0://Pre-Production
Kip's Blog:
I always knew I was different growing up. I know what they try to teach you in kindergarten, that everyone is different and everyone is special. That's not the kind I mean. I don't even mean the kind of special because I couldn't hear, and I was fitted with large, colorful hearing aids before I even nailed down the alphabet. I mean a different kind of different. There was clearly a distinction between me and them. They were normal. All of the other little girls I saw loved playing dress-up on the patch of ratty carpet in the corner of the classroom, and they adored pink and cute cartoon ponies.
That's not to say that boys couldn't do that, but at the time and the ones I observed, they didn't. I kind of wish a few had. Then maybe I wouldn't have been so opposed to it. Even though I'm fairly certain I wouldn't have enjoyed those games that little girls typically played, I was never even open to it, so I'll never know. I wanted to play with spaceships and fire trucks, and I would make elaborate stories with my stuffed animals and transformer toys. Perhaps this kind of play is what eventually lead to my career.
All of that is superficial though, and ultimately not why I was different. It doesn't matter what kids play with, whether they're boy or girl toys. That has always struck me as a silly distinction to make. What truly made me different was something deeper.
None of the other little girls had a problem with using the girls bathroom or getting changed in the girls' locker room for swim class. None of the other little girls took on an inexplicable look of disgust or deep shame when someone used she/her/hers pronouns on them. None of them made up fake boy names they wanted to be called for a pretend game. Just pretend, right? None of them wanted to play games where you got to pretend you get to do your entire life over, and start over as a different gender.
None of the other little boys were forced to use the girl's bathroom. None of the other little boys had to wear glittery girls clothes that their grandma bought them. None of the other little boys had to sneak back into the play-place at the local restaurant where they held kids' birthday parties, just to sit in the special birthday throne when no one was looking and turn it to say Birthday Boy at the top. Because it didn't matter if people saw them do that. They wouldn't get yelled at, or teased, or have their parents exchange worried looks, but ultimately bury any potential conflict while it festered beneath the thin veil of peace in their lives.
None of them had to go through what I did, and would continue to do for the rest of my life.
None of them were transgender.
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1://HighConcept
The only sound in the cramped office of the video game design firm was the dusty old fan, whirring incessantly as the only reprieve to the Midwestern heat wave. Just a few more days, everyone told themselves. They were more optimistic than the young programming intern that had to endure that particular office and creaking fan that clicked loudly on every third swivel. He didn't care much for that part, since he had long given up on wearing his neon-green hearing aids in the sweltering heat, and instead laid them out on his metal desk to air out the plastic tubes that trapped the tepid moisture.
Kip brushed the longer locks of his dirty blond hair forward and scratched the close-shaven parts around his ears, where his hearing aids usually laid. It felt freeing to not have to worry about them, but even more freeing to not have to worry about trying to hear anyone. However, the emptiness of the lack of weight made him feel exposed. At least the barrier between social interaction was one of the perks of his isolation, and it also allowed himself to be wired in mentally for coding. With an eye on the clock, he zoomed in to the game he was working on building a platform for and starting laying down planes. He double-checked his notes in the browser window and then minimized it again. It felt fresh to work on a new concept, especially since the previous one had been a dead-end.
As much as he loved his work, by the afternoon all he could think about was going home to his studio apartment and enjoying the air conditioner and maybe watching some shows he had fallen behind on. He also had some imitation crab left in the fridge which would go great in a salad. His mental capacity turned to focus on his food inventory, and it ended with a single thought. A good dinner would be better shared with someone. If only he had someone, he lamented.
Looking around to make sure his boss wasn't in the vicinity of his closed-off office, Kip took out his phone and swiped it open. He started digging into one of the folders he kept buried on his phone, and then he opened the latest dating app for gay men. He had tried most of them, sometimes more than once, and this was the latest demoralizing endeavor. The app opened silently to show his own profile picture, that of a unicorn.
