Charlie (he/him, they/them)
Today gender feels like my birthday suit. It’s too fuckin hot for anything else.
Consistently I’m gonna do what the fuck I want. Like one day I might want to wear a binder, but then sometimes I find it might be too restrictive for my breathing, too uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s like, OK, I’m gonna wear the fuckin binder and hope that people call me he/him. But then they're not going to do that no matter what I do sometimes. So I'm like, oh, yeah, it doesn't fucking matter. I don't give a shit either. Don't give a shit. No matter what I put on, I know who I am.
I know that I'm a boy and I know I am masculine of center. No matter what I'm wearing, they’re gonna be like “that’s a dude”. It might be a gay dude, but that’s a dude. And if you’re a little confused, like is that a masculine woman, is that a man, or whatever...love it, you’re doing it right. All of that. I fuck with it. Because I can't change who I might be in someone else’s story. I’m myself.
I really fucking like myself. Even if I wore some things that look bizarre, I was always just like fuck it, I like how I felt in it. No matter what anybody else said, it didn't stop me from being liked, didn’t stop people from enjoying me, me enjoying myself. People still wanted to fuck, so. Didn’t matter. I think that surprised other people. I think it's surprised my parents a lot. I think that they were like, oh, they're going to have a hard time finding a partner and being accepted, but it was not actually a problem.
I grew up feeling very much like I have to be a certain way. I didn’t know what the way was, but I felt like I was performing every day.
Who am I pleasing today? Am I pleasing the popular girls, am I pleasing my mom, am I pleasing society? Am I looking like the it-"girl” like I'm supposed to? And it was a lot of work. Shit. Cishet women go through work. And for somebody else?? Oh my fuck. There’s so much upkeep on the daily. I would love to wear full face of makeup on a regular basis, but that’s so much WORK. My nails are very new experience because I always felt like if I wore nails and then people are just going to think that I’m a woman, that I'm just pretending.
My chosen name now, even if my family feels some type of way about it, it’s technically their fault. They always called me by this name, I’ve always been Charlie. My cousins called me Charlie, my preschool teachers called me Charlie.
Finding community is what I think allowed a lot of us to explore. It wasn't just expression, it's like, really, who am I? How would I like to choose to present myself to the world? You know, figuring out how to present as masculine in a way that the world perceived as masculine was fucking hard. I was never big enough. I was never tall enough. I was never like, aggressive enough. If masculinity is supposed to be aggressive, then I don't feel like I get to be a whole person when I'm only aggressive. Like am I not masculine enough when I'm not being that? When I'm not dominating somebody, or when I’m not being a provider?
I appreciated Prince. And Freddie Mercury. I appreciated all the voguers since the beginning of time. All the drag queens. Him from fuckin Powerpuff Girls. Dennis Rodman. Shoutout to Dennis Rodman. Marilyn Manson. Those are the people. They knew what they were doing. That’s who I was looking at. Even Janet Jackson, she's like, yeah I’m gonna be quiet and shy, but I’m also myself. And I own me. Whatever I decide to do, however I decide to express myself. Whether you like it or not. It is what it is.
Sometimes I just want to be fuckin naked. And not for the purpose of sexuality, but like, this is my body. I find it to be absolutely beautiful, I think everybody else’s body is beautiful. I’m sexy, and also, I am my own person.
No matter what I say it’s gonna fuck your head up anyway.
If you thought I was a woman, I'm going to do something you thought only men do. You're just gonna be like, what is this? It's not my fault. The thing is, it exposes more about other people than it ever could about me. I’ve stopped stop fighting people about pronouns mostly. I make sure my family does it because it’s like, you know better. But for other people in the world it’s like, what else could I expect? You don't know me, and whatever you call me, I don't care, whatever gets the job done. And sometimes it’s whatever is going to keep me safest. Sometimes I'm really not going to correct you if I feel like I might be in danger. And that's OK too. I've learned that it’s OK that that's how I have to navigate the world.
What I wish people understood about gender is just like, you don't have to believe the hype.
Have fun. And you're gonna do it anyway. You're gonna wear the thing that’s gonna feel most comfortable. Other people are gonna be uncomfortable anyway. Be whatever gender you choose because you're a person and that's a personal experience. But do it for you. Whoever you're seeking is going to find you. And they’re going to want you. They're going to want you however you are. They're not actually going to care what you have on.
It’s about who you want to share that experience with in the world. And really that's it. And there's no right way to do it. Everybody's going to have their opinions about how best to do it for themselves, things that they dislike or like about what somebody else will be wearing. And that's just what it is. Like literally do what the fuck you want to do.
