Me, Myself, They

by Joshua M. Ferguson

  Jules, who was born in Moose Factory, Ontario, is Cree from Moshkekowok territory, a member of Attawapiskat First Nation. With a rich background in documentary filmmaking, Jules is a matriarch who values truth above all else, and her approach to interviewing respects her subjects to the extent that I feel there is nothing object-related in her mind. Her films are often created from the seat of her ancestry, her family, and the subjects she loves. She tells stories because she has to. Jules sees who I am. Her gaze cuts through the colonial mentality. She sees me with many genders, beautiful and free. It is a relief to be around her, and to have her in my life. Her love for storytelling drew her to discuss my own life and what it might look like in documentary form.

  Florian and I engaged in a discussion with Jules about what a documentary could focus on. Jules and Florian would combine their experience by co-directing and I would be the sole producer, to be in control of my own story. Together, we wrote a rough outline for a short documentary with a story arc taking the audience on a path from my childhood to adulthood, when I reclaimed myself and my identity. The film, appropriately titled Non-Binary, turned to crowdfunding. We received a very encouraging response. With our budget in hand, we shot the film in natural settings in and around Vancouver, used B-roll from our multiple trips to Ontario, and combed through archival video and images from my life. We were able to access a panoply of family footage shot by my Pop Stuart, my Poppa Joe (my mom’s father), and my dad. In the end, They Are Joshua evolved from a short to a feature-length documentary due to a significant amount of material for the story and my evolving fight for recognition.

  They Are Joshua portrays a different kind of transition story. I didn’t know this until we saw a rough cut of the film. Instead of showing medical transitions or tragic stories, this trans documentary is a victory story. Yes, there is trauma, but my transition is about reconnecting with the child that got lost along the way in the myth that gender is only man and woman. The documentary excavates moments from my life that seemed impossible to ever revisit, to ever portray. There is something powerful that the visual medium can achieve that the written word is unable to uncover. It unearths what language cannot, and what I haven’t been able to articulate. When I watched the cut of the film in a theatre space during post-production, I couldn’t stop crying. I was completely overwhelmed by the complementary yet contrasting images of me as a child and now as an adult, fully confident with my identity in the present day. I found myself made real and material in a powerful way by receiving my non-binary birth certificate.

  They Are Joshua illuminates this reconnection, and that’s why it’s such an important story to share.

  twelve

  The Amazon

  I’ll call her Mrs. Thornton — her real name is disguised in these pages to protect her privacy and that of her family, a name carrying the weight of darkness that still stirs within me. Mrs. Thornton found her power in oppressing the most vulnerable and marginalized, and I’m sure she was surprised that she met her match with me, a little six-year-old kid.

  I was in grade one at elementary school in 1988. That year, we lived in Chapleau, a remote town in Northern Ontario with fewer than one thousand inhabitants. The town is isolated, surrounded by wilderness. My memories from up north are mostly happy ones. Laura, one of my best friends, lived a short walk from my home, and our days were filled with playing some of the earliest available computer games and exploring the woods. Robert was another good friend, and we also played games and explored the outdoors together. I cared deeply for both of them. I still do. The happiness on my face in family videos from that time is undeniable. But I also see a warrior at that age, eyes wide open, preparing for what was to come.

  Mrs. Thornton was a severe and strict teacher. She embodied the climate of the town, cold and hard. Her life force seemed as though it had been drained by the decades of isolation that I presume she’d already lived through there. But instead of strengthening herself as a survivor, willing to help ease the suffering of others by extending her compassion, she succumbed to weakness and instead took her pain out on children.

  Mrs. Thornton physically and psychologically abused some of my classmates. She never touched me, but I watched as she snapped rulers against my friends’ fingers, or slapped their faces, or aggressively grabbed their bodies to position them “properly” in their chairs. I witnessed her assaulting my classmates multiple times. I was a child; they were children. It took time for me to process how wrong her actions were, but I knew something wasn’t right.

  This was the first time I had ever witnessed physical and emotional abuse. I sat powerless in my seat, with a sick feeling in my stomach, watching her mistreat other kids.

  It was confusing at first. I was scared to act. But then one day I’d had enough. I didn’t like the sick feeling I always had at school. I couldn’t stand the crying and sad faces of the other kids. Clarity rushed through me like a wave and made me take a stand. I had to say something, and I had to do something. I asked Mrs. Thornton to excuse me from class to visit the bathroom, and then I knew what I had to do. I walked right past the bathroom, down the stairs, and into the principal’s office. I had never gone to his office before, but I had a purpose, and a power was propelling me to act. I said to him, directly, “Mrs. Thornton is hitting my friends in class!”

  The principal called my parents into an urgent meeting. The school’s administration responded swiftly, and Mrs. Thornton was formally disciplined. My parents were obviously disturbed by what was happening in my classroom, but I could also sense the pride that was pounding loudly in their hearts because I had stood up for my classmates.

