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I hate being mad.
“You’re lucky you can eat that crap.” Ebony takes the bananas and gestures to my tray, stealing a french fry at the same time. “You’re so skinny. What do you weigh, ninety pounds?”
“More than that,” I say. Five pounds more than that.
Ebony whistles. “I know girls that would kill to look like you.”
Yeah.
Except for the part where I don’t want to look like a girl. At least, not most of the time.
Like, for example, I have this enormously complicated relationship with my chest.
I’m told most people have complicated relationships with their chests. My sister reads Cosmo and Marie Claire, so I’ve absorbed via osmosis the insecurities you’re supposed to have about different body parts. If you have breasts, they’re either too big or too small. They stick up too much or they hang down too far. Your nipples can be too pointy or not pointy enough. There are so many ways your breasts can be weird that I doubt anyone thinks they have normal, acceptable breasts.
I can’t relate to any of those problems, though. My problems are more like...sometimes, I wish my breasts weren’t there.
It isn’t as if I hate them. Sometimes I almost like them. I usually don’t want anyone else to notice them, though. Most days I wear loose-fitting tops and sports bras and try not to think about it.
It’s worst in the summer, when there are pool parties and water parks and trips to the beach and all those other torturous hot-weather activities. I’ll do whatever it takes to avoid wearing a bathing suit in front of other people. It’s creepy, when you think about it, that people will strip down in front of complete strangers just because it’s warm out. I’ve always found air conditioning vastly preferable.
There are things that can be done about breasts. There’s chest-binding. And then there’s top surgery.
Surgery just seems so...extreme. So permanent. My chest is part of me. It’s bizarre to think about getting rid of a part of myself, forever.
Except—people get rid of parts of themselves all the time. Isn’t that what shaving is? Cutting your hair? Getting your ears pierced? It’s all costume. Fitting in to what society expects. Gender’s no different.
It’s exhausting, thinking about all this. It’s easier to talk it through. But Gretchen is the only person I’ve really talked to about this stuff so far, and even Gretchen can’t totally relate. My girlfriend’s great at listening, but I can never tell how much Gretchen really understands.
“T? T, are you there?” Ebony’s been calling me T lately. It makes me homesick. “Are you listening?”
“Oh, sorry.”
“You always get that look on your face when you’re missing the honey,” Ebony says. “Is it that bad?”
I shake my head. “I can handle it,” I say, though I’m not actually sure that’s true.
We didn’t get to talk last night. Chris and Steven are having issues again, so I spent hours online with Chris instead. I resisted the urge to say I told you so. Instead I read over drafts of the long email Chris was planning to send explaining why open relationships weren’t a good idea. I also listened patiently and tried to offer helpful tips while Chris ranted about some hot freshman interloper at Stanford who had the audacity to be named Elvis. (Seriously, only Steven would find a guy named Elvis attractive.)
It’s been a week since Gretchen and I last saw each other, though, and I hadn’t realized how lonely it would feel. Even with how complicated everything’s gotten, I still wish I could see Gretchen. I wish we could touch. I need someone I can be honest with. Someone I don’t have to act around.
I thought talking on video chat would help. We were used to that since we talked online every night back home. But it’s completely different, talking from my dorm room to Gretchen’s dorm room instead of talking from one house to another.
Back home, I knew Gretchen’s room almost as well as my own. When we talked I could see Gretchen stretched out on the bed, ankles crossed, lips twitching into the camera. I could pretend I was right there, my arm around Gretchen’s shoulders, my lips moving in for a kiss.
When we talk now, Gretchen’s dorm room looks wrong. Alien. White painted cinder block walls and brand-new Target sheets on the bed, still showing the wrinkles from their cellophane wrapper. I’ve never leaned back against those walls or felt those sheets against my skin.
I can’t imagine being in that room. I can’t imagine seeing Gretchen in my tiny bedroom, either, with the ancient bunk beds and the obnoxious roommates cackling on the other side of the door.
I don’t know. Maybe it’s not about our dorm rooms at all. But I don’t want to think about what else it might be.
“Well, you’re way better than me,” Ebony says. “I was online with Zach for six hours last night. Almost slept through class.”
“Crap, that sucks.” Long-distance relationships. Hatred of our roommates. Tennis. This is what people bond over in college, I’m finding.
I like Ebony, but we’re not exactly BFFs. I’m pretty sure Ebony’s just nice to me because I don’t have any other friends here. I just haven’t figured out how to meet people yet. At least, not people I actually want to hang out with.
Everything will be easier if Gretchen transfers to BU. I can’t imagine making it even one semester on my own here.
“So, do you know what groups you’re signing up for?” Ebony asks.
