be bad consequences, so they play along even if it makes them uncomfortable.”

“But that’s not…”

“Your case is a bit different, but it’s the same idea.” Oli was crying, but the tears ran silently and were soon absorbed by Luce’s shirt. “Your mum sounds very much against any gender essentialism of any kind, which is actually a good thing, but it did make it more difficult for you to figure out the difference between being a girl who likes boys things and actually being a boy.”

“What is the difference?” I dared to ask, hoping it would not sound too rude. I was still learning that girls could like boys’ things and vice-versa, but I was under the impression that if a girl could like boys’ things, then there would be no need to be a boy because she liked those things. That is, there would only be a need to be a boy if only boys were allowed to like boys’ things.

“Well, for starters those ‘boys’ things’ and ‘girls’ things’ are just called that way because someone arbitrarily decided it was to be so. Like, before World War II the ‘girly colour’ was blue because of the Virgin Mary, and the ‘boyish colour’ was pink because it is a lighter version of red. But then it got switched around and now people take for granted that girls and pink are one and the same. And I know all this, and I still like pink.”

“Ok…” As much as I was surprised by this new bit of information (my parents used to do all they could to make sure I did not have one particle of pink among my things as a child), Luce’s point still did not make much sense to me.

“And there are even more obvious things like women not being allowed to wear trousers until recently, or this constant need to tell people that a kilt is not a skirt. The Ancient Greeks all walked around in tunics; and anyone who’s seen a movie about the Romans will see the soldiers in skirts. Our modern-day idea that only women can wear skirts and dresses is not something that has existed forever or that will exist forever.”

If I had the chance to stop and think about it all, I might have been able to guess what Luce was getting at, but as things were she was speaking very fast and passionately, so I needed all my brain power to just keep listening.

“All of this is to say that what we think of ‘girls’ things’ and ‘boys’ things’ changes all the time, which means that, in a way, the whole idea of what is ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ is never set in stone. It depends a lot on where you are and what era you’re living in. Pre-Historic Japan had a different idea of gender than do modern-day Russians, and today’s Inuit are in no way like the English Victorians. Do you see what I mean?”

I could get that other people in other places and other times saw things differently than we did. That much was clear. As for what it had to do with the rest? “No.”

Luce sighed. “What I’m trying to say is that if our ideas of masculinity and femininity change over time, then our sense of being ‘male’ or ‘female’ or ‘none of the above’ is not related to those ideas, but to a more personal sense of self. I know I’m a girl and I like pink. If pink was a boy’s colour, I would be more reluctant to admit I like pink, but I would still like pink, and I would still be a girl.”

“Being a boy or being a girl is not about what we like, but about what we feel inside. That’s the difference,” Oli said, summarising Luce’s long explanation. I was not expecting my partner to feel like talking just yet, but it was a nice surprise to hear Oli’s voice again. “And it’s what took me so long to learn. But now I know. I’m a guy, Oscar. I’m a guy just like you, even if my body is nothing like yours.”

It was the first time Oli said it so assertively, not just as ‘I think’, but as ‘I am’. He was no longer crying, though his cheeks were still puffy and red like his hair. He took a step towards me, smiling shyly and staring straight into my eyes. I looked into his eyes too, and I finally saw that guy he said he was. That guy was short, had a high-pitched voice, and breasts large enough to show through his baggy jumper. But he was a guy all right.

How strange it was to call Oli a ‘he’. It sounded right because I knew it was what he wanted, but it still felt a little unnatural. Now that I had dared to see Oli as a guy, it was as if my brain declared a civil war between this more adaptable part of me who had seen Oli for who he was, and the part of me that had been comforted by the thought of having a girlfriend and being attracted to her body. I knew which side should (no, had) to win, but this knowledge was not enough to stop the war.

I mean, if I still had trouble thinking of Charlie as anything but a ‘he’ after knowing him for a week, how could I be sure I would keep doing what was right for Oli after knowing him as a girl for five months?