  One day, shortly after Mrs. Thornton’s abuse had been exposed, she visited me at home. The school had insisted that she atone for her violence by visiting the homes of all the kids who were affected, homes where children had brought their painful confusion back home with them after witnessing, or being of the victim of, her violent behaviour. I stood in between my parents, secure in their presence. And after she apologized, I looked up at her and I said, “Please don’t do that again.” I don’t remember those words myself, but my plea to her remains crystal clear in my parents’ minds. It was a significant point in my childhood, when my parents realized the depth of my strength, the potential for me to be a leader, an advocate, even a warrior.

  This was the beginning of my story as an Amazon. Or what I like to call myself: Trans-Amazon. I feel sad now for my child and young adult self, realizing the extent of the dehumanization, bullying, harassment, and assaults. Looking at childhood images of my happy, smiling face, I want to reach out to let myself know that I will survive the coming onslaught. I want to be kind to the history of who I am and where I came from. I want to say to my six-year-old self: “It will be tough trying, even like a waking nightmare at times, but you know that you are strong. You are loved, and you will be loved. You are a warrior. People will be hurtful, they will be violent, but they will empower you and make you resilient. You will find the way to help other people because of your resilience. Your fight for survival, and the fight for others, will both soften and harden your body, heart, and spirit, but you were born to be the Amazon.”

  I can imagine myself in Themyscira, the fictional island nation of the Amazons imagined by DC Comics for the Wonder Woman franchise. But my version of Themyscira is slightly different. My island would be populated by women, non-binary people, and gender-nonconforming people who would be able to find refuge there from misogyny and trans misogyny. The island would serve as a place for both retreat and preparation to resist the forces of patriarchy that gain power by maintaining the status quo of the gender binary.

  It’s my fantasy. My reimagined idea of being an Amazon manifested when, to survive, I had to surround myself with strong women to stand by my side. Without the support of women (cis and trans), non-binary people, and gender-nonconforming people, I’m not sure I would have made it to live beyond the de
humanization that I’ve faced.

  The Amazons of myth, famous archers, were said to remove one of their breasts in order to improve the bow’s position on their chest and perfect their aim in battle. When I first encountered this idea, although proved false by academia, I felt that this practice corresponded to the metamorphosis of my own body and the empowerment that I now feel. Of course, I haven’t embarked on transitioning for the sake of physical battle. I can’t deny that my transitioning, especially the way I’ve modified my body, has been about minimizing the amount of violence that I’ve faced in my life, that I could face, as a person who visually disturbs the gender binary.

  In part, my transitioning has healed me, and it lessens my exposure to harassment. Before the facial hair removal, and the effect of hormones on my skin, voice, and body, my appearance was more explicitly disruptive of the binary. I don’t enjoy the necessity of having to always be on, and ready to fight. I don’t mean physically fight someone, necessarily; I’m thinking more of the spirited fight needed for self-protection, to be able to walk away, escape, and deflect harassment. It can be exhausting to embody a self-protection that is always switched on. Human beings shouldn’t have to be constantly in self-defence mode. Gender-nonconforming people, especially those of us with expressions and identities that don’t line up with what is expected of us, are forced to confront bigotry in dangerous forms. The fact that I, and members of my community, particularly trans and gender-nonconforming people of colour, have to be ready to protect ourselves if someone’s fear or hate is triggered by our appearance or presence should be reason enough for our society to do everything in its power to eradicate transphobia. No child should be exposed to the violence that I have faced in my life, and that other trans, non-binary, and gender-nonconforming people face.

  Think of that resonant image of the Amazons — dressed in trousers, perhaps with exposed breasts or even bound breasts, riding horses, carrying long spears or swords signifying a phallic power — these are characteristics that people of all genders can embody. I have all of these things: a hybrid body and a warrior spirit to fiercely protect my family, my friends, and, at times in my life, other marginalized people.

  One of the first references in literature to the Amazons is in Homer’s Iliad, where Amazons are referred to as “amazones antianeirai.” The word antianeirai has contributed to a confusion around Amazons being “man-haters.” Dr. Adrienne Mayor’s The Amazons, although fixated on a binary understanding of gender in her book, suggests that the meaning of this word is closer to “equals of men,” not “opposites of men,” so “amazones antianeirai” translates to “amazons, the equals.” These equals were considered “others” — sometimes gender ambiguous, sometimes monstrous —a plurality of people existing in various parts of the world at the time. Isn’t that what we should strive for? Now it makes sense why they waged all of those battles. It seems they were fighting for something powerful: equality.

  Another aspect of Themyscira, one that is often represented as being a part of Amazon culture, is the freeing quality of the wild natural environment, which complements the idea of existing outside of the constricting forces of the gender binary in society. The natural environment and plentiful wildlife of the tiny northern town of Chapleau nourished the strength of my spirit and my body and made me feel as though I was on my own island of sorts. Even in Napanee we lived in the countryside near fields and creeks, and I found a power in being myself at home in untamed nature. The sound of wolves calling, black bears, moose, bird species too plentiful to count, and going fishing with my dad — it all made me fall in love with non-human sentient life. I fell in love with the wild and fluid.

