Be Myself! - 24. Identity Crisis

The storm hit at some point later that night, during a time when my dreams ensured that the rational part of my brain had very little influence over my thoughts. As it turned out, it was precisely that part of my brain that had been warring in favour of supporting Oli’s identity. With this rationality turned off, my mind became a sea of nightmarish monsters, most of them either resembling my father or an extremely girly version of Oli. At some point they teamed together to tell me what kind of girlfriend I should be looking for, and how I should use girly-Oli to save my masculinity. Thankfully I woke up as soon as dream-Oli began to take off her (his?) neon-pink tank top.

Because of the way my dream ended, the first kind of thoughts that came to mind once I realised I was not about to have sex with girly-Oli were related to what would happen when I tried to have sex with guy-Oli. Would he still be up for it? Or would he feel bad because of his body? I remembered how he always felt uncomfortable when I tried to touch his chest; now I realised why.

And then, of course, came the problem of what to do with my own sexuality. This particular storm was finally ready to blow me off, now that Oli had been reassured of my full support and seemed to be feeling a bit better. On one hand, I was pretty sure I had been attracted to his (her?) body when we were having sex. As embarrassing as it was for me to think about those occasions (and the sheer number of them since our first clumsy attempt at the camping site), they could only have happened because I thought Oli was sexy. That body’s wide hips and large-ish boobs, clearly (and probably painfully), feminine, were things I obviously liked.

On the other hand, Oli as a person had been perfectly likeable too. It is true that our relationship had started as a kind of ‘convenient agreement’ to get other students off our backs, but as I got to know him better, I realised I really liked that person. Oli was fun to be around, caring, and his family had adopted me as one of their own. When Oli was still considered a girl, I thought those feelings were just another confirmation of my straightness. But then, if I had liked Oli all along, and Oli turned out to be a guy, then had I been attracted to a guy all along? Was it Oli’s hidden maleness that had attracted me, rather than his feminine body? Would that make me gay?

Reluctantly, I turned to the alarm clock on my bedside table. My nightmares had woken me up at five in the morning on a Sunday. I had about two hours before my parents were up. The computer was glaring at me from the other side of the room. I could feel its stare. It was begging me to turn it on and do what I always did when I had this urge for answers.

Internet, be my saviour.

The first term I looked up was ‘transgender’, the word Luce had used to describe Oli and herself. The first result was a definition from Wikipedia, which I automatically ignored because I had been told over and over again this site was not to be trusted. I scrolled down and was immediately struck by the number of entries that related to the murder of a transgender person. Amidst all the gloomy links (I did not dare click on any of them, least I became even more worried about Oli), I saw one for something called Scottish Transgender Alliance. Seeing as it was the only positive-sounding thing in the whole first page (the rest were either murder news or dodgy-sounding sites with definitions), I decided to investigate it. I found definitions for a whole ‘transgender umbrella’, and learned that ‘transgender’ is a broad term that includes transsexual males, transsexual females, androgyne people, intersex people, and cross-dressing people. I read about transgender rights and transgender activism until my brain was on the verge of breaking down from too much information.

Next I decided to try something more directly related to my situation. I still had about an hour before it became too dangerous to look through this kind of stuff at home. I typed ‘my girlfriend is’, and my search box immediately supplied me with ‘my girlfriend is my boyfriend help’. On one hand it was comforting to know that there were enough people in my situation around the world to make this one of the automatic suggestions for a search, but as soon as I read those words I felt weirdly disgusted, like I was somehow doing something disrespectful to Oli. I decided not to look at the results. Instead, I wrote him an e-mail with my wonderings. It took me almost an hour to write it because I tried to think really carefully about what words I could use and what words could hurt him, but since I did not know exactly what he would consider hurtful or not, phrasing a simple short e-mail became a much bigger task than I expected. The e-mail read:

Hi Oli

I hope you are doing ok after yesterday. As I said before, I still like you and I am happy to continue our relationship if this is what you want. But now I am wondering what my place in all of this is, and how to conciliate the fact that I like your personality, which is now male, and the more physical aspects of you, which are a bit different. Sorry if it somehow hurts you to read this, I do not know how else to say it. I am a bit confused. Do you think we can talk to Luce on Monday? Should I visit you today?

All the best

Oscar

It probably sounded too formal for the kind of relationship we had, but I had never been able to write ‘informally’. It had been ingrained in me from early on that all written communication should be in proper English, and that the modern style of writing on electronic devices was the beginning of the end for our language. I was questioning so much of my family’s morals these days that I did not have any gray matter left to consider this one. Maybe at some point in the future I would.

