rubierooo

[rubierooo]

Prob mostly tiredness

love party sadness

prob mostly tiredness

Its funny when you were talking yesterday about reading my notes I honestly had this feeling like wow

i haven’t felt like that in a while

But tonight it came back

tonight it came back

I think its been better because

because I have been thinking of myself

I have been thinking of myself differently and describing myself

differently and

I have been thinking of myself differently and describing myself differently and i’ve been really honest

and receptive

and I want to keep practicing

I guess I just get complacent

I couldn’t stand to be introduced looking like this

I felt I was letting you down, that you’d do better without me, that I made you look bad

It triggered a pine

It triggered a pine and I need a regime

It triggered a pine and I need a regime and I need to avoid trousers

pattern irrespective

I think you’re right

It isn’t flippant

And I want to escape

I think you’re right

It isn’t flippant

I think you’re right

It isn’t flippant

I think I’m right

It isn’t flippant

I really do

Want to escape

Perplexing

A perplexing shortage

And feeling

dirtier and greasier and hairier

Prob mostly tiredness

love party sadness

prob mostly tiredness

[rubierooo]

Prob mostly tiredness

Its funny when you were talking yesterday about reading my notes I honestly had this feeling like wow

i haven’t felt that dysphoric in a while

But tonight it came back

I think its been better because I have been thinking of myself differently and describing myself differently and I’ve been in really honest receptive environments

And you’ve been so good, truly. I want you to keep practicing.

I guess I forget it is sleeping inside me and get complacent

Tonight I just couldn’t stand to be introduced as your partner looking like this

I felt I was letting you down

N that you’d do better without me

Like I was making you look bad

Like it was environment with a lot of pressure to look hot n I just didn’t n it really triggered that womanhood pinne

I think I need a better shaving reigime that I bring with me instead of pretending not to care

And I need to not wear trousers to these events

Pattern irrespective

But I thought I’d have time

Like I can’t stand next to ███ n say I’m the woman it just feels like im insane

I think you’re right that I’m as much a woman as I am nonbinary, at least compared to the way some people throw around nonbinaryness

Like my nonbinaryness isn’t flippant

I really do desparately want to escape manhood

N honestly these spaces just feel like they’re full of nonbinary amabs who like men and I find totally unrelateable, and who always assume I’m one of them (██ was surprised I liked women despite the fact I’m dating you?? Perplexing) and cis women who I feel will never accept me unless I try to pass better

and such a huge lesbian shortage for some reason

I want to go home when i stay at yours mainly bc I hate feeling dirtier n greasier n hairier

Uggh

Why can’t I just say I want nice hair n to be clean shaven n stuff

I am still so dishonest

[rubierooo]

She told me maybe I want to be a different shape

I could say my chest was inflating

Like a mushroom

And that I felt like a ddrainnpipe

But it was all very vague and indirect and maybe I should have just said what I meant?

Or is the quantum indeterminacy useful

Help me settle with more detail

In the first place

So I don’t have to land

Then adjust

[rubierooo]

after last night I’ve never been less attracted to men,  or more scared of womanhood

“you just have to do what feels right”

“I don’t want to be gay again” well I don’t want to be for the first time

[rubierooo]

At the moment the work is kind of a work-k-k-k-ing out~ like slowly learning to access some kind of interior something A lot of the research I’m interested in is about embodied intelligence, de-separating your mind and body because the mind being in your head and separate from whatever is in your chest is a cultural assumption, is not a distinction in some languages

I’ve spent way too long up there (^^^) and it’s got me nowhere, I feel no closer to knowing “What I Want” whatever that is

when trans people come out on facebook they so often say stuff like I’ve ALWAYS felt this way like an apology for pretending to be something they aren’t all this time a reassurance that however they seemed in the past, whatever your impression was, their now was always in there

but honestly I don’t care what someone has always been I will love you for whoever you are drawn to be now and you have the right to change your mind

I’ve long stopped trusting my memory, I can pick out a hundred textbook moments, proof of my womanhood, perfectly fitting the *Trans Narrative* but no amount of moments can add to a continuum.

