The Year of the Man

2025

I started seriously questioning my sexuality about two years ago, when I was in my last relationship with a man. It’s not like I was a tortured, closeted lesbian - I just had no fucking idea. When questioned about my sexual preferences, I actually described myself as “not having a gay bone in my body.” As someone who now can’t imagine being in a cis-het relationship ever again - this is hilarious. I was simply not included in the plans God was making for me. If it’s even a thing, I’m pretty sure every one of my bones is gay.

I grew up in a super queer situation. After being married for 10+ years, having two children, and trying on the role of the wife, my mother came out in 2003 and divorced my father. Despite them sleeping not one but two whole floors apart (“Dad snores”) I was completely blindsided. Heartbroken. My entire foundation was crumbling, who were we if not a perfect family unit - who didn’t show much physical affection - but a unit nonetheless!

Mother, 2022

Naturally, my mother started dating women with a vengeance and thus began the stable presence of lesbians in my small, seven year old world. I was hurt and offended that they wanted to spend more time with these women than with me (my Mom is non-binary). Why does she get to sleep with you - I've been asking to sleep in your bed for years?! This is not a hate letter to my mother. I love my mom, we are now ‘so cool.’ We have a ‘shared community.’ I played in their softball league last fall, obviously. But at the time, the lack of interest in my life and the growing interest in their rotating cast of girlfriends was seemingly life ending. I was not worthy. I didn’t have what they had. My older brother, who was 2 years older than me- didn’t seem to care. He wanted to be left alone, it was actually a perfect arrangement. He was figuring out his own identity, his own queerness - alone in his room; reading, drawing, and ultimately being an independent and creative person. I craved attention.

Due to the constant schlepping of my shit between my parents’ houses on an ever-changing schedule, It took me a while to get my bearings once I entered grade school. I clung on to my friends with a mom and dad who slept in the same bed and went to church on Sunday’s. There was a brief period of time when the rotating parent volunteer had to come sit with me during lunch because I was always crying. I don’t really know why, but one can infer. Middle school was full of boot cut Hollister jeans, layered ribbed tank tops and those two special strands of hair meticulously placed, one in front of each eye. One girl developed an eating disorder, that was new. I was terrified of “catching it.” So terrified that for a few months I ate so much that I was physically uncomfortable after each meal. Then I started to feel bad about my body - and thus began a never ending hellscape of realizing that I could control my body through food. I fear I may have ended up catching it. But not like her.

I remember being a kid and crying on the floor in my room at my dads house, begging for my mom (not unusual), but this time I was crying because I was so worried that being gay was genetic. They came over, gave me a hug, and assured me that no, I cannot inherit homosexuality. This was a huge relief. Throughout my teenage years I had boyfriends, I can’t say I was having a great time and I definitely wasn’t having good sex, but it’s what everyone else was doing. Cut to a couple years ago, when the change started to happen. The first woman I felt sexually attracted to was a gal who played on my moms softball team…I know. It caught me so off guard and I was unstable for months. Why can’t I stop thinking about this woman? Why do I want her to fuck me? Being gay was my mom’s thing, it wasn’t mine. With a gay trans brother and a queer mom, I was my dad’s last ally. The token straight. I couldn’t betray him, Alas.

I told my boyfriend that I probably needed to sleep with a woman soon. He understood, and said that as soon as I started listening to MUNA he knew our days were numbered. Our whole relationship felt pretty platonic. Sex happened but it was just a box to check, I’m doing the thing that girlfriends do with their boyfriends. Luckily our friendship has only grown since breaking up - which just proves to me that we are supposed to be in each others lives, just not romantically.

It’s actually been my continued relationship with him that has made me start thinking a lot about what it means to be a man, living in a world that was entirely built for you. It starts to click, the sense of entitlement, the right to be, I too would be upset if it suddenly stopped “going my way.” Strangely, I have a similar sense of entitlement but am routinely jolted back into reality when I’m reminded that this world was not, in fact, built for me. It was actually designed to eradicate my very own kind.

I must first acknowledge that this particular Straight White Man is incredibly smart, methodical, funny, and kind. He floats through the world as an artist, a critic with an appreciation of beauty. Life excites him, and that intrigued me. As someone who’s been depressed on and off for most of my life, his superior brain chemistry pulled me in like a moth to a flame. It may just be his Scandinavian blood, but think of how simple it could be to operate in a world that was designed for you.

There’s this thing he does. It drove me crazy when we were dating. I would be telling a story, or offering up a piece of new information excitedly and he would ask - almost interrogating - “What do you mean? How do you know that?” It always caught me off guard, making me feel defensive and small, like one of those red Miracle Fish fortunes curling up on itself. I start to second guess the credibility of what I was sharing, even if it was my own personal experience. Here’s an example: I once referenced an acquaintance of mine who has a nonverbal child. Being the daughter of a Speech Language Pathologist, this is not a surprising piece of information. There are tons of kids who don’t talk, I’ve known this. “Nonverbal, what do you mean? Why don’t they talk?” My response “I don’t know, G, people are nonverbal for all kinds of reasons.” Hmph. This has now become a joke between us, a routine response when we don’t know the answer to something. “I don’t know, XYZ for all kinds of reasons.” It’s funny now, but I wasn’t laughing the first time.