As I re-read the message for the third time, in order to make sure it was ready to be sent, however, I saw that Oli had come online on chat.

‘Hi Oli’ I wrote him. Oli had never been an early bird; he was the kind of person who would stay in bed until the middle of the afternoon if left to his own devices (though admittedly it could be because every time I spent the night there we were too ‘busy’ to sleep early), so his presence in front of the computer at seven a.m. on Sunday was surprising and a bit worrying.

‘Hi Oscar. Can’t sleep.’ I was right about being worried.

‘Me neither.’ Though I would try to avoid mentioning my reasons. Oli probably did not need to imagine a girly version of himself right now.

‘Why not?’

‘I just sent you an e-mail. Read and you’ll find out.’ I pressed the ‘send’ button as soon as I finished typing. From the room on the other side of the corridor I heard my parents getting ready to start the day. I opened some random Physics Questions and Answers website from my favourites and hoped I would be able to pretend to be reading it if my father barged into my room. Oli took some time to read the e-mail and reply.

‘I’m sorry I’m making ur life difficult’, he wrote.

‘It is not your fault’, I tried to reassure him, though he was not that easily convinced.

‘Yes, it is. If I hadn’t been like this, then…’

‘It is not you who is causing the confusion. It is my lack of understanding of those LGBT things’.

‘What do u wanna do about it?’

‘I don’t know. I think I am scared to admit I have been gay all along’, I confessed, though I decided not to tell Oli that I was ashamed of this particular feeling. Hannah’s voice sounded clear in my head, telling me there was no shame in being gay, and that this was my internalised homophobia speaking. If she knew of my feelings, she would probably try to expel me from the LGBTI Club again.

‘I think I have been gay all along’, Oli answered. ‘It was never a question for me that I liked guys. That’s why I felt bad when people thought I was a lesbian. But I guess I’m gay now.’

‘If I am dating a gay guy, then I am probably gay too.’ I had to train my mind to get used to the idea. I was attracted to Oli, Oli was a guy, and therefore I was gay. The thing about his body was probably some weird kind of anomaly; a concession my brain made because I liked Oli so much.

‘U could still be bisexual,’ Oli pointed out. I considered it for a moment.

‘But I have only had sex with you and Jean. I don’t want to have sex with everyone I know and I don’t want to have lots of partners. And don’t they say bisexuality is just a phase, anyway? For those who can’t decide?’

‘I don’t think so, otherwise there wouldn’t be a B in LGBT’. Oli’s reasoning made sense. I knew very little about bisexuality, even less than what I knew about gay people prior to meeting Jean in the school toilet. My knowledge was entirely based on stereotypes of promiscuous people who cared more about the sex itself than the person they do it with. Now that I thought about it, Jean was probably the embodiment of my idea of bisexuals (apart from not liking girls). So obviously it would never occur to me that I could be one.

But if my idea of bisexuality was based on the same kind of misconceptions I used to base my knowledge about gay stuff in, then I would have to consider Oli’s suggestion more seriously.

‘Do you think I could really be one?’ I asked, just to be sure.

‘Well, u had girlfriends b4 me, and u did things to Jean that were just 4 the sex. 4 me it was kind of obvious, actually. I’m surprised u hadn’t considered it yet.’ Oli’s form of text-speak took a while to register in my brain. I had to read this part of the answer three times before the meaning of his words dawned on me.

‘You thought I was bisexual? Since when?’

‘Since u joined the club. I didn’t say anything because it’s up to u to decide who u are. When not even Hannah bothered to say anything about it, I got scared that u would be offended.’

‘I see.’ It was a little humiliating and scary to realise that someone else might know more about me than I did. I asked Oli what he thought bisexuals were like and he answered with this:

‘My parents are bisexual. If you want, you can ask them in person.’

Oli’s offer was too tempting to refuse. I was heading towards my boyfriend’s home barely an hour later. He promised he would ask his parents to talk to me once I got there, but the whole thing felt incredibly forced and awkward, even if my curious mind was set on doing anything it could to get answers.

And it would be an opportunity to be with my boyfriend again, to get used to his new identity, and to have a real taste of what our relationship would be like from now on. We would test what, if anything, would change now that we were in a gay relationship.

A gay relationship. No matter the outcome of my talk to Oli’s parents, I had to accept the fact that I was definitely not straight. My parents would hate it if they found out (I hoped they never would), but this line of thought only made me keener to embrace my new sexuality, whatever it was.