I took my cat to the vet for a wellness check this week. Her name is Magic the Cat and she is nine years old and she is beautiful and she is my best friend.
“Hello, tiny man,” the vet said to Magic, who is obviously a tiny lady cat.
She called Magic a “tiny man” two times.
This was worrisome on multiple levels because Magic is a girl and a cat and not a man at all and where did this vet study veterinary medicine?
Perhaps projecting my own feelings about being misgendered onto Magic, I was too embarrassed to correct the vet.
They who?
I got “they’d” a few weeks ago.
I was waiting in line at Petco. Another register opened up. The cashier waved over the woman standing behind me.
“They were here first,” she said, motioning to me.
It felt weird. Not bad. Just weird.
Gender Memoirs
I have a story in a new book, Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity published by Columbia University Press.
It’s an essential read if you’re curious about gender and everything associated with that six letter word. These stories will make you laugh and cry and re-think everything you thought you knew about gender.
I found myself identifying with many of the stories. Especially this feeling of invisibility that so many of the contributors write about, as well as a constant questioning of one’s other-ness. Am I trans enough? is a question that comes up in many of these stories, as well as a section of the book.
My takeaway is that gender is overrated and you should live your life in a way that makes you happy. Whatever that looks like.
Cue the Charlie’s Angels theme song.
I mean, who doesn’t love Cheryl Ladd?
I did a book reading a month ago or so at a local LGBTQ center. It was mostly attended by a bunch of older lesbians who fully appreciated all of my Charlie’s Angels references. (After the reading, one person shared that she came out to her mother by explaining she was in love with Cheryl Ladd. We all nodded our heads. Us, too, Cheryl. Us, too.)
After the event, a woman who identified as butch approached me and asked if she could ask me a personal question. Basically, she was questioning whether she qualifies as trans and whether her life would be easier if she allowed herself to accept a trans identity. She wanted to know if I felt the same.
I have.
I’m still figuring myself out.
I’m not a “he.” And “they” feels wrong.
In fact, I don’t really like “she” or “her.” They just seem more socially acceptable in my case.
Butch is seen by some as its own gender, and that has resonated with me for the past decade or so.
I’d rather be called handsome than pretty.
Boi has a nice ring to it.
I have a Pretty Boi tee that makes me happy.
I try not to worry so much. The only thing I really know is that who we are is constantly changing and evolving. If we allow it to.
I always come back to this quote by Herman Melville from Moby Dick:
“It is not down on any map; true places never are.”
* * *
How about you?
It was so long that I was starting to look like Barney Rubble. You know, with that canary yellow carport extending over his face.
And she gave me such a nice cut on top. It was as if she had lassoed the wings from an angel or went back in time and clipped some feathery waves from Farrah Fawcett herself.
When I saw this pretty boy T-shirt, I had to have it.
On Saturday morning, W and I were up early packing her SUV and getting ready to head to our local Pride festival.
I was promoting a local book group that I head, as well as my big butch memoir, 
A 13-year girl so excited about books that she jumped up and down. She told me her favorite book is Rainbow Rowell’s Carry On. “About the worst chosen one ever and how he finds out he’s gay,” she wrote on her library card. I don’t know about you, but that’s a book I want to read. When I told her I was a writer, she jumped up and down some more. “Me, too!” she said.
Here are the book recommendations we received from young and old, in no particular order:
While I was grocery shopping last week, a woman approached me.
So, I went to get my hair cut Friday afternoon because I was starting to look like a character from the Flintstones.
This, folks, is an emergency. A butch emergency. Code flannel. Crystal has been cutting my hair for the past five years or so.
Rachel Maddow is my spirit animal.
Sometimes I don’t mind being called “sir.” Other times it bugs me. I’m fickle like that.
New year.
The Flannel Files 