Each day starts and ends the same. I refuse my alarm clock, draw open the blinds and give in to morning. Slowly, I wake to my reflection leant over the bathroom sink. Sometimes I stare for so long, I blur; not out of vanity, but in trying to witness the changes in real-time. I smile at the hair creeping up my shirtless, flat chest, and I feel indescribably whole.
I see a face. But is it mine? Sometimes unrecognisable, these once soft and feminine features have turned rugged, framed with unkempt stubble and a timid moustache that is slow to bloom.
But healing is not linear and the bad days return to throw me off kilter. The mirror knows just how to lure me in only to tear at my edges, pointing out what I hope strangers can’t see. On the worst nights, the mirage of safety shatters, and I am jolted awake to a silhouette standing in the doorway of my mind; a figure that adopts the voices of those I once trusted who.
I’ve been the pallbearer at my own funeral, and since laying a young girl to rest I can only flee their words before their meaning finds me. As I leave parts of her behind, I become my true self—but I, too, become a lie.
We’ve relocated again…to the country this time. It’s a short walk to the river from my garden gate. I take the same track which leads me across the same bridge and in these moments I take the time to notice.
I notice the falling water level. I notice the absence of horns stuck in traffic, and stains of city smog smeared across a defeated sky. I smile at strangers—too often judging by the blank or suspicious faces that meet mine, and I’m reminded that it’s a novel place to find a smile. I notice the way young women startle, peering over their shoulders at the sound of my footsteps on gravel.
I’ve never considered myself dangerous, still I cross the road.
Here the pace at which I move through the world is much slower. In this unfamiliar small town everybody knows everybody, but nobody knows me. It’s nestled somewhere you’ve never heard of, between mountain ranges and unassuming waterfalls; a place of such calm you’d think it impossible for one to walk with bated breath. But you’d be wrong.
Starting a new chapter in the country means a new job, one that has seen me trade in the oversized streetwear for an ironed shirt, suit pants and an uncomfortable title, waving goodbye to a version of me I’ve come to love, but promise to write.
This transient life comes with sacrifice and compromise, and this ain’t my first rodeo. With each new postcode I reinvent myself. Not always by choice, but by necessity. I’d shed one skin only to wrap myself in another, and now I’ve found myself trapped in this ill-fitting coat.
When we relocated here, my partner and I agreed we would role-play our days as a cis-het couple. It felt convenient. It was the easiest move to make considering it would only be temporary (or so we thought). And given the velocity at which word of our arrival spread before we had even left the city, we felt it best that some things were kept private.
I leave the house and return before I reach the front gate, forgetting to remember to grab my coffee from the kitchen counter. It’s 8:12am. With a 14 minute bike ride ahead of me and an 8:15am start, I’m delusionally optimistic that I’m still running on time for work, and my temporal processor is on the fritz again.
I heard somewhere that there’s a strong correlation between gender non-conforming folk and ADHD. Perhaps it’s the pairing of being able to see the unlimited options dotted along the gender spectrum, and having zero executive function to decide on just the one.
Off I go, with the feigned confidence of a seasoned professional, but with zero training. I am, for all intents and purposes, a man now. I swing my leg around—ungracious and uncouth—hopping onto a bike two sizes too big with little enthusiasm. I cycle, hard, bribed by the promise of caffeine.
When we first moved to this sleepy town, I was nervously optimistic to take on a new role as the manager of the community clinic while my partner trudged her way through a medical degree. But to my surprise, this new role wasn’t exactly what I had anticipated.
I had imagined spending my days creating programs and supporting the wellbeing of the community. Instead, I was tasked with managing a team of unimpressed midwives, nurses and kindergarten teachers—not something I was at all prepared for.
But the real task was finding the answer to an impossible question. Because, really, what do you get when a non-binary person pretending to be a cis man (without the presumed masculinity but with the paranoia of being found out) is transplanted into rural Australia? The answer: a person divided into a fraction of themself over time.
I arrive late more often than not. Sneaking through the back door, I muster a bottomless breath, inflating enough to extract a convincing morning! to anyone in my path.
I try to slip past ol’ mate’s office unscathed. Despite my hastened walk and lack of eye contact, my hints are never quite clear enough for the opportunistic mansplainer. The mere presence of another body in his vicinity is all the invitation he needs to insert his vile views on why men can’t be women and the “science” to back it. Sometimes I catch his eyes scanning my face as if under his microscope and I wonder if he’s conducting his own experiment, trying to peer underneath my guise, and catch a glimpse of the me before.
With limited enthusiasm, I disassociate and stare deeply at the stale yellow clinic walls, decorated with faded 90s photos of nuclear families and dusty pamphlets promoting defunded programs. It’s enough to keep anyone away.
I shut myself in my office hyping myself up before making the daily rounds and greeting the team. I feel the hush like a gut punch as I enter the room. I deliver my nervous morning pep talk to a room of unconvinced eyes, dancing to meet one another’s. I can practically hear their thoughts.
What would he know about childbirth? About hormones? female anatomy?
What I would give to explain. Perhaps they would empathise and extend something other than exhaustion (from what I can only imagine is the result of a compilation of classic male behaviour). But I have a role to play.
To them I’m the new guy in town. And I wouldn’t dare correct them. How could I blame them for deeming me incompetent? I, myself, often forget my new title, and let their questions pass me by, as if they were being served to my doubles partner behind. But we aren’t playing tennis, and there’s no one else in the room.
I would once flinch at their poor choice of misinformed honourifics:
“This gentleman is trouble.”
“Come work downstairs with us, we need a real bloke to talk to.”
“He’s brave; managing a bunch of women!”
All real comments, made about me in my presence. But time has made Pavlov’s Dog out of me.
Now I respond, unarmed, my eyes glaze over and I lap up the fallacy they have made me out to be. I’ve even started to join in, adding fuel to an unpredictable wildfire on track to roar straight through me. I’ve seen the destruction that these fires leave behind, and soon I will be unidentifiable.
It’s in these moments—when I’m still playing the part—and I hear my own voice betray me that I question if the truth would have been more dangerous.
In camouflaging myself in the safety of acceptable, I have once again become a lie.
But who am I to you?
This article was proudly sponsored by Pride Foundation Australia.