Me, Myself, They

by Joshua M. Ferguson

Well, for one, non-binary looks like me, and it looks like anyone else who identifies as non-binary. Non-binary doesn’t look like anything specific, actually, and that is the point. It’s the key to understanding us: non-binary people do not have to achieve a certain appearance for our identity to be legitimized. Our identity is not just about our body. And we do not need other people to legitimize our identity for us. Non-binary people can look like anything, the same way cis or trans men and women can look like anything, or should be able to look like anything.

  What does a man look like, exactly? What does a woman look like? Our concept of the appearance of gender is shifting, and it has never been the same.

  You can’t really put your finger on it because these two questions are impossible to answer. Or you could say that the answers to these questions might vary so greatly that they make the point about just how gender diverse we actually are. The moment we start to truly think about what a man or woman looks like is the moment when we start to realize how difficult it is to define gender and what it has to look like.

  I want a hybrid body to match my fluid gender identity. My sex and my body are becoming more mixed — more non-binary. We have attached the various chromosomes to male (XY), female (XX), and intersex (XYY, XXYY, and so on), and cis people tend to assume, without specific medical testing, that their own chromosomes match up. But for non-binary people, sex is not always or only determined by chromosomes. Hormonal replacement therapy has created a mix of estrogen and testosterone in my system, achieving a hormone balance that presents in my blood work as atypical for male or female. In other words, my sex is no longer clear-cut.

  I began hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in my thirties when I was finally able to confront the pain, confusion, and discomfort that I felt with my sexed body and the way that I enacted my sexuality. Some non-binary people take hormones and others do not, but I think that there is a stigma attached to non-binary people and HRT. There are people, even within the trans community, who question why a non-binary person would even need hormone replacement therapy. I’ve been on anti-androgen medication (spironolactone), typically used to suppress testosterone, since the spring of 2017. I also started taking estradiol (estrogen) in the fall of 2017. The combination of spironolactone and estrogen started to create what felt like magic waves of change within me. I take those little pills every morning like a potion concocted by some non-binary sage, who sees me and wants me to see my true self in my reflection.

  I have to be honest: when I was in my early thirties, I didn’t think that I would ever be taking estrogen. I wrote confidently about not undergoing HRT as a non-binary person. I saw other trans people taking hormones, and I thought I would never go down that path. I was convinced that my viewpoint would remain the same. But it changed, and this is the point: our bodies are unwritten stories as we live our lives. Our truth comes to us in time, if we let it. The way I have felt about my body has changed, and it can change for any of us. We don’t listen to our bodies enough. We need to learn how to listen to the wholeness that comes when we honour the intimate connections between our body, sex, gender, and sexuality. I like to think of this as my wholeness, my spirit.

  I feel as though my experience with the relationship between my body, my expression, and my gender identity was always a battle, but I wage war against my body less now. This is a common thread that unites many of us. Most of us, cis or trans, want to change or alter a part of our body. I’ve never met a human being who accepts their body exactly as it is. We all make alterations with our clothing, makeup, hair styles and colour, cosmetic procedures, body hair, muscle mass, and so much more. A multi-billion-dollar industry has profited from the common experience of body alteration. Our bodies are an expression of who we are, so there is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to become more comfortable in your own skin.

  I questioned for years whether or not I wanted breasts. There were days when I felt as though breasts would make me happy. And then there were days when I didn’t want to have breasts, when my flat chest felt comfortable. Then, at age thirty-five, I had a physical epiphany that lined up with my non-binary spirit after taking anti-androgen medication for a few months. I started to feel my breasts for the first time. How could I have been satisfied with such numbness and lack of feeling for so long? The awareness of my growing breasts and the sensations that followed made me feel happy and confident. My entire body became more sensitive — a sensitivity that matched who I was on a spiritual and psychological level. My chest felt like an intimate area for the first time in my life, and the experience with my body for over thirty years of my life shifted. My body began to feel more alive.

  I went for a mini-vacation with my husband in the summer of 2017 after I had been on anti-androgen medication for a few months. I packed my swimming shorts, and we ventured off to our retreat at a resort in Whistler. I was an avid swimmer in my youth, and I was excited for the pool. We arrived at the resort and we excitedly prepared for a day of swimming and relaxing. I put on my swimming shorts and a robe. We found a place next to the pool and I sat down on the lounge chair. I felt a shift of attention directed at me and I realized that I hadn’t wiped off my makeup from the journey. My long black hair was swept up in a ponytail, my legs were freshly shaved, and I had almost zero facial hair following a series of very painful laser hair removal sessions.

  This was the first public place I had been in since starting hormone replacement therapy. I was about to expose my body to others around me, and it all hit me at that moment. I started to feel something new about my body as the attention from others around the pool fixated on me. I sat in the lounge chair with feelings of deepening anxiety. Why was I allowing others to control me like this? What was I afraid of? I stood up and removed the robe I was wearing over my swim shorts. The focus on me heightened into a spotlight. Oh, shit. I quickly raised my arms to cover my chest without even thinking. I’m sure people were expecting to see breasts when I disrobed. I felt that there was something wrong about what I had just done by disrobing in public. I had broken a social code, indeed outdated, standing in that spotlight by the pool that day when I flashed the onlookers.