I shrug. “Mostly.”
The campus activities fair is this afternoon. Ebony and I spent breakfast going through the list of student organizations. Now we’re about to come face-to-face with the upperclassmen who run all the clubs, and I’m getting nervous.
“What’ll you do if you get hit on at the UBA table?” Ebony asks. “Tell them you’re already taken or play it cool?”
“That,” I say, “is the least of my worries.”
Before I’d even gotten accepted to Harvard I already knew I wanted to join the Undergraduate BGLTQIA Association. (It stands for Undergraduate Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, Queer, Intersex and Asexual Association. I think. Actually, I get confused about what some of the letters stand for. They seem to change a lot.)
I started the Gay-Straight Alliance at my high school in ninth grade. It was awesome, but Harvard’s UBA is in another league altogether. Last year, they held the first Intra-Ivy Queer Asian Weekend. People from all the other Ivy League schools came down and held panel discussions and led a Queer Asian Equality March. Then they had a dance party and played Margaret Cho routines on the big screen.
The UBA is one of the most important student groups at Harvard. Visiting their table at the activities fair will be putting my first foot in the door.
Sure, odds are, no one will even notice me there. Two hundred freshmen will probably sign up today. There isn’t much I can do this year anyway—freshmen can’t hold leadership roles in the big organizations. But I have to make a good impression, or at least avoid making a bad one, if I want to get a decent spot as a sophomore.
“You don’t need to stress,” Ebony says, stealing the rest of the fries off my tray as we get up. “You’re going to comp that political blog, right? So you’ve already got your big activity.”
“I might not make it onto the staff, though. Not everybody who comps their first semester gets invited.” We turn in our trays and push through the doors into the open air. Everyone is already streaming toward the Yard. I shift on my feet. It’s stupid to be nervous.
“Oh, no, I heard everyone makes it on those things unless they’re seriously lame,” Ebony says as we join the flow of people. Even in gym clothes, my roommate’s tall, muscled form and long, swinging braids stand out as we walk through the crowd. People always turn to look when we’re out together. Probably thinking I look like a little person next to Ebony.
It’s weird being surrounded by classmates and not recognizing anyone. In high school I’d known everyone since we were kids. Sure, I hadn’t liked a lot of them, but at least I’d known what I was dealing with.
“Anyway,” Ebony says, “if you don’t like the UBA you can always join one of the other gay groups instead.”
“None of the other groups has as much clout as the UBA,” I say. “You’re not planning to settle for one of the lesser engineering groups, are you?”
“Well, no, but that’s because the geeks in FES can kick the geeks in ESH’s asses.”
“Hell yeah, we can! FES has got it going on!” a guy on the sidewalk next to us yells, making the “Live Long and Prosper” sign from Star Trek at Ebony. Ebony laughs and signs back. I roll my eyes, but I laugh, too.
The truth is, I already love Harvard. I knew I would before I got here, but the real thing is even better. I may not know many people yet, but the way it feels is exactly what I always hoped it would be.
The Yard is packed—more crowded than it was on move-in day. I try to take deep breaths as I scan the booths for the groups I’m signing up for: the UBA, the PolitiWonk blog and the Model Congress. All I see in every direction is people jumping up and down, hugging, and eating the free candy the groups have set out on their tables. Am I the only lost freshman here?
Someone to my left yells, “Eb!” Ebony grins and waves at a girl in tennis gear.
“I’m going to go say hi,” Ebony says. “You’ll be okay on your own, right?”
What am I, a toddler?
“Of course,” I say, but Ebony’s already gone. All right, then. I push past a group of guys high-fiving each other by the Ukrainian-American Brotherhood table and find a spot blessedly free of people so I can collect myself.
A girl rushes up to me and presses a mini Snickers bar into my hand. “Hi! I’m so glad you’re interested in the HSWMS! Let me tell you about what we’ve got planned for this year!”
I blink at the girl. Then I realize this spot was only free because I’m in front of the Harvard Students Waiting for Marriage Society table.
“Oh, sorry,” I say. “I’m not interested.”
I put the Snickers back on the table in case it has abstinence cooties.
I back away from the HSWMS table and allow the throng to carry me from booth to booth. There must be hundreds of them.
Hmm. Maybe I should sign up for some other groups, too, just in case. It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to join the College Democrats. And the Japanese fencing-club people look like they’re having a great time waving swords around.
Then I see the giant rainbow flag pinned high on a brick wall. I’ve found the UBA.
The crowd in front is bigger than for any other table in the row. Behind the booth and wading out into the sea of students are upperclassmen wearing bright purple T-shirts that say, “We’re so gay! Harvard UBA!”
Cute. Maybe too cute.
