“I”dentity

by Isaac Albanese (he/him/his)

(Isaac is the Administrative Coordinator for the Student Activities Office at Brown. He wants to help shed light on the impact that pervasive and exclusive masculinity has within the trans community. His poem was originally delivered as part of The Men’s Story Project.

This poem is part of our series of writing from trans people for our Protego campaign, which fights for trans rights and safe spaces. If you have a story or perspective you’d like to share, email katieb@thehpalliance.org

If you’d like to support Protego, you can donate here.)

“For some, there is a point on the path to authenticity of questioning and uncertainty. I learned firsthand that even the most well-intended people in our lives don’t know how to give it room to breathe, especially not within pre-defined labels. It’s uncomfortable, undesirable, and insights fear of illegitimacy so we sweep it under the rug and suffer quietly.

I shared my story about the near two years I spent in this space with the hope of letting others know: Regardless of what people say, no one has all the answers. It’s okay to be unsure and exploring. But most importantly, please know that you are not alone.” — Isaac

I had questions.

Grasping at my heels, begrudgingly dragged along were my parents.
I expected their resistance; having carried them for so long their weight may as well have been mine.
I expected the time spent researching and networking.
It’s the only way to learn about identities largely frightened, bullied, beaten into hiding.
I expected to find community, clarity, and support.
Expected all but those hands on my back. A push in someone else’s “right” direction.

695 days
I appeared in my hometown courtroom to be renamed on June 24, 2013.
I gave physical masculinization a second chance on May 20, 2015.
695 days
This is a recounting of the time in between.

He was a living, breathing success story before my very eyes.
In him I swore I saw my future.
He introduced me to others, invited me to private spaces “F to M.”
It was exhilarating.
I weighed my options, filled my head with the possibilities, immersed myself in communities of people behind computer screens with one crucial similarity.

But was I doing it right?
Did I qualify?

695 days admiring the “close enough” clarity, the, camaraderie.

Flushing questions out my pores with group-think, and the dizzying reality of my first dose, thumb on the plunger.
I’d cleared it — stage five of my psychosocial development, Role Confusion,
prompting the joyous, synthesized fanfare of a video game.
I waited for my 8-bit reflection to come into focus
but it, froze.

695 days behind the masked fraternity haze before I could tell the difference between it,
and my face.
That mask of glass shards and paper mache was placed upon your first day by letters, by degrees.
“Oh, boy!”
Strip by strip I had unknowingly crafted my very own, smothered my identity until,
between the cracks in the mirror I couldn’t recognize me.

How? Why?

695 days
Pay attention, at attention, to the lines on either side of this road.
“Keep going,” he said. “It’s the only way you’ll know.”
Arms outstretched, I was heel to toe on a painted tightrope
shaken by newfound community, my parents, and my past
with insurmountable questions churning my sea just inches from rush hour traffic.

You heard me, but, you weren’t listening.
695 days standing in the breakdown lane, watching cars pass, watching time lapse.
I couldn’t shape a future I wasn’t certain of.
Wouldn’t put a name out there I might just as quickly wish to pull from tongues.

I stopped hormones.
I withdrew from everyone.

Getting by behind the “he/him/his” public cisnormative was an EZ pass
but I was paying the toll,
an anxious spiral into doubt.

Heavy,
Alone.

Not a single person told me it was okay to slow
down
until I’d lost the will to move.

Because
There’s no “I” in team and “I” can get overwhelmed by community.
It was never about me.
I was only as welcome as I was “enough”
willing to adhere to trans “ness” within the confines of strength and certainty.

695 days is the time between the legal declaration of my name and when it’s snug fit no longer choked me at the collar.
So that I could grow into it at my own pace,
and recognize identity lost to identifier.

695 days is the time it took to define myself, and what I wanted, what I needed in order to realize that dream.
When “male” and “boy” and “man” still don’t quite fit.

Separate from expectation.

I still have questions. I think I always will,
but, I’ve learned
that masculinity can be about choice, about fulfillment, about authenticity and self-exploration.

More than 695 days later, I’m doing okay.

If you should find yourself on that same road sinking into cookie cutter potholes
come, say, “Hello.”
I’m still there. You’ll find me,
by the wayside, in my own time, just beginning to bloom.