There’s this game I love to play on the train. It only starts when someone catches my eye. Most times, I’m playing with a friend, usually Zai. I’ll lightly nudge him and gesture at the person.

Hushed, I ask, “Would you kiss him?”

Either Zai will see the man and bombastically side-eye me, “Don’t piss me off.” Or it’s a dude that’s cute enough in looks and in style to make Zai consider, “Hmm…”

It’s a simple game, “Would you kiss him?” Not, “Would you choke on it?” Or, “Raw? Yes or no?” Just a cute little kiss. It can tell you a lot about someone.

Zai eventually nods with a small shrug, “You know what, sure.”

We both then look around for our next unknowing contestant, we shamelessly stretch our necks, and at times, we’ve had to look into other train cars for a better batch.

“Would you kiss him?” Zai motions at an unknowing stranger scrolling through his phone. I look over at the man, and I try to imagine it. “Yes…If he was like really funny.”

The game always develops caveats at a certain point.

“Yes, if he bought me a drink.”

“Yes, if we were at the club and it was kinda dark.”

“Yes, if I were drunk.”

“Yes, if I were a different type of person.”

That last one. I didn’t even know what I meant by that.

Yes, if I were a different type of person.

Sometimes I’ll see a guy who I’m attracted to, but something is missing. He’s cute, but I couldn’t kiss him. Perhaps if I were a marketing girlie living in Chelsea, perhaps if I were a Basement gay living in “East Williamsburg”, or perhaps if I were an earthy girl he met at the community garden. But me now? As I am? No, definitely not. It’s not that I particularly lack something or he lacks something, it’s just that… it will never be us. We just don’t fit.

The other week, I found myself cripplingly horny— the testosterone was doing its thing. I was swiping and scrolling through godforsaken Feeld when I came across a message from this dude who was fiending for pussy. I just knew getting him to come over would be lightwork. He was a little pale for my liking, but cute— besides, it was just sex. But right as I was about to type out a message back to him, this uneasiness rose in me. I couldn’t do it? Even though I’ve hooked up with cis dudes before, now, as I imagined even talking to him, my eyes rolled themselves. The aversion took root not in disgust, but boredom. This was new.

I question if I’m a lesbian maybe twice a year at this point. My friend, Nia, says it happens in the winter. I look around at all the men, and I wonder, “Am I actually attracted to this?” But this year the question isn’t, “Am I actually attracted to men,” but instead, “Are the men I like real?”

Are they even men at all?

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In my baby queer years, much of my self-expression happened digitally and vicariously. I. Loved. Sad. Gay. Boys. So. Fucking. Much. It would make my bones shake. I watched gay boy movies, read the fanfic, wrote the fanfic, and had multiple fan accounts dedicated to them. I wanted to live in their skin so bad it made me wish I could peel my own away. Girlhood felt like a trap keeping me away from my true love. My beloved boys were so far and intangible, the frustration would make me curl into a ball.

When I actually became a boy myself, I realized I was not like the other men. This realization came when I was dating this other trans dude, and it was clear we were not doing the same thing. We both were gay boys, but on Pride weekend, while I was at Dyke March… he was seeing Trixie Mattel in concert. When we showed each other the porn we were into, his was of gay men… and I was fixed on tribbing videos at the time. When we hooked up, to him we were two gay boys… in my head we were dykes. Not at all, girls, but dykes. We’re both trans guys, but not in the same way.

I’ve only been able to describe it like this: imagine a world made up of only women who birthed other women for centuries upon centuries. After a millennium of this society existing, suddenly an anomaly is born— a boy. A boy who grows up knowing that he is different from the women around him, but still feels aligned with them. There is no patriarchy or other men around him to pressure him to fulfill any roles. He simply just is. I am that boy.

I thought I understood the lesbian master doc. The first time I read it was in high school. I was curious to know what it really meant to be a lesbian before completely ruling it out. After I read it, I just thought, “No, yeah, I definitely LOVE men.”

Confusion and desperation pushed me to reread it sophomore year of college. I was meeting he/him lesbians for the first time, and felt incredibly aligned with their experience of gender. I was also so deeply immersed in lesbian culture. My closest friends were lesbians, I went to lesbian parties, I felt incredibly at home in lesbian bars, something I did not really feel at gay bars— gay bars felt like I was visiting my uncle’s place.

Entire cultures have formed around these identities. Within the umbrella of Queerness, there are whole worlds that have their own language, style, rituals, and it all changes depending on whether you’re gay or a lesbian, or trans, and add race on top of that? Then it gets even more complex. I have to admit, part of my questioning here comes from a desire to claim a space as my own. Before I transitioned, I was a L-Word Alice type of bisexual girl. Yes, I liked men, but I surrounded myself with other sapphics the most. I never resonated with the bi girlie plight of not knowing how to fit in Queer spaces, nor did I feel intimidated to pursue women— I just did it.

When I was deciding whether I wanted to transition, my biggest hesitancy was the risk of losing my connection to other women and sapphics. As a bisexual girl, I didn’t think much about the space I was taking up in lesbian spaces. But the idea of being a bisexual transmasc in these spaces had me worried that I was being invasive. I reread the doc not because something had shifted within my sexuality, but in the hope that I would find something that wasn’t there before. But I had the same disappointing takeaway; I still liked men.