The sign-up sheet is front and center in the middle of the table. All around me, freshmen are elbowing their way toward it, but I linger at the back of the crowd.
Just go up there and sign the list. You don’t have to talk to anyone. Just put your name down and get out of there.
“Hi!” someone perks at me before I’ve unfrozen. It’s an alarmingly cheerful blond in one of the purple shirts. “Are you a freshman?”
“Uh, yeah,” I say.
“That’s fantastic!” the girl says as if we aren’t surrounded by freshmen on every side. “We have special cupcakes for freshmen!”
The girl points to one end of the table. Eight neat rows of cupcakes are laid out, each with the pink letters QF carefully written on chocolate frosting.
“It stands for Queer Freshmen,” the girl says.
“Uh-huh,” I say.
Maybe Ebony was on the right track. There are at least four other LGBT groups on campus. Surely one of them is less focused on T-shirts and cake decoration.
“Don’t worry about her,” a short black guy with a buzz cut says as the blond wanders away to pounce on someone else. The guy is wearing a matching T-shirt, too. “Shari was the bake-sale queen four years running back in Kansas City. It’s safest to humor her. Her bite is way worse than her bark.”
I smile at the guy. “Thanks for the tip.”
We shake hands. It isn’t easy in the press of moving bodies.
“I’m Derek,” the guy says.
“I’m Toni.”
“Tony with a Y?”
“No, I.”
“Ah.” Derek nods, as if this explains everything, and points to my wrist. “Great tattoo.”
“Thanks.”
“Queer history buff?”
I blink in surprise. On my eighteenth birthday I got a blue star tattooed on my wrist. Back in the thirties and forties, blue stars were one of those secret signals closeted people used to aid their gaydar. I’d thought that was cool. I’d also wanted to piss off my mother by getting a tattoo. No one has ever known its back story until I explained it, though.
“Sort of, yeah,” I say.
Derek nods. “Are you trans?”
I blink again. No one’s ever come straight out and asked me before.
No one I’ve met online. No one in the LGBT youth center where I volunteered in DC. None of my high school friends.
Not even Gretchen.
So it’s strange acting all casual about it here, with someone I don’t even know. For a second I want to look around to make sure no one’s listening. Then I decide I don’t care. I’ve been worrying about that stuff my whole life. I’m in college now. It’s time to get over it.
What am I supposed to say, though? That I’m definitely somewhere on the transgender spectrum, and that even though I’ve spent hours upon hours upon hours reading websites and thinking about every possible angle of this stuff, I still haven’t found a label that feels exactly right for me?
There are tons of options I’ve read about. I usually describe myself as genderqueer just because it’s the word the most people seem to understand, but sometimes I think gender nonconforming would be better. Sometimes I think I’d rather go with gender fluid, and a lot of the time I want to pick nonbinary, because that one sounds the least committal. Gender bender sounds cool, but I’m afraid people will think it’s a joke.
Should I try to tell Derek about how sometimes I think just trans by itself is the best word? It’s just that I’m not sure I really consider myself a guy, necessarily, or at least not every day. I just don’t consider myself a girl. If I call myself trans I’m afraid people will think I’m a dude when the truth is, I’m really not there. Maybe someday I will be, but it also seems entirely possible that I could stay exactly the way I am right now for the rest of my life.
I don’t think I should say all that, though. Probably best not to scare Derek off with an ideological rant about the evils of labels thirty seconds after we’ve met.
“I’m genderqueer,” I say.
“That’s cool,” Derek smiles. Like this is a totally normal conversation. Like those weren’t the two most nerve-racking words I’ve ever spoken out loud. “There are a bunch of other GQs on campus.”
“There are?” I haven’t noticed any. Unless Derek is, but I doubt that. From the amount of stubble poking out of Derek’s chin, Derek’s probably been on testosterone for a while. As far as I know, guys taking hormones don’t usually identify as genderqueer. They identify as guys.
Wait. Is that right? How do I know that for sure? Maybe there are hundreds of genderqueer people at Harvard giving themselves testosterone injections as we speak.
Shouldn’t I know how all of this works, just instinctively?
Derek lets out a deep laugh, oblivious to my angst. “Yeah, believe it or not. I’m trying to get more of you guys to join the UBA. I’m the trans outreach cochair this year.”
“Who’s the other cochair?” I don’t see anyone else in a purple shirt who looks trans.
“My roommate, Nance. She couldn’t be here. Had an ultimate Frisbee game.” Derek points to a tall guy with an expensive-looking haircut wearing a jacket, tie and suit pants with a purple UBA T-shirt despite the ninety-degree heat. “That’s Brad, by the way. He’s the UBA president.”
