transcroissant

[transcroissant]

Gender of the day: awkward smile

I am Sol.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sol#Latin:

In each language I am new. I am salt. I am sunshine, daytime, I am sun. I am ground and I am soil. I'm alone.

I think I have found my full name, too: Solaris. Pertaining to the sun.

[transcroissant]

Gender of the day: a chickpea

My mum tells me she's told no one except her therapist.

She says her therapist thinks it's something to do with my relationship with my dad, how close to him I was/am, how he wanted a boy.

I feel a profound unease at this conversation: I realise my mother is looking for explanations to my identity. I realise she sees this move away from womanhood as a move away from her, from a closeness imagined as mother-daughter created.

I tell her I am trying to just take me as I am. Not to seek explanation, not to seek meaning, to just let myself drift to what is right.

[transcroissant]

Gender of the day: tangerine fingers

I am back home for the first time since I came out.

Mum hands me the wine opener which she’s struggling with and jokes, “now you’re a man you can open this right?”

[transcroissant]

Gender of the day: intergalactic bathwater

"Real gender freedom begins with fun."

Kate Borstein

[transcroissant]

Gender of the day: black lipstick

At lunchtime today, I’m alone and I sit and listen to Milky Chance. I let my mind drift to summer, to the places of my teenagehood. I feel the air, how heavy is is, how the sweat pearls at the back of my neck. I sweep up my hair into a ponytail-

that is the past.

Yet i want to indulge in summer now. In the weight of the sun, the release of the shade, the grass printing motifs on my cheeks. I let my mind go to my favourite beach, under the archway and onto the sand. It’s a place of immensity. It’s a place that feels like your arms stretched out.

But as I picture myself there the dissonance creeps again:

I can’t see my swimwear.

I put on trunks

it’s better.

I am climbing up the rocks

and then i realise my chest

not a bikini top,

so a tshirt?

a binder?

Whatever it is, the running to the sea, the saltwater pools, the sandcastles, the chocolate biscuits, I can’t imagine the freedom of that beach anymore.

[transcroissant]

Gender of the day: unfinished summative essays

Missed call from your childhood friend who you haven't spoken to in a few months.

CF: Hey lil girl! I saw you're not on Facebook anymore.

a week later

Me: hey:) i'm not. also i'm not a girl anymore. :P

a week later

CF: hey dude!! wait, so what gender are you now?

[transcroissant]

Gender of the day: genderfuck

I'm BORED of gender.

[transcroissant]

Gender of the day: yellow hat

Glitter as armor.

Glitter as an act of power.

Glitter as a reminder that I'm fabulous. Glitter as a claim to my trans identity. Glitter as a claim to a femininity that has nothing to do with my body. Glitter as a buoy in the sea of trying to work out how to create masculinities that aren't oppressive.

Glitter as fairy dust.

[transcroissant]

Gender of the day: ancient mythologies spoken in whispers

To: Sol From: Dad

Sol,

How is it going. I was thinking about what you said about how your aunt might react. If you are ready, I can speak to her, I don't think it will be a problem for her and it will mean your Sol space would grow.

Let me know if you want me to do that.

Pops.

[transcroissant]

Gender of the day: flickering white light

When I have to go in a female toilet, I pause at the door for a second. I stare at the skirt person and tell them: "I'm just pretending." I take a breath and go inside.

[transcroissant]

Gender of the day: owl

Today I went inside TKMaxx for some boxers. I picked up some shirts and hoodies and went to the changing rooms. The store guy held his hand out. "Sorry, you can't change here." I said, "Surely it's fine, they're mens clothes-" "I'm sorry, it's company policy. You have to change downstairs at the women's fitting rooms." So I turned away and rode the elevator down. Water in my eyes. But I remembered Beyonce's video, her chanting: I slay. It hit me that I have to own my difference. I have to hold my head high and be so strong the world sees my beauty. Still. It's easier to say than to do. I couldn't really smile at the woman who handed me a tag and showed me to a cubicle. Inside, I look at myself. The shock of what happened hasn't worn off yet. I think how you can know the boxes exist, but when you hit against their walls, it's a new understanding.

[transcroissant]

male socialisation

Gender of the day: a deep hole

Have you noticed that men take off their shirts differently than women?

A friend asked me this sometime ago. At first I was puzzled, but instantly it made sense: images of guys pulling up their shirts came to me.

Yeah!! They pull it from the back of the neck!

I tried and nearly choked myself. Everytime I changed I kept doing it, and somehow, like a kid, the right movements found their way to me.

[transcroissant]

In my LGBT youth group, after spelling "LGBT + History Month" in giant letters, we were left with scraps. We made a city. A queer city. It's a city of love, where everyone is accepted and helps each other, where gardens are pavements, where people wear glitter makeup. It's a vision of our city, differently. With gender neutral toilets, emergency social housing that actually belongs to the council, capped rent, homelessness provisions, comprehensive queer inclusive sex ed in schools, mental health services, accessible streets and buildings.

Gender of the day: daffodil

[transcroissant]

Birthday

Gender of the day: fluffy pink and orange socks (with rubbery lovehearts on the top)

On my birthday, my parents call me on Skype. They sing: Happy Birthday to you, ---. My old name mixes with my new one. Dad holds out a candle and i blow it out through the screen.

Mum says, "I remember what a lovely baby you were! The quietest on the ward."

I say, smiling, "Yeah, you tell me this every year. I was quiet and it was snowing outside and the other patient left so you had the room to yourself and it was a Monday."

Then my dad says, "There was a bouquet on the table- it was a present from Gai pied for your birth. Of course they swooned over babies, didn't see many."

Gai pied is a gay magazine my dad did IT for a long time ago, a company full of glamorous men.

"Really?"

I think of Sleeping Beauty and the fairies invited to bestow their blessings onto her. Everything makes sense. I was blessed at birth. The magic of queerness threaded into my future, a bouquet on the bedside table.

[transcroissant]

Conversation with my parents: 5

Gender of the day: ScrEAaming

Are we supposed to call you Sol now?

Well. I mean. I know you’re used to my old name, and attached to it. You don’t have to call me Sol. But it’ll make me feel good if you do.

[transcroissant]

Conversation with my parents: 4

Gender of the day: fragmented moonlight

Is this just a step towards changing .. more?

Uh… No. As in… It’s where I am right now. It might change, obviously, i’m still trying to figure out stuff, but right now this what i feel.

[transcroissant]

Conversation with my parents: 3

Gender of the day: flames

You’ve never been concerned about what other people think of you. Why does it matter now how they refer to you?

I don't know. Imagine something you hear everyday. Imagine you wear a purple shirt everyday and yet every single time people see you they're like, 'oh, i love the red of your shirt!' Imagine the colour of your shirt is really important, it's a part of who you are. After a while it starts to become painful, that they see something so different than you do, that they can't see you.