  It’s such a problematic double standard that people with breasts must cover up and people without breasts can just bare it all. What is the difference between breasts that can be covered and those that can’t, anyway? I know now that I felt uncomfortable because this was the first time that I was aware of my breasts in public. I could feel my breasts intimately, and it felt odd to expose them publicly.

  There are, of course, parts of my body that I’m still deeply uncomfortable with, particularly my facial and body hair. Laser hair removal on my face worked to a certain extent, but it is not always affordable, comfortable, or permanent. And did I mention that it is really quite painful? I started laser hair removal in my early thirties when my grey hair had already started to appear in places on my body so I have these very annoying white hairs on my face that can only be permanently removed by electrolysis. I am really frightened by this method of hair removal. I had a test done by a practitioner and it felt like actual torture. I can’t seem to convince myself that getting rid of these annoying white hairs is worth being electrically shocked hundreds of times on my face. Perhaps I’ll end up accepting them as a reminder of the forest of beard and moustache that I used to have, and that used to make me feel so uncomfortable. Of course, it’s wonderfully ironic that my genetics predisposed me to very thick facial hair compared to Florian’s; my husband, a cis man, has half the beard that I used to have on my face! My dad and both of my brothers wear their beards proudly. I’m glad to be rid of mine, or at least most of it.

  Body hair is another interesting component of how we typically understand and identify gender. I don’t think body hair should determine whether a person is feminine or masculine, or even female or male, and some non-binary people subvert this false equation. We have fooled ourselves into thinking that body hair is a stro
ng contributing factor for masculine gender expression and a male/man gender identity. For me, my body hair has less to do with my gender expression and more to do with my gender identity. There is a difference. My body hair reminds me of the pain I used to feel as an adolescent, completely disconnected from my truth, lost and tormented by others. It was the unwanted scraps of reductive biology on my body that betrayed my identity. My body hair does not determine my gender expression, but it does affect my comfort with my own body and how my body relates to my non-binary identity. The hair on my body has also made me feel less comfortable with my sexuality.

  I’m not sure that I ever want to achieve a perfect balance with my hormones, my sexed body, and my sexuality. This is not a binary-based subjective experience; human beings are more complex than that. Yet I am finding it easier to be self-loving. The hormonal magic running through my veins is now more hybrid, and this helps me be more comfortable with my sexuality, which I identify as queer, and to explore the edges of language relating to desire, attraction, and pleasure. My heart beats with a magnificent hybridity now; stretching out I feel more in-between, a little less trapped on one side of the binary and within my own body. My fluid gender is now matched with a transitioning towards my own story; the blank pages will always exist, ready for my evolution, in a book that will never read The End.

  * * *

  • • •

  Florian identified as bisexual when we started dating in 2006. It seems fortunate now to think that I fell in love with a cis man who identified as bisexual instead of identifying as a gay man. He now identifies as pansexual, which suggests that someone can be attracted to another person of any gender and sex. That doesn’t mean bisexuality can’t also hold this meaning for bisexual people. And it doesn’t mean that Florian felt limited by being bisexual. What it means is that he feels comfortable identifying as pansexual. His identity, too, has shifted over time.

  When we first started dating in 2006, no one knew that Florian was bisexual. He wasn’t out to his family, friends, or anyone other than the people he chatted with online. The early stage of our relationship involved Florian coming out to everyone in his life, and he was very clear about his bisexual identity. However, Florian’s coming out was partly based on me and my identity at the time as a gay man. The early stage of our relationship, sexual and otherwise, revolved around us being a same-sex couple. I now know this wasn’t the most accurate identification of our relationship.

  Here is the essence of Florian, if such essence can ever be captured by words. He has oval-shaped, deep hazel eyes that shine with the beauty that exists within him. Born in Engelberg, Switzerland, Florian grew up more than six thousand feet above sea level in the Swiss Alps. His height and broad frame make his kind and gentle soul a pleasant surprise. He is my prince delivered from the stars. Actually. One night, when I was about twenty-two or twenty-three, I was looking up at the stars from my window in my dad’s house. The brightness of Sirius was like a spotlight shining down into my dark room. I was crying. I was so lonely at that time in my life. I looked up to Sirius and asked for love to enter my life in the form of a man who would be gentle, kind, and strong. Florian came into my life through a

  gay.com chat room a little bit later, just a couple of days after his birthday. The chatting grew into phone conversations and then in-person meetings in Toronto (where he was living with his family). It was love at first talk — before sight! Truly, it is a remarkable gift for our partnership to act as a public example of love beyond boundaries. I am proud to love a cis man who loves me for who I am. We got married four years into our relationship. I actually proposed to him before he could do it! He continues to make so much possible in my life with his love for me.

  In my early thirties, I knew that I had to confront how my trans identity might impact my relationship with Florian. He was and is the most important person in my life. We have created a life together, and he is the only person whom I consider when I think about my identity.

