10-years of being married to mySelf
Today, July 14th, is International Non-Binary People’s day, and I’m going out on a limb here, to share with you a little window into the navel-gazing of my own identity, my journey as a non-binary person, with the hope it might hold up a mirror for your own journey.
(Fun fact: omphaloskepsis, is the act of contemplating one’s navel center, or solar plexus, to connect with the divinity of one’s greater Self, through meditation on one’s umbilical region)
Almost eleven years ago (August 2, 2008) I married myself at the grand opening of the Erotic Heritage Museum in Las Vegas.
Yep. I did that.
I walked down the faux-marble penis-shaped column-lined aisle to Unchained Melody, played by Elvis, in a 70’s beaded jumpsuit (I had my choice of that or velvet jacket Elvis, the choice was obvious). I was blessed by the presence of infamous drag nuns who have and continue to be a pivotal part of the LGBTQ2+ rights movement and HIV/AIDS awareness and advocacy, the Sin City Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. They, my bridesmaids on one side, and a cohort of local lesbian porn-stars on my other (who generously ran out to get last-minute matching pink ties and white tank tops for the ceremony) blessed me with their presence as groomsmen. My close friend Julia Burns stepped up to the role of Best Man and donned a mustache, becoming HoOolio. Jennifer Bella Johnson, and mother of the Sin City Sisters, Mother Loosy Lust Bea Lady, Sister of Sexual Cravings, blessed me in sharing the title of Maiden of Honour. In magic Las Vegas style, my queer roller derby pals happened to be in town for a tournament and stepped in as flower gals last minute — what a wedding party!
I remember nervously walking down the aisle, holding a bouquet of pink roses to match my showgirl-style pink wedding outfit, where, in half-man, half-woman drag, I entered into sacred ceremony, to publicly acknowledge and integrate my masculine and feminine sides. I stood before a diverse mix of old and new friends, strangers in full latex bondage gear, artists and sexologists, and took the Bodhisattva vows, vowing to love myself — all of mySelf, and to love the world.
This was spurred, both by my romanticization of nuns being married to God — to their higher Self, and my rebellious punk reaction to the institution of marriage, which was the political focus of the LGBTQ2IA+ liberation movement at the time. In my wounding of being rejected from the mainstream, including the institution of marriage (a movement still going on today as the Anglican Church of Canada fell short this week — by two votes — of finally sanctioning same-gender marriage), I had to question why us queers wanted to adopt this tradition anyhow? A tradition which stemmed from the patriarchal possession of women, daughters to be passed on as the property of fathers to become the property of husbands.
This, along with divorce rates skyrocketing on top of it, made me really question the heteronormative soup we’ve all been drinking, and I thought, maybe our culture is just too obsessed with finding love outside of ourselves anyhow. A fan of the ol’ adage “if you don’t go within, you go without,” I made a decision to follow my Buddhist impulses, and go within, I wanted to create a ceremony that was a commitment to self-love, inviting everyone present to join me in on the journey of loving ourselves, in royal Queer fashion.
It was something I had to do 10 years ago because I grew up in a world that kept telling us that people like me had no value. We were not a part of society, we were at best in life, something to be tolerated, and destined for eternal torture and damnation in death for daring to live and love outside the lines. Even if we did find love with another, it would never be sanctioned — we would never be able to share it openly without threat of violence, or humiliation. Our love and our identities were for the shadows. So I needed to publicly declare my love for myself, as narcissistic as this seemed, it was necessary for my survival. This meant for me, to openly embrace my identity as other, outside of the gender binary.
We didn’t have the term ‘non-binary’ then, and I never fully felt comfortable using the term ‘transgender,’ because I never wanted to transition from one binary gender to another. Interpreting the prefix ‘trans’ to mean across from or beyond, it made sense for me and how I saw my gender, as positioned outside of, or adjacent to the dominant binary structure.
Now we have this term ‘non-binary,’ and I’m not too sure how much I like it either, as it’s still in reference to the ‘binary’, and it would be more fun to come up with my own word. I’m thinking about reclaiming ‘Eunuch’ as the 3rd gender from the ancient world, but it connotes castration, and I’m a bit tired of the conversation about identity having anything to do with our genitals and sex traits! So non-binary works for now.
Speaking of which, I am going to talk a bit about that, as it is part of my story too: you see, I was born with male sex characteristics, assigned male at birth and raised as a boy, but I developed secondary female sex traits at puberty, and at the age of 14, I had a secret double mastectomy. I had a lot of shame from that experience, I had even blocked it from my awareness for 10 years, because fitting in was hard enough as is at the time, as I was just becoming aware of my androphilic sexuality. To have my body betray me too, was devastating. How dare my body be something other than the only two options I knew possible: boy or girl. I was supposed to be a boy, and boys weren’t supposed to have breasts!
Depending on which doctor you talk to, I could qualify for an intersex label, or as a male who had gynecomastia. I’ve not had phenotype testing done to see if I have some sort of XXY chromosomal variation, and I am curious, but in all honesty, I don’t know if I want another label, as much as I keep trying on so many, so few of them fit, and I’m beginning to agree with Irshad Manji, that they don’t represent who we are, but in many ways only distort who we are, by invoking associations which don’t often reflect at all the nuance of our unique beingness. I don’t identify as just a man, nor a woman, but somewhere in-between or outside the two-point binary system of our dominant culture.