And however strongly I identify with womanhood now, my idea of what a woman is has changed so much I can’t turn back time and ask little Rubie what they think about it (would have thought?) Even though I’m increasingly using their ridiculous, childish name

Flirting with (t)he(i)r language

I’m drawing ambiguous sloppy space People ask me every few days what name I prefer and I can’t answer not because I don’t have a preference but because as soon as it slips out it’s like the whole system spins into action like an immesurable quantum mechanical system

like right now as I write this I hate all the options? and would choose namelessness if I didn’t need to be referred to.

But by the time anyone reads this, when it gets attached to some work in a show, maybe I’ll have made my mind up? But this text can stay, as a captured now, and hopefully that’s what the work is too?

[rubierooo]

a letter

You sailed until you found an island To live on And I am in your waters Your demarcated territory in this fucking soup And I'm scared i wont find my island in it and that one day I'll have to leave I thought you would be the easiest person to talk to about myself And you are becoming that person quickly, and you teach me to be honester, I am coming along leaps and bounds I value your experience and your willingness to share it so much You have already taught me endless wisdom in our few weeks But even if it might be obvious to you from implication, a part of me just cant tell you straight That I often can’t close my eyes n pay attention to myself and find a man in there I keep trying to casually mention that I’ve seriously considered transition and that it still crosses my mind occasionally and it doesn't come out I think I dress less femme for you subconciously and I want to stop When I was seventeen I dreamed desperately of leaving home because I thought my family was stopping me from being myself But it was always impractical and I back burnered it And became a nocturnal crossdressing songwriter, pfff But it turns out as I’ve slowly pushed the edges of the space they gave me they would always try to make me room even if I don't explain much to them And I should learn from that, and push harder In berlin I was different probably? I felt comfortable enough to write “A polychotomy to make sense of a soup”, to proudly declare myself to be in legitimate nonbinary person uniform, and now I'm back I feel weird singing it I dodge the language of queer identity because it scares me, feels like a commitment Would you find space for me in your ocean territory if I found I cant really be your man? If it turns out I can't sustain maaaaaaanhood? Because I so want to stay here, ████, in your gorgeous coves I decided to drop my surname in song I was walking in notting hill Your ends Singing into my phone: "I gave my name to my band So you can call me Rubie now" Rubie roo Green, fronts Ruben. The wikipedia description. Frontman or Woman or Other or none of the above I told ophelia to dodge pronouns entirely when she introduced my act but hiding is unsustainable and my name’s not much better sometimes I want to say to just fucking point at me when you want to refer to me bc thats at least objective and I’ll never change my mind on it I'm a pragmatic girl I don't believe the decision to transition is made in a vacuum I've never been androgynous or ambiguous and couldn't be and don’t want to be because I don’t think I should have to be I am happier than I've ever been right now The hes dont usually bother me And theys make me so uncomfortably self aware "its not about pronouns for me" and its not I guess? I feel so blessedly validated by the people I surround myself with to not feel the need to expect anything more of them, honestly They make space for me too When a lovely thoughtful person calls me they of their own accord it makes me ask 'what do I want' and I don't know the answer “he” And my given name Are easy because I was handed them "the cards I was dealt" A phrase implying lack of control Which is what I feel as someone who can’t be a beautiful girl when the fleeting desire to be one takes me (As an aside to this long note to you/me/us? I wanna also tell myself v individually and directly: this fucking crunchy messy bullshit feeling right now legitimises your transness in whatever form it takes, ruben thorniley green, however much you feel like a fucking fraud in the morning, so go n be fucking queer please if nothing else) Rubie Rubieroo R Ru Ruben Ruby Roo Rubi Ruby Try introducing yourself /// The Morning Update: I don’t want to change my name now Sometimes I feel like I’m only trans after 2am In the hours I used to dress in secret like some sort of weird womanhood werewolf or the shrek princess The language still makes me wince but I guess this is literally the definition of genderfluid? Drunk on insomnia last night I really thought I’d send you this right away, somehow I don’t know how I’m going to feel tomorrow I will probably be satisfied again I forget the subjective experience of these weird queer nights And for weeks at a time I am honestly satisfied in my ironic reluctant-maleness I am going to leave this letter some time before you read it, probably, So please don’t take anything in it seriously wrt my current feelings I’ve resisted the urge to edit much because I want immediacy and I don’t want to construct a fiction It’s like we talked about with songwriting I can only capture how I am right now (11th September 2017, between 02:00 and 12:00) and at other times I am definitely different these things come in waves, atop this ocean soup treacherous for my little boat but basically ████ if you do read this it’ll be because I want to know for sure I can be like this and with you, and like this with you I want to learn to be direct and not be scared I want to give you a telescope so you can watch out for me from your paradise shores while I sail about haphazardly for an island of my own