  None of us can be who other people want us to be, and that includes meeting the expectations of others about our own bodies. I find that, too often, trans people must answer to their family members, particularly when they make decisions about HRT, gender confirmation surgery, or other changes to their bodies. Transphobia from our own family members is a deep and heartbreaking betrayal. I made a strict vow, a promise to myself, that I would never allow another human being, even close family members, to control who I am based on their own insecurities, fears, or embarrassment. That is their problem, not mine. And their rejection of me is their loss because my existence is based on love.

  Florian always had an awareness of my fluid gender identity. The transition from being a same-sex couple to a cis and non-binary couple was a process, and it’s still a bit of a journey for us as partners. He says that when it comes to love, desire, and attraction, for him, gender doesn’t matter. I just know that love is powerful — the most powerful force in the universe — and that it will always find a way to transcend obstacles.

  I identify with the term queer for my sexuality. How I understand my sexuality shifts with time, so this term feels right. Queer is to sexuality what non-binary is to gender, so both make sense for me. Why do we make so many binary-based distinctions about gender and sexuality? We reduce love to either platonic or romantic. Romantic love is elevated high above platonic love for cultural worth in our society, but platonic love used to hold more value. I think we need to get a bit messy when we think about sexuality. Let’s mix up our thinking about sex towards a grey area of understanding that different forms of intimacy can be valued in the same way we value sexual intercourse. When bodies are hybrid, how can we continue to think of sex in such simple terms? We think about sex as intercourse, but what about all the other ways that we express ourselves sexually and romantically?

  As my body has changed, my perspective on practising sex and self-intimacy has also shifted. I used to perform my sexuality as a gay man, and now this doesn’t make sense for me. I don’t feel comfortable practising my sexuality in a static way. My sexuality feels more free, intimate, and focused on the entire body, not just genitalia. I feel erogenous zones on my body that I’ve never felt before, and I want to approach my sexuality in new and uncharted ways.

  What does sexuality mean when one is attracted to non-binary people who have non-binary-sexed bodies? What is a sexuality that desires non-binary genders, that is attracted to bodies that are neither male nor female? I don’t have all the answers to these questions, but I believe they raise interesting issues concerning how we think about sexuality. We can be curious about bodies that are not our own. We can desire and be attracted to bodies that may not follow the normative gendered script of woman/female and man/male, and there is nothing unnatural about this. Our ideas of fixed sexuality and identifying with sexuality based on the binary are crumbling under the pressure brought with more force by younger generations who feel more fluid with their sexuality. Bisexual, pansexual, and asexual identities (among a whole host of others) are increasingly common.

  But how does the emergence of non-binary gender identities and expressions further the notion of a fluid and non-binary sexuality? How is it possible to identify with a fixed sexual identity if one is attracted to someone like me whose gender is fluid? What sort of sexualities emerge in relation to non-binary trans subjects? Are we attracted to another person based on their sexed body, their gender identity, and/or their gender expression? Or are we attracted to someone based on all three?

  I’ll tell you what attracts me as a non-binary person (though it’s important to point out that sexuality isn’t the same for all non-binary people). I’ve said that my sexuality is queer, but what does that mean? I think that there are certain signs that emanate from people we are attracted to. These signs stem from our identities. Some of the signs can vary, depending upon one’s gender identity, gender expression, sex, and the body. And yet to articulate our sexuality we are fo
rced to reduce our complex feelings about attraction, desire, and pleasure to a very limited range of categories.

  I’m attracted to the combination of masculinity and sensitivity. But I’m almost embarrassed to say “masculinity” in this context because it seems so simple and reductive when I know that there is an infinite array of gender expressions existing among human beings around the world; limiting it to just “masculinity” seems misleading. It’s more comfortable for me to say that I’m attracted to masculinity and to people who identify as men than to say I’m pansexual like Florian. But masculinity means different things to different people, so I want to dig deeper, beyond that term, to discover more about my sexuality.

  There is a difference between how I think about my sexuality and how I feel my sexuality. My thinking about sexuality is constrained by the limitations of language and the inability to articulate gender expressions and genders beyond the binary: masculine, feminine, or androgynous, and then man, woman, or non-binary. The way we think about everything is constructed around this dynamic, and yet I feel my sexuality deeper than what my conscious and rational mind can put into words. The term “non-binary” emerged in response to an erasure of gender beyond the binary, so hopefully new language will eventually arrive to help explain sexuality in richer ways, to match the ways in which we experience our sexual subjectivities.

  Heteronormativity is a dominant force that prevents some people from realizing love in an honest way. Sexuality is so much more than what we think it is when we allow it to be defined solely by a binary idea of bodies and the love and attraction that is supposed to match up to those bodies. We enact our sexuality through our bodies, but the body is our own. It shouldn’t be used as a barrier to prevent us from loving who we desire, who we are attracted to, and who we care deeply for. I’m proud of what my relationship with Florian represents. He loves me for who I am — not necessarily the body that was expected of me or that I was born into, but my body for what I want it to be. My home.