“I… I know I should say something…” I told him, aware that he was expecting a response, and hoping for a positive one. I wanted to give him this positive response, but I was not sure how to do that. Oli tensed. I could see he was making a lot of effort not to look away from me. I needed to reassure him. “It’s ok. I don’t want to say anything bad, I just…”

“You’re completely clueless because your mind has just been blown to the stratosphere,” Luce helpfully completed my thoughts. She was right, even if I would not have phrased it that way.

“Yes. I don’t want to say the wrong thing.” I wanted to get closer to Oli to show him it was really ok, that I believed what he told me, and that we would be ok. But Oli was standing halfway between me and Luce and did not seem inclined to move any closer. If I was going to respect his wishes, I should start by respecting his boundaries.

“You know, it’s ok to say the wrong thing at first,” Luce reassured me. “We all make mistakes, particularly if it’s something we know very little about. The problem is not so much the mistake itself, but what you do once you realise you’ve made one.” Luce smiled warmly. “If you make a mistake, you apologise, carry on, and try not to do it again. You don’t have to explain or try to it cover up. All we need is an apology and a commitment that you’ll try to not do it again.”

“Ok.” I took a deep breath and looked at Oli. I still did not approach him, but I tried to smile. Luce’s words had made me slightly less nervous about saying the wrong thing, but I still felt the pressure to not screw up. I kept seeing the words ‘he’, ‘guy’, and ‘his’ jumping in front of my eyes as I tried to speak, but instead of ensuring I was going to use all the right pronouns, the jumping words prevented me from speaking all together. I had to open and close my eyes a couple of times before my voice felt safe enough to leave my throat. “I will do my best, Oli.” ‘Olivia!’, shouted the dark side of my brain. ‘Your girlfriend! Your girlfriend!’ it tried to tell me, just as the light side answered with, ‘he’s a guy now! He! HE! HE-EE!’ “I want to help you. The last thing I want to do is to hurt you or make you suffer.”

“Thank you, Oscar. It means a lot to me,” Oli answered ‘in that high voice that would never in a million years sound male’. I wished I could hit my own brain. At least no one else could hear these things.

“I think my work here is done!” Luce announced, happily bouncing towards us until she was close enough to put a hand on our shoulders. “I’ll go find Charlie and enjoy the party now. It’s you chance to talk about more private things, and if you still have questions or want to discuss something in particular, you can find me at school on Monday.” She pecked our cheeks and was gone.

“What do you want to talk about now?” I asked Oli, feeling my cheeks heat up. His face had become as red as his hair as soon as Luce’s hand landed on his shoulder.

“About us, I guess.” He motioned for me to move closer and we sat at the base of the tree that had been giving us cover this whole time. “Can I be your boyfriend now?”

“I guess you already are.” I could feel my brain preparing a whole new storm about mine and Oli’s relationship. I was aware that the only reason the storm had not exploded yet was because it had been overwhelmed by the forced pronoun-switch and the civil war. Once those calmed down and freed my brain’s capacity to destroy my life, the storm would hit full force and I would have to deal with the implications of having the girlfriend who got together with me to prove my ‘straightness’ become my boyfriend. But for now, my priority was to make sure Oli was ok and reassure him we were still friends, partners, or whatever he wanted us to be.

He was the one who had been living in deep emotional turmoil for a week trying to figure out who he was and coming up with the courage to tell me about it. He was the one who was having his whole life turned upside down and trying to come to terms with this new bombastic revelation. Compared to what he must be going through, the part that affected my life sounded far too small in comparison. Even without the civil war and the pronoun issue, it would have been selfish of me to prioritise small changes in my life over this huge upheaval in his.

Oli said nothing. His lips trembled as he tried to smile and his eyes filled with water. This was all the reassurance he needed for the moment. I could see the relief in his eyes, flooding with the tears that soon began to fall. He hugged me tightly, holding onto me like he was about to fall from a cliff and I was the only thing keeping him on land. He cried his relief out for what seemed like hours, and I held on to him as best as I could.

‘Men do not cry,’ my father used to tell me. But since then I had seen Henry cry, and realised what a horrible lie it was. Men had all the right to cry. We had feelings like everybody else.

Oli was crying, and so was I.