  That the power of nature is both wild and free has always made sense to me on a deep level. Even at a young age, I felt a familiarity with nature that would come to evolve and offer me serenity. I became emboldened by the resilience, the challenge of the living facing survival or death in the natural world. While so much of my life has felt like swimming against the tide, my connection to nature and to my warrior spirit has transformed me. I’ve always felt at home out there beyond the system of a culture that excluded me.

  I am an Amazon now.

  The dehumanization transformed my flesh and my heart into armour.

  It called forth a strength of spirit that can be found in the unyielding life force, from the most microscopic of bacteria to the enormous power of old-growth trees.

  The greatest influences in my life have been powerful women, cis and trans, and later non-binary and gender-nonconforming people. I am a mosaic of the people who have empowered me, stood by me, inspired me, and who see me.

  A mosaic of Amazons in these pages. I am now one. Joshua, the Amazon.

  thirteen

  The Philosopher

  I found ME in my resilience.

  I found MYSELF in my storytelling,

  And I found THEY in other people’s stories.

  Critics of non-binary gender and sex would tell you that it is impossible for most people to imagine themselves outside of the dominant cultural scripts written for us at birth. Even some feminist gender theory argues that gender identity and gender itself are immutable. It’s old news to think that gender is fixed or that we can’t change our gender identity.

  Gender is self-determined and isn’t immutable. Some parts of Western culture are shifting towards an acknowledgement that there is a freedom in how we identify ourselves. In truth, gender diverse people have always been here, but the younger generations are showing us the way.

  At the heart of my resilience are my stories. I found me within my story of survival, and I found myself through the act of telling my story; it was through the writing of this book that I was able to reconnect with myself, the person I was born to be. Non-binary, for me, is about abundance, freedom to grow and change, as I evolve. Yet I haven’t painted the entire picture of how I found they/them — the discovery of the space in language where I exist, found in the stories of others, and of a return to nature that made finding myself possible again.

  This is the final piece of my story, where I found they: the place in language and in society, and on the outside of culture, that I could define for me and myself. This final piece is not an ending; it is a new beginning — the start of my life when I can finally be who I am.

  I constantly seek validation from others. It’s tough for me to share this with you. I feel weak admitting that I yearn for validation. Why seek validation if I’m already confident about who I am? The truth is that, sometimes, I feel an intense lack of confidence about my thoughts, my work, and my contributions to my community. I feel an emptiness where my self-confidence should reside. I should be certain of myself, but, to tell you the truth, I don’t really know that much at all. And that’s okay. I’m still struggling to be a better human being, to be respected, and, even better, to be accepted and appreciated for who I am. I am learning and yearning for validation just like you. We all want to be valid.

  I seek this validation from Florian, my parents, my brothers, my close friends, and even acquaintances, to whom I turn for reassurance. Often, I think to myself, I am doing a good job today, being a good and acceptable human today, if someone tells me that I am. I realize that I don’t need to be validated to know that I’m a human being, but it just feels better to know that people accept me. The dehumanization in my life makes me insecure. As someone who is open to being in flux, not feeling stable, secure, and static in a fixed identity, I often feel as though I am living without established parameters or safe boundaries. Being open and fluid has helped me find myself, but I do tend to get lost when my feelings of societal erasure are too intense. Receiving validation helps bring me back to myself.

  I’ve endeavoured to lay out the layers of my life and my identity to lessen my invisibility, but also the invisibility of all non-binary people. To live in this invisible/visible space is a subjective experience that is founded in an int
ernal and external conflict. Non-binary people must fight for our right to exist, and this does something to the soul. The conflict makes us resilient, but it also means that we must deal with an unusual amount of external interrogation when people fail to see us as fellow human beings.

  The knowledge that non-binary people exist eluded me for most of my life, until a few stories and theories, shared in books, resonated with me. Stories beyond the binary were told in the margins of discussion about gender. Kate Bornstein changed my life with their first book, published in 1994, Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us. Their perspective on gender identity, with statements like “I don’t call myself a woman, and I know I’m not a man,” felt honest, familiar, and it was groundbreaking. Could it really be possible for a person to be neither a man nor a woman, as Bornstein’s title and stories suggested? Part memoir and part academic investigation, their book presented layers of evidence from their life to show that being beyond the binary was possible. It was a revolutionary act that made sense. I furiously wrote notes that filled up the margins of the book upon my first reading and went through it a second and third time to dive deeper into the familiarity that I felt with their story. It became clear to me that gender conformity is an iterative script constructed by the powerful in society to fool us into thinking that we can’t thrive in our human variance. The “rest of us” existed, according to Bornstein. Their life proved it. Here it was — the missing link meant to stay invisible and hidden to those of us who feel outside of the system of gender.

  I read the book in 2010, and I wanted more. Fortunately, Bornstein’s story wasn’t the only one that existed at the time. I found more proof to substantiate the feelings I was having about what I thought were the only two available identities: man or woman. I didn’t feel like picking one. I didn’t feel like either one, so why did I have to choose?