I appreciate so much the work the Two-Spirit community is doing in uncovering the diversity of non-binary gender identities, and their integrated roles within the societies and cultures of the first peoples of Turtle Island. This work of reclaiming identity under the shadow of colonization, of ongoing genocide, is so vital it deserves all our support and allyship for all the reasons that we know, that are just, right and good, but also because the healing of indigenous people, is healing for all of us. Uncovering worldviews, worlds, and languages not centered in the white-supremacist, heterosexist, cissexist system, opens doors to the prison those of us with settler privilege, immersed in the western worldview, are not even aware we are in.
Many of us have bought into the hegemony of enforced mandatory binary gender roles, not realizing we are all victims in this system. Transgender, non-binary and Two-Spirit folks whose identities challenge this system, take the brunt of this imposition, experiencing disproportionate amounts of violence, and I am not attempting to trivialize this reality. But, we have to ask how many cis-men or cis-woman are forced to live up to a constructed ideal of being “Man” enough or “Woman” enough, and in the pressure of being forced to collapse and conflate their identities, lash out at those not privileged enough to pass, or able to conform to the strict binary gender code of which we are all enslaved by.
The story of Adam and Eve, is at the root of this opression in our culture, and it is only a story. If we understand the binaries in the book of Genesis as shorthand for describing a spectrum of creation (as Hebrew Bible scholar Austen Hartke describes eloquently in, Transforming: the Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians): Sun and moon, fish and bird, heaven and earth, man and woman, alpha and omega —are all binary shorthand to describe spectrums. The Book is not saying there are only two letters in the alphabet, nor are there only fish and birds populating the animal kingdom, nor are there no stars or other planets in the sky — nor is it saying there is only man and woman, but a spectrum of identity in creation. This story, taken literally, collapses and conflates identity, and does not reflect the actual diversity of creation as it is. It robs us of it. Compliance to a misinterpretation of this story has been violently imposed on many cultures and people around the world, including ourselves. 7.5 billion people in the world, forced to conform to only two options for identity conflated with the false idea of only two sexes (erasing intersex people), has no grounding in the reality of who we are as a species. We have to ask who is this actually serving?
I use they/them/their pronouns. I like that they are both singular and plural pronouns, as confusing as that is for our tongues and brains to wrap around. They/them/their pronouns acknowledge that my self/Self is both singular and plural, a subjective self, made up of a congregate of energies (masculine and feminine), thoughts, ideas, archetypes, and influences, while simultaneously is part of a greater whole — an interdependent being connected to a greater web of selves, all of us embraced by, and part of the non-dual, capital-S Self who created us, Who is us, and through us continues to create.
I present masculine most of the time in my gender expression these days, and that confuses a lot of people when I tell them I identify as non-binary. They see my beard, and my clothes coded as menswear, and their life experience in western culture tells them to use male pronouns to refer to me. I usually don’t raise a fuss, because hey, I’m presenting ‘male’, so why not? But the truth is when people use they/them pronouns, or call me sister, or grrrrl, in contrast to the majority of times I get called mister, dude, bud, bro or guy, I feel more fully acknowledged, I feel that people can see me, hiding under the facial hair and bowtie.
But why present ‘male’ then? Well, here is what I have to admit, what I have to acknowledge: that I express my gender in masculine/male-coded ways partly because I hate shaving, and partly because when I wear clothes coded as ‘menswear’ I can more easily, and safely navigate public space. The reality is as a 6'1" person, that when I wear makeup, nail polish and ‘womenswear’ or non-binary garments that stand out in my conservative town, I get tired of becoming a walking target for violence, or my body being an open invitation for political debate. It is exhausting. I wish I could be more courageous sometimes. I recognize how vital visibility is to transforming and liberating our culture, and I owe so much to those who have come before, the brave Transgender, Two-Spirit and Non-Binary (and Gay and Lesbian, Intersex and Asexual) pioneers who understood that invisibility is indivisible from visibility and that Silence=Death. Gender expression is a constant negotiation for all of us, and being able to access public space safely, is an essential human right for all. I am so grateful for the younger generation who are out there fiercely and ferociously challenging our conventions of gender, you continue to inspire me.
I acknowledge the privilege I have in feeling comfortable enough to wear facial hair, and pass as a man, as it gives me access to privileges many others can’t access. But the price of expressing ‘male’ all the time, is that I often feel that part of me is hidden, and never gets seen, and that is its own form of violence.
A lot has changed in 10 years, and I’m lucky today that I have found a partner who loves all of me, who encourages me to express in a way I feel comfortable and is even ok with me being married to mySelf. Over the years, I have discovered after all, that my body isn’t the convenient boundary for the self that I thought it was. There is, really, only One of us here, and that Self transcends all boundaries, all binaries, and conventions, yet holds so brilliantly and beautifully, the exquisite cornucopia of manifestation in all the myriad expressions. One Self — infinite selves. I’m grateful for all of it, including the gender binary, and the spectrum between, outside and beyond it.
I’m still growing and learning, and evolving and becoming. Over the years, I’ve tried on many labels, and none of them ever quite fit. I highly doubt I’m unique in this, I sometimes think I’d be happy with no labels at all, maybe i’ll try out Eunuch, or just ‘other,’ or Mr and Mrs, Misses Mistery, or Mix Murray, or maybe just Keith :)
To celebrate today, and to be a bit brave, (to be seen, we have to risk being seen) I ordered a dress (a flowing linen kaftan, dyed deep indigo) and I honestly, can’t wait to wear it.
I’ll leave you with this excerpt from a favorite Mary Oliver poem that so deeply reaches back into myself 10 years ago, and points to where I hope someday to grow, To Begin With, the Sweet Grass:
What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.
Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.
That was many years ago.
Since then I have gone out from my confinements,
though with difficulty.
I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart.
I cast them out, I put them on the mush pile.
They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment
somehow or another).And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
I have become younger.And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.
