I've decided to embrace my genderqueerness. I thought you might be interested.

When I was a teenager one of my favourite programmes was Space: Above and Beyond.  One of the characters was Shane Vansen.  For those of you who have never seen the programme she was a bit like Starbuck on the modern Battlestar Gallactica. I used to run fantasy scenarios through my head where I imagined that I was her getting it on with another character called Cooper (He was kind of human but also kind of not. I’ve always had a thing for those characters that don’t quite fit in).  But whenever I did that the scenario would always end up getting confuddled and I’d end up getting it on with Shane instead.

She was that first experience for me where I realised that who I was, who I wanted to be and what I desired didn’t fit into the framework of all of the narratives that surrounded me.  The stories that I was reading, the programmes that I was watching, the conversations that I was faking didn’t work for me.   As I got older I found narratives that worked a bit better.  I found groups that I thought I could possibly belong to.  At least they fit a bit better than the old ones.  But still not quite right.

I have to start my own narrative.

So I wimped out.  I didn’t tell him.  It’s hard.  How do you say to a person “I thought I should let you know, I’m going to be changing a few things about the way I dress and the way I present myself, so um, I might start looking a bit like a guy.  Are you OK with that?”

He’s just so sure of himself, he always has been.  He is who he is and if people have a problem with that they can stuff it.  He doesn’t feel the pressure to conform because he never has.  It’s one of the things about him that I love the most.

I don’t think he’ll have a problem with it.  I’m sure it will be ok. 

It doesn’t stop me from being scared though.