Despite my distaste for this habit, It made me notice how little I question other people’s stories, and while this may demonstrate my blind faith in humanity (naive but good), I started to adopt more of a healthy sense of skepticism. I think it’s come in handy, people like to bend the truth. A little bit of dramatic exaggeration here and there never hurt anyone, but lately there has been an unusually high dose of dishonest people in my life. Asking questions is a really simple way to weed out people who have a habit of casually lying, and I’m a firm believer in the truth.

Anyways, I bring this up because due to some recent professional developments, I will be spending much more time with G. And one of the first things I noticed upon increased time with him was this habit of interrogation. I brought It up to my therapist - bless her soul - and she started nodding excitedly, saying that she learned about this exact thing in school. She called it “submersive gaslighting.” For our shared records, according to Merriam Webster, gaslighting is defined as “psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator.” The submersive nature of these questions meaning that it easily slips under the radar, underwater. It’s cultural commonplace and often goes undetected.

Sweden, 2023

This is a hot topic in our current social climate and I’m not making light of a serious matter, but in this instance I don’t feel like I’m being gaslit. I just don’t think it’s that deep. However, it did bring to light that this phenomenon is really only directed towards women, from men.

“Are you sure you know what you’re talking about?”

Now that I’m writing this, I’m wondering why I’ve considered adopting this habit if it feels so belittling to receive. I suppose just like with everything else, there is a middle ground. And to give G a little bit of credit, he also does this with his guy friends. In this particular scenario, it may even be a sign of respect. I’m just one of the guys. Or I’m delusional. Or both.

To be constantly questioned, doubted, and looked over is too big of a theme to ignore. On one hand, it's a classic example of oppression. It’s being a woman/nonbinary/trans/queer/BIPOC person living within the patriarchy, and it’s fucking

exhausting. On the other hand, what if I thought more intentionally about what I’m saying, what if I took a minute to think before speaking? Where did this information come from? Again, it’s both and.

• Side note to say that it’s also extremely important to have people in your life that you can say batshit crazy things to that don’t question your intelligence, judgement, or sanity.

What I’m trying to say here is that it’s not a bad idea to slow down, to think about what we’re sharing, and in return think critically about the information we consume. So much of our world is subliminal. This brings to mind a passage in the book “Quit Like a Woman” where the author Holly Whitaker is talking about engineered consent, a term coined by Edward Bernays - a nephew of Freud. She’s referencing a time post-prohibition when women started drinking alcohol as an act of rebellion, a middle finger to the patriarchy. In reality, the mad men behind the scenes were creating the very same narrative that women felt they were coming up with on their own. They simply noticed that most women weren’t drinking as much as men, and saw an opportunity to make more money. Bernays puts it simply; “We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.”

The tension between my existence and the powers that be has become so incredibly palpable this year. I think it’s due to a combination of growing up, exploring my identity, finding a badass therapist who takes no shit, and expanding my own queer community. The world that I live in now is largely the same world that I’ve always lived in, but I’m changing. I’m no longer excusing misogynistic comments from old white men. I do not have the space to make other people feel okay about the not-okay shit that comes out of their mouths. While I would consider myself a respectful person, I’m far from politically correct in every moment. I’m not perfect, I fuck up and so I make room for those around me who are at least trying. I don’t think much change can come from an environment where folks aren’t allowed to make mistakes.

When I notice self limiting beliefs, I’m learning to ask “Where did this come from?” Upon investigation, it’s almost always a story that’s been told for generations. I’m not smart enough, I’m not thin enough, I can’t start my own business, I shouldn’t trust myself, I don’t know what’s best for me. If you start to peel these thoughts back it becomes so clear that they are not original. They are not my own. I would never come up with something so horrible to tell myself from deep within my soul, there’s just no way. It is in this vain that I declare it absolutely imperative that we get to know ourselves deeper than we ever have before. The more I lean into my personal values and beliefs - the easier it is to leave everything else behind.

I’ll share another quote from Whitaker’s book that has stuck with me since I read it 6 months ago.

“We’re joiners and don’t want to be left out of fads; we’re also fiercely independent and don’t want to be told what to do. We are a people constantly balancing our need to belong with our need to maintain individuality and control over our decision making. When Bernays coined the term engineered consent, he was speaking to this tension.”

There’s no changing the fact that we live in a capitalist, patriarchal society. I honestly don’t anticipate that changing very much in this lifetime. I hope it does, but I’m not holding my breath. Some might disapprove of this apathetic take, and rightfully so. If you have the chutzpah to fight the bureaucracy, more power to you. I don’t think that I am going to change anything on a systemic level, I just don’t have the energy. What I can do is ask questions. What I can do is take up more space with my body when I’m in public. What I can do is make direct, unwavering eye contact with the person talking to me. I can stand there and listen without nodding and “uh huh”-ing like a puppy dog, making sure he feels smart and interesting. What I can do is ask “What do you mean?”

Me, thanking you for reading.