I know there is no pressure or urgency to have all of this figured out. I can simply call myself queer, which I do, and call it a day. Sexuality is fluid and changes endlessly. I’ve agreed with the anti-labels and anti-hyper-labeling crowd that all these labels are pointless. Identity is too complex to be summarized by something as fixed as a label. Hyper-labeling to digestibly categorize people circles back around to being heteronormative, but I also think hyper-labeling for the subversive irony of it all can be liberating, especially when those labels seem to be at odds with each other. The point is not that these labels lose their meaning, but rather they are each meant to hold the same weight, expressing the multitudes that exist within someone’s identity. There’s reasonable pushback from some lesbians who are against expanding the definition of lesbianism beyond women who like women. While I understand that this defensiveness is protective, I think it misconstrues the intentions of those who are expanding it. The point isn’t to dilute the meaning of lesbianism; instead, it speaks to the uniquely queer experience of being a dyke. Cause truly what the fuck does it mean to be a tranny he/him dyke? Yet it makes complete sense when viewed through the lens of someone’s experience rather than the literal definitions of those terms.

A few weeks ago, I revisited the doc for a third time. Unlike before, I was genuinely questioning my attraction to men. This time, not only did it hit a nerve, but my whole nervous system lit up.

“I like the idea of being with a man, but any time a man makes a move on me I get incredibly uncomfortable.”

“I like getting attention from men and being validated in my attractiveness, but the moment it goes from attention to an interaction (i.e. from flirting to asking out) I start panicking.”

“Only/mostly being into guys who are gender nonconforming or feminine in some way.”

“You’re far more certain about being attracted to women than you are about being attracted to men”

“Dreading what feels like an inevitable domestic future with a man.”

As I read further through the doc, I thought about my experiences with men, cis men specifically. I did not think my attraction to them was forced, but after each hookup, date, or drunken make out it felt like I had checked something off this subconscious list. It was always some sort of validation; they made me feel beautiful, they made me feel like a boy, they made me feel worthy. But after that validation was fulfilled and I truly faced the man in front of me, I found him incredibly boring, impressively stupid, or just... not for me.

Yet and still, I’ll see a man I find cute, and I can’t help but feel a deep endearment for him. But is it the man I’m attracted to, or is it their masculinity? And how much of that attraction is actually my desire to embody those traits? To be him or to be with him? Does envy even count as attraction? I really do not know.

My attraction to trans men/mascs, studs, and non-binary people is much less confusing. Not only do I feel mirrored, but there is something about that masculinity that is more alluring to me. What is it about their masculinity that is so different from cis men? It is not that it’s less toxic necessarily, the epidemic of the nonchalant, emotionally unavailable dreadhead has infected the lesbian community as well. It is not that they’ve experienced womanhood; some trans men have been trans since childhood and have never felt connected to womanhood. And it is not that their masculinity isn’t at the same level as cis men, have y’all met super studs? (Speaking of, if you’re reading this as a single super stud… hml)

It’s that there is an effort to their masculinity. Their construction of it comes from a genuine love and desire for masculinity, and not because it was socially expected of them. It differs from cis-masculinity because it is masculinity first formed from outside observation.

Back to my Wattpad Warrior days. The majority of those moody gay boy fics I was reading were authored by future she/theys, dykes, and closeted t boys. There is something there. There is this version of masculinity, almost like a Platonic Form of what manhood and masculinity are. It’s not as simple as “men written by women are more desirable.” It is a completely different interpretation of manhood from the perspective of those wanting to embody the male characters they are writing about.

Almost like the observer effect in physics. To observe something changes the thing that is being observed. This was the trouble I had when pursuing cis gay boys. They had always been gay boys. They’ve always lived in a reality that I had to break into. They don’t see it. They don’t have to because it’s what they’ve always been. What happens when the voyeur becomes the exhibitionist? What happens when the audience member performs the scene they’ve been watching? What new meanings are created when they perform it themselves?

I recently went on a date that went really well. It was with this masc who possessed this chill, cool guy energy with a lightly bookish tone about them; I found it incredibly attractive.

“And oh my goddddd,” I groaned as I described the date in detail to a friend the next day. “Then when we were making out, in the fucking park, they say [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] IN THE PARK, KAMEALYN!”

“That’s so hot,” we both sigh.

“It’s like the books,” Kamealyn adds.

“Exactly!!”

That is what I’m looking for. It is not that I’m looking for anything fictional. Gender is a performance, and some of us have had to steal, snatch, and sew our own costumes. Most cis men have enjoyed or felt indifferent towards the role they’ve been assigned. Hell, to them it’s all just clothes, even though many are subconsciously yet acutely invested in keeping up a certain performance of masculinity. Even though queer masculinity can be just as toxic and messy at times, it’s still free. It’s that freedom that I’m looking for.

Nia once asked who my perfect guy was. I had no trouble imagining him. He stands with a lean, his clothes fit him just right, or they’re oversized with intention. His fro looms large, or his long locs frame his face beautifully. He looks artsy, and if he is, he’s probably a bit annoying about it. He has a pornstache (I know), and/or some nerdy glasses on. His silhouette alone makes me swoon; he’s so relaxed and sure of himself. As I imagine him, I feel moths eating away at my stomach. I can’t see myself kissing him or hugging him; instead, I fantasize about my teeth sinking into his skin. My hands twitch, yearning to scratch, squeeze, and tear at him.

Nia asked if I could see myself waking up next to him every morning. I could see him. I can see his chest rise and fall as he sleeps, I see him yawning as he wakes, I can see him in the kitchen making breakfast. I can see it all, but somehow I’m not there. I don’t see myself or feel my presence. If anything, I’m a ghost in the room or a fly on the wall. When I really concentrate and really insert myself into the fantasy, it’s still not really me. At best, it’s a sketch of myself drawn by someone who’s taken some creative liberties.

Yes, it would be me if I were a different person.