Musings on Being a Trans Man in the South
The scene looked like something out of that LGBT tragedy porn movie everybody but me has apparently seen.
TW: Sharp objects and hints of assault without details
You know the movie I’m talking about.
It’s the one so many people have recommended for me to watch after learning I’m a Southern trans man searching for representation of myself in media. I guess nothing will make me feel affirmed in my gender like watching a clone of myself get brutally murdered on screen in the name of Progress and Awareness.
Back to my original story: I was a typical millennial, walking down a dark, tree-shrouded street with my cell phone out, innocently playing Pokémon, when the dirty old pick-up truck started trailing me.
I can hear you now. You’re screaming at me.
“Look behind you! Run! In the name of everything holy, just run as fast as you can and don’t trip over any rocks! Seriously, dude. Why are you still walking and looking down at your phone? Have you seen that movie I recommended yet?”
I see what you’re doing over there. You’re busy writing my character off as the one who dies first in that movie still playing in your mind about that place that looks just like my hometown.
Perhaps even while in the closet I was sometimes carrying around a bit of unconscious inner male privilege bravado in the way I behaved.
A gruff voice began calling out “excuse me” louder and louder. I ignored him, but my adrenaline rose as I noted that the truck could easily catch up with me if I tried to run. Besides, I have exercise-induced asthma. I wasn’t running anywhere, unless it had been solidly confirmed that it was absolutely necessary.
When it became impossible to continue ignoring him, I finally looked through the rolled-down window. The much older man whispered conspiratorially in his deep Southern drawl.
“Are you team Valor?”
A few years later, a teenage clerk approached me, while I was checking out on one of the machines to avoid getting misgendered and tentatively said, “Excuse me…but are you by any chance L-G-B-T?” He said the letters very slowly, as if for the first time in his life.
I paused and considered. I was wearing a t-shirt that said “Breaking the Binary” in a rural grocery store. It was probably kind of pointless to lie. I answered, “Yes, why?”
“Ohh, thank God! I didn’t think there were any others of us left out here! It’s so nice to meet you!”
In my experience, the spit never flies from the mouth you expect.
Sometimes, you’ll never even get to see it happen. Your wife will have to explain to you that we got spit on after the fact, because you never even noticed. An assault rarely comes with suspenseful music to warn everybody five minutes in advance.
It’s appears to have been that sweet looking elderly lady requesting identification while keeping a sharp object hidden nearby that we really should have watched out for, but that’s a story I’m not going to tell in this space. All that I want to say about it is that, where I live, the closet is a surprisingly dangerous place to be. There is shame inside that space and shame can always be used against you. That said, at this point in my life, I’m trying to ration out my tragedy porn and feed you as many of the thoughts you actually need to consume as I can manage, so let’s skip to the good food.
In my early childhood, my mother taught me to make the most delicious peppermint cookies you’ve ever eaten by beating candy canes with a hammer between layers of cloth, because she was the kind of woman who liked to do things the hard way for some reason. Years later, we would discover that a blender could do this work with the same results. This might well have been my first experience with gender euphoria, recklessly beating hard candy with a hammer alongside my mother, making the sticky crumbs fly everywhere.
When I told her she had the son she’d always wanted, she told me that wasn’t funny. She said that if she’d really had a son, she would have been able to take him fishing as a little boy. Apparently, it’s too late for fishing. Someone should have told that to the elderly stranger who once randomly handed me his fishing pole and asked me to reel in a big fish for him, as I walked around a pretty lake one day. Fishing is only for little boys.
If I could serve you a taste of my experience as a trans man in the South, I’d probably give you some of my mother’s cookies after offering you some baked barbecue chicken with smoky chipotle sauce, some cornbread, green bean casserole, and maybe some hush puppies on the side. Bring your appetite, and don’t you dare tap out early!
I’d accept your oddly excessive admiration for the possibility that this manly man can cook and bake like nobody’s business, if I still had access to that peppermint cookie recipe. It’s just one text away, but I dare not try and ask for it now. I’ll have to be content with her cherry pie recipe, which I managed to get a copy of before things went South between us.
I love her anyway.
Want to read more about Queer Southern Pride? I would highly recommend this beautiful writing from Joseph Coco called “I’ve Got Southern-Fried Queer Pride”:
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