Felix Ever After

by Kacen Callender

What does it feel like, to love someone so much that you’re willing to publicly bare your heart and soul with a black Sharpie?

But it took me a while to figure out my identity. I’d always hated being forced into dresses and being given dolls. The dresses and dolls weren’t even the real issue. The real issue was me realizing that these were things society had assigned to girls, and while I didn’t even know what trans was, something about being forced into the role of girl has always upset the hell out of me. I’d always tried to line up with the other boys whenever teachers split us up. I followed those boys around the playgrounds, upset that they’d ignore me and push me away. I had dreams, sometimes—dreams where I’d be in a different body, the kind of body society says belongs to men. I’d be so effing happy, but then I would wake up and see that nothing had changed. I remember thinking to myself, Hopefully, if I’m reincarnated, I’ll be born a boy.

Maybe that’s what’s most confusing of all: Why would he pay for my hormones, my surgery, my doctor’s visits, everything—but refuse to say my real name?

The feeling that something still isn’t right. Questions float to the surface. Those questions begin to pull on this thread of anxiety, and I’m afraid if I pull too hard, I’ll unweave and become completely undone. Maybe that’s why I hate my dad deadnaming me, more than anything else. It makes me wonder if I really am Felix, no matter how loud I shout that name.

“Well,” she said, “you deciding to be a guy instead of a girl feels inherently misogynistic.” She told me, “You can’t be a feminist and decide you don’t want to be a woman anymore.”

Wtf

“I want to be in love. I’ve never, you know—felt the kind of passion great artists talk about. I want that. I want to feel that level of intensity. Not everyone wants love. I get that, you know? But me—I want to fall in love and be broken up with and get pissed and grieve and fall in love all over again. I’ve never felt any of that. I’ve just been doing the same shit. Nothing new. Nothing exciting.”

Some people say we shouldn’t need labels. That we’re trying to box ourselves in too much. But I don’t know. It feels good to me, to know I’m not alone. That someone else has felt the same way I’ve felt, experienced the same things I’ve experienced. It’s validating.

Maybe this is fucked-up, I don’t know . . . but somehow, it’s his approval I need most, even more than anyone else’s. I need his validation. His understanding, not just acceptance, that he has a son.

Why am I always the person who just sits to the side and watches? What is it about me that no one likes, that no one wants? It’s like it’s too much for other people—me having brown skin, and being queer, and being trans on top of that . . . or, maybe that’s just what I tell myself because I’m too afraid to put myself out there again, too afraid of being rejected and getting hurt. Maybe it’s a little bit of both.

When someone hurts me, I either obsess over how to convince them I’m worthy of their love or obsess over how to destroy them.

“So what do we do?” Sarah asks. “Force the bastards to see that we deserve their time of day? Make them understand that if it weren’t for women like me, they wouldn’t have any of their damn rights in the first place?” Tom gives a nonjudgmental shrug. “Is that really what you want to spend your energy on?” he asks. “What should I be spending my energy on instead?” “Yourself,” he suggests. “Loving and accepting and celebrating yourself, and loving and celebrating and supporting the young women like you who will come next. Changing this world, yes—we need people who will fight for our rights, fight for justice in the courts so that it will be better for the next generation. But creating our own world, not just for ourselves in our bubble, but one that can spread to those who need it most—one filled with our stories, our history, our love and pride—that’s just as beautiful. That’s just as necessary. Without that, we forget ourselves. Crumple under the pain of feeling isolated, unaccepted by others, without realizing that, above all else, we need to love and accept ourselves first.”

Demiboy. A person who identifies as mostly or partly male—I sit up, moving my computer to my lap—but may also identify as nonbinary some of the time, or even as a girl.

“I’m not flaunting anything. I’m just existing. This is me. I can’t hide myself. I can’t disappear. And even if I could, I don’t fucking want to. I have the same right to be here. I have the same right to exist.”

It’s almost like I was looking for the pain and the hurt, because it was easier to live with the idea that, even though I want love, I’m not the kind of person who deserves to be loved.

I do scream when the LGBT Center float passes and I catch Bex in the parade, waving with a yellow, white, purple, and black flag tied around their neck like a cape. Once I start screaming, I can’t stop. I scream so hard my throat feels raw and my heart pounds. I’m screaming with joy. I’m screaming with pain. I’m screaming with the awe that I’m here, that we’re all here, and that we’re here because of the people before us, the people who couldn’t be here, and I’m screaming for myself, too. Screaming and cheering and a little bit of crying. I try to wipe my eyes as if it’s just dust, but the person beside me catches me with a smile, also wiping their eyes. I don’t know this person, don’t know their name, probably will never even see them again after this parade, but for that one second, I feel like they’re a friend, or a part of my family, and that’s pretty fucking amazing. I never really got it before, why Ezra is so obsessed with Pride, but I think I’m starting to get it now.