Your Flesh Means More Than You

About a year ago, when I was still willing to travel to the United States, I found myself in Denver, Colorado for work. I spent long days wandering a tech conference and interviewing people who work at NASA, do visual data modeling for government agencies and even the Dean of a Japanese university. It was late July in the mountains; dry, low oxygen and in the high 30s every day. Despite the heat, I wore my usual uniform of baggy cargo pants, platform sneakers and oversized t-shirts to keep myself comfortable in the enthusiastically air conditioned conference center. After a particularly long day that involved a wonderful film festival, I found myself in a deeply mediocre, incredibly loud hotel bar for dinner before I made my way to an after hours event hosted by the professional and student chapters of the organisation I freelance for. If I was going to a club for work, I certainly wasn’t going on an empty stomach. I sat with my salad, which was roughly 35% fried onions and a glass of water and my book, trying to decompress before what was bound to be a loud, overstimulating evening. The intense hum of the bar became the backdrop to my reading until it's drone was interrupted.

Tap tap tap.

Fingers reached over deliberately, intrusively tapping directly on the bar in front of my book.

“What are you reading?”

“Oh, Jeff VanderMeer’s first book, it’s called Veniss Underground.” I turn back to my book, not interested in being interrupted, preferring intense body horror over speaking to the man sitting at the corner of the bar. Regrettably, he was very intent on interrupting. Questions were asked, answers spoken over. It took me basically no time to realise that if I gave an answer he found too in depth, he would interrupt, looking for something I couldn’t answer coherently.

“So what’s that you’re wearing? A kimono?”

“Uh, no. It’s called a haori, they’re often worn over kimono but they’re not the same thing.” Between work and the film festival, I had quickly changed into a dress, loafers and a cotton haori, my attempt at a party look that I could bring carry on.

At this point his irritation with me was evident and my bartender brain had long since picked up that there was likely something other than beer influencing his behaviour. Evidently, the hotel bartender had noticed as well when he escalated to incoherent yelling, calling me a bitch, a liar and, very specifically, not Canadian. She was in action in a moment, the two large men sitting a few chairs down standing behind me before I noticed them move. The erratic man was kicked out of the bar and the men sitting near me asked if I was alright, offering to walk me to the elevator so I could get to my hotel room. I paid and took him up on the walk through the lobby, my fairly reliable memory failing in the shock of the moment to remember what he looked like other than tall. I waved to him as the elevator door’s closed and he gave me a thumbs up and a smile before presumably making his way back to his evening with his friend and the bartender.

I found myself alone in the hotel room, pacing. I have told a lot of folks I would see them at the party later, I have limited data on my phone and no idea who to call, who to tell. I think of leaving the hotel, I think of the fact he’s been kicked out of the bar but may very well still be on the street. I think of violence that feels far at home but lurks in the corners of a country so full of guns. I rip off my dress, my one attempt in the week at femininity and collapse crying in the shower, feeling helpless and weak. I am furious at my fear, at this body that has garnered so much vile attention and entitlement. Something inside me writhes and gnaws as the water runs over my back.

I wake the next morning and put myself in a 2XL t-shirt.

I have a difficult relationship to femininity. Years of unwanted touches, lewd remarks and intimidation have whittled away at my desire to be seen. I do find my cargos comfortable; I like being able to move freely, I like shirts that breeze around me rather than cling and I do really like having pockets. It’s served as both safety and comfort and an expression of my own masculinity. I like the layers of aesthetic militarism offered by combat books, cargo pants and a long coat – a look my friend once called “unibomber-core” (thanks, Ryan). It is a material manifestation of my desire to be left alone, to be given a wide berth while still managing to find self expression, out of reach of the desire of men. For the most part, it works but I still have fairly round features that are seen as feminine even without the addition of makeup. This sometimes comes in the form of chiding comments of how much prettier, how much more appealing I could be if I dressed differently, as though I didn't wake up with the express intention of deterring the exact kind of person who doesn't have the ability to keep thoughts like that to themselves. Even if it's not perfect, it's still a safety, a comfort I have come to rely on. It is a safety I do not want to lose.

It feels like I am losing my safety, even the safety I carved for myself, clawed back from a life in a young woman's body. The dignity of all our bodies is being stripped away like paint, layer by layer lifted by corrosive rhetoric and misogyny. This is not safety for women, this is punishment for not performing femininity correctly, for existing in a body someone doesn't find attractive enough or finds too attractive. This is a degradation of privacy, it is turning back the clock to ensure femininity is policed and the bodies of anyone who fails to meet the bar is violated and punished. This is not about dignity, this is about ensuring women understand their importance starts and stops at the flesh, lets them know the love, the creativity, the rage and beauty of their life is to be flattened into a single acceptable form. This is not going to keep children safe, this is the means of teaching young girls they are to be monitored and controlled by men. This is the means of teaching trans kids they should simply disappear.

Trans women take the brunt of this policing: they are more likely to be harassed and murdered for being trans, along with all the aggression they face as women. They are the scapegoats, the excuse used by violent men to interrogate and demand the perfect, sexual, submissive version of femininity they require, lest their own weakness be made known.

I see these stories, day after goddamn day. Cis women, trans women, children interrogated, berated and belittled for nothing more than existing and I see my safety inch further away. I see my options being whittled down to one exact way I am allowed to exist in this body. I see people who will never believe either of me deserve respect simply because of the skin I have always had. I am denied access to masculinity because of my round face, it ceases to protect and instead seems to invite accusation, violation. I am denied femininity because of the entitlement and disrespect of men. I wake up and something in me writhes, pushes up against my skin and screams for a dignity that has been torn from my grip piece by piece over a lifetime. I stand in front of my closet and see nothing but incorrect choices to be made, no perfect veneer to be laid over an imperfect layer of flesh to appease impossible standards. I look into the wardrobe and see fabric reflections of myself, variations on the theme of me curated over years. I see femininity and masculinity merging and blending, I see my expression morph with my mood, with all the parts of me that hold more value than my skin and sinew. I get dressed and turn to the mirror. I see a person vile men hate, and I smile.

Thank you, as ever, for being here friends. The support you've offered has been so kind and a bit overwhelming. I have been working on a bunch of stuff so that I can set up a bit of a schedule that will hopefully be more consistent. I have had a lot of thoughts lately and your generosity offers a bit of pressure that I find hard to muster in myself otherwise so thank you, so so very much. I have a lot of words, but not the right ones to describe my gratitude.

One last thing, I am not sure there are comments on Ghost at this tier (oh, the wonders of supporting non profits) but I suspect if you have a comment you can reply to the email directly to me but I am going to figure out if I am able to turn them on. Thank you again, friends.

PS the title is inspired by Turn Soonest to the Sea by Protest the Hero, a band I give a lot of credit for my worldview.