It wasn't just any unicorn, for if Kip was anything, he was picky about his unicorns. Only the traditional variety would do. It had to have a slender, deer-like body with cloven hooves, a long lion-like tail with the tuft at the end, light feathering on the dainty hooves, and a wispy beard hanging off the chin. The last part was the horn, which had to arch away from the forehead like an instrument of war and not just a decoration to top off a little girl's daydream. Kip's unicorn had to mean intimidation and majesty for him to adopt it as his personal emblem.
He swiped through a couple of other profiles on the app that he had been looking at. He wasn't much surprised to find a few of his conversations gone, zipped away into cyber-nothing. He recognized the ones that were missing from his drop-down list. They were the ones where he had shared his picture. It didn't take long to block him. He sent a few other messages to the remaining conversations he had open. Some would never be responded to, and others would be gone later. He sighed and put the phone away. Perhaps it would be best to delete the apps again. Perhaps it would be best to take to the mountains and live like a monk for the rest of his days. He would be able to catch up on his reading list, at least.
He tried to tell himself in the past that whenever a guy blocked him just because of what he looked like (Too young? Too small? Too skinny?), which was the only inference he could make at the time, Kip realized that guy was just looking for a quick lay. He refused to let those assholes bother him. What really hurt is when he started targeting "nice guys" and they acted exactly the same way. If the nice guys were really assholes, and the assholes were really assholes, then who was left?
Many hours Kip would look at his reflection and wonder exactly what was wrong. He didn't consider himself handsome enough to be on a magazine cover (the gay standard, apparently), but he also wasn't Quasimodo's stunt double. He had a runner's body since he took up running in high school. He wasn't particularly good at it, mostly due to his height of not quite five feet. For every mile his peers ran, he had to run almost twice that, at least in terms of steps. He didn't really have any muscle to speak for, but he was waiting for testosterone to kick in since he had started it almost six months ago, right before his job. He had to shave occasionally, since it was still too patchy to let it grow and look good. When he did shave, he could pass for sixteen, or even younger. He could still order from the children's menu at twenty-two without even a second look.
For what it was worth, he did get a date or two out of the apps, but none of them really went anywhere. When they saw him in person, he could see the interest just fade out of their eyes, and the rest of the evening was spent making awkward small talk and waiting to leave, at least in terms of the other guy. Kip was good at spotting it now. The furtive glances towards the door. Possibly checking out the hot waiter. He was also getting good at expecting it and not letting himself get hurt. Sometimes he wondered why he kept doing it, and the only answer he could think of was the echo of loneliness in his soul.
It was even more demoralizing when the rejection came before he even got to the point where it felt appropriate to divulge that he's transgender, as if there's ever really a good time to do that. He experimented with it a little, to virtually no success. Sometimes he would be upfront about it (which usually led to an immediate block, or the friend zone), and sometimes he waited to see if the guy would genuinely like him for who he is. He tricked himself into believing that if the guy came to like him, how he had been born wouldn't matter. Unfortunately, the world didn't seem to work like that.
He had had his fair share of cyber backlash. Sometimes he didn't just get blocked; he would get chewed out first. He had screenshots of some doozy comments, just for the novelty. He had a collection of the full gamut that proved that the rainbow was divided, which was a serious issue. If those that were gay and transgender, all part of the rainbow, couldn't get along, then why would straight cisgendered individuals take them or their rights seriously? Especially if gay men felt that transmen didn't deserve them. It was a sobering reality to remember some of the comments by fellow gay men.
"Transgender people don't really exist. Biology only gave us two genders. That's a scientific fact."
"FTM are gross. They're just females trying to trick us."
"They're just self-hating lesbians."
"If I wanted to date a woman, I wouldn't be gay."
"Why would you just not date straight guys?"
"You're so gullible and naive for changing your body. You should try to find someone to love you for you."
Kip shook his head in disdain at all the rest he quickly scrolled through. It was disheartening. Some of the people he had tried to talk to civilly, and some he tried to educate, but it had always been a lost cause. While some showed ignorance, others had shown downright hate, and not been afraid to hide it behind the anonymity of the apps. He had endured the intrusive questions as well, just to be blocked or rejected later. He had tried to be open, but instead he felt like a freak show that wasn't in bringing in money by selling tickets.