[rubierooo]

thank you thank you thank you so much

all the people who’ve made space for me

and she’s trying

mostly managing

[rubierooo]

Feel weird about how I might be using my relationship to justify my queerness

Like there’s a way in which being definitively queer sexually has made space for a more open queerness in terms of gender.

I think part of the reason “straight” trans people seem to transition sooner than “gay” is that they are probably already openly queer before transitioning. It’s a smaller jump, kinda?

To put it crudely, the way I’m changing how I talk about myself now makes me not only transer, but gayer.

And it’s hard not to feel like an invader, coloniser on two fronts

[rubierooo]

I am just so incredibly embarrassed by how I was the other day ████ just caught us at such a tender moment and I wasn’t ready I ruined an opportunity to form a useful positive relationship To say “hope your session goes well” ”was fun playing with you, let’s do it again” “enjoyed your show” and looked like a jealous fucking emotional idiot

I portrayed our relationship as on the rocks Which isn’t exactly going to put him off pursuing her

Doesn’t make me look like the hotter option

I’m so jealous of him If I could just be a man like that I would

[rubierooo]

“I am ok” “Theres just a lot”

I don’t think I can be ambiguous much longer It’s exhausting I have been tasting these tiny sweet incidental pleasures and I want more and more and it makes defaults bitterer

It terrifies me how she winces At the shes

[rubierooo]

Everyone I meet just feels like someone else I need to reach into the head of to transform my perception of myself when I’m ready to transition

Even ██████ struggles to internalise Anohni’s womanhood because she’s already been boxed in her head, which is amazing to me

And she knows far better than I do how hard it is to change people’s minds about you

(And I’m so scared she won’t be able to debox me too, but that’s another thing)

Can I defer strangers’ boxing until I’m ready?

I need more time

[rubierooo]

Male guilt?

For me the destruction of my own ingrained masculinity is a journey to selfhood, and to self acceptance. All I need to validate my gender variance is that it makes me feel more at home.

But there is a portion of it that is also a manifesto for all men, or all those socialised male to whatever extent, whether gender variant or not. We have a toxicity we have been taught and it is our duty to eject it. To learn to listen and make space.

And I think it can be both

[rubierooo]

[rubierooo]

i would skip anything right now to spend daylight alone with you

[rubierooo]

one on one you don’t need pronouns

and I spend so much time alone with you I am so used to being genderless

it’s jarring when you he me

[rubierooo]

I was always attracted to this non essentialist mode of thinking about gender because it persuaded me I could do and be anything I wanted as a boy and not have to expect people to see me a particular way

But maybe it was a sticking plaster because the more I am forced to think of myself as a man the more I am horrified by the idea. I just feel nothing like a man, way less than I felt a boy.

I’ve realised I automatically take amab nonbinary people more seriously than afab and find them easier to correctly pronoun and its incredibly embarrasing to admit and I need to change

I wanna construct a world where we don’t make assumptions about this stuff but I do it myself n its hard to change quickly so I understand mum I do when you ask me to explain singular they again

My transition plan once I’d come to terms with living at home a while longer was to basically not have to come out by changing slowly til its just obvious whats happening. the thought of explicitly explaining myself horrifies me

And I don’t wanna impose on my family. You know I think I’m ok with always being ruben to them, being my parents’ son to some extent.  Because they know me so well and deeply and the pronouns and the names don’t matter anymore. Like harry dodge at the hospital bed in the argonauts maybe, that little aside, almost a joke, was almost the most moving thing to me in the whole segment

Its new people. I want them to just know and not have to explain. And Idk if that requires a change of name or a haircut or more

[rubierooo]