Last week I went out with a friend to Rough Trade in Silver Lake and purchased another set of leather gear. I had a cheaper one, fake leather, this was the real deal. I needed to go to purchase leather arm bands for a Halloween costume and had invited Ben to come along. The store itself was great, the service perhaps a little too friendly, but I was happy with what I had purchased. Butch, masculine, hot, all these words ran through my mind while I flexed into the mirror of the dressing room. The attendant was quick to compliment my body hair and was letting me undress in the middle of the store to try on more gear, a stark contrast to the local store in Long Beach that hadn’t let me try on a harness without a shirt on. Ben seemed a little underwhelmed with the attention he was getting at the store, or perhaps had wanted to join in. I wasn’t sure whether the attendant was his type and I didn’t know how to tell him I was just playing along to see if I could get a discount or freebies.

Yes, I have no problem admitting I am that sleazy and available.

We left there and after a quick detour for ramen, headed to the Eagle with our gear under our street clothes. I had let him know that I had been there recently and stuck with my friends, most of the guys seemed these unapproachable packs of white, hypermasculine alphas. The vibe this night was different, a slightly more diverse crowd but largely still crowds of friends sticking to each other and not leaving much room for strangers to approach. We fell into the same pattern until a handsome stranger came our way. There’s nothing exciting coming next though. I learned Ben is even quieter than I and at some point we both let the conversation drop and the handsome stranger wandered away. Moments passed when I realized I should have asked anything to have kept the conversation going. These moments in the bar happen quicker than on the work site, where I can leave space to gather my thoughts, although there the contractors have to let me talk.

I had been angling to go to Puteria in downtown LA and Ben eventually agreed that would be the better spot. We headed out and drank and danced till the shirts came off and our harnesses were on display. It was the point of the night that other guys were taking their shirts off and we weren’t the only ones with light gear on. By the end of the night, back at his place and in his own way, Ben noted that he was somewhat jealous of the attention I had received. I was serving masculinity, muscle bear top, short king. I was disturbed to discover one of the guys I had made out with was looking for masc4masc on Grindr and had written an article on how to attract a masculine boyfriend.

All this over attributes I’ve either been forced to adapt, for ease of work purposes, or never had any control over, the copious amounts of body hair.

Yesterday at the gym I had what I saw someone on Twitter summarize as trans thoughts and I wondered what all the guys I talked to last weekend would have to say about that. When I had brought it up in prior sessions of therapy my current therapist hadn’t seemed to care? Maybe she hadn’t noted it down or I just hadn’t given it the weight. I had told her, “I wished I had been born a girl, so that these grown men and women would have treated me as a child rather than a young man.” In the context of our conversation regarding childhood trauma, it seems easy to imagine she had other topics to cover. Recently I mentioned these thoughts and she discounted them, perhaps didn’t catch them again. It’s not that I believe she’s uncomfortable with the topic but it does seem like she doesn’t have much experience with trans individuals. Not that I want to transition…

I was stoned and adding music to my playlist and I remembered Laura Jane Grace in Against Me!’s lyrics, “You’ve got no cunt in your strut/ You’ve got no hips to shake…” and “A fucked up kind of feminine.” A wave of emotional resonance passed through me, the weed doing its job to inhibit my emotional guards. The next second, an unease and queasiness emanated from my stomach and I thought to myself, “I thought I was over this.”

Lately I’ve been trying to accept the parts of my personality that come from the traditional way I was raised, full on Mexican machismo. My mother still won’t admit to it, but there’s a reason I’m able to get along with my conservative, old school coworkers. These are men, we are men, and we’re working together to complete construction projects. Grunt! No feelings! Anyone who gets overly emotional gets mocked, although I’ve gotten worked up and shown the range of feelings stemming from anger that are appropriate for men. I’m sadly more scared to join our design teams because there are more women and I don’t know how I’ll fare there and stay closeted. It’s not too hard to dodge relationship questions, because again, these are traditional men. Most of them are easy to set off on a rant about their wives and just want sounding boards. I’ve even stopped trying to lose weight and have focused on just gaining muscle and fat, getting bigger and heavier. The last break through at therapy was that it was totally ok to throw down to defend myself. My words not hers, but the more clinical way she put it isn’t as funny.

So I was surprised to still be imagining myself as a woman, desiring my body to be lighter and curvier in their way. In the past I know I have recoiled at the attention I got from other men, hidden myself from the male gaze. Lately though, I had been feeling more comfortable in that spotlight, had been defending myself from unwanted touching and had even experienced a resurgence in my libido. So again, why now?

Perhaps more terrifying was the thought, “What if this never goes away?” What if I will always find myself desiring to have been born a woman. To the questions of what superpower I would want, I have often answered shapeshifting and mentioned wanting to be able to switch between man and woman. Flight was the other frequent answer, to fly rather than run from my problems. Often too, I have lamented that I wish I were a lesbian, with all its implications. I see the chasm I could cross but like a green light across the lake, I will not reach it.

I don’t want to undergo an expensive process and find myself regretting it, desiring the ability to pass again as a straight man when necessary. Look at today. I have walked about 10 minutes away from where I parked, perhaps more actually because the entire time I was looking at my phone, chatting away with my cousins. I will walk back through downtown Los Angeles to my car, drop off my laptop, and go get myself into trouble. I couldn’t do this so easily were I woman. My costume for this adventure? My work boots, business casual attire, a jean jacket and my virility. It’s not that I won’t be fucked with if I stupidly walk into Skid Row, it’s that I am not scared to wander around on my own.

Also, the body hair will be really hard to get rid off… And there’s a lot of that!