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?

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.

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.”

WHAT

“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.

I cut him off before he can say it. “That’s never who I was. That’s who you assumed I was.”

“Morality, at its essence, defines what is human,” I say. “Keeping questions of morality out of art suggests keeping humanity out of art itself.”

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.

OH.

When I first started doing my research, a Tumblr post I saw said that trans people used to be considered gods in a bunch of different cultures and religions. Dionysus was the god of transgender people, and Loki could change genders at will, too.

He’s the sort of person the world adores, just based on the way he looks, a little like the way people obsess over men like Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans and Chris Pine and all the other famous Chrises, plus Ryan Gosling, claiming that they’re liberal and that they aren’t racist and that they’re feminists, but not really thinking about why they’re so obsessed with white men, and why they don’t love any people of color the same way.

My skin is flecks of red and gold, as though I’m on fire. The colors almost look like a piece of a galaxy, twisting together bits of light blooming out of the darkness. My eyes hold the same fear, the same dread, but there’s a strength, an intensity, a determination I hadn’t really noticed.

Transgender people have always existed. Trans people are everywhere through history, even if society tries to erase us. We’re not a trend, even if it makes you feel good to pretend that we are.

“You were an ignorant, transphobic fuck,” Ezra says, voice sharp. “That’s not wrong?” “I don’t think I’m ignorant or transphobic.”

I want to see what a new self-portrait would look like, after I’ve stood up for myself. Would my skin be as purple as the lightning outside, my eyes as dark as the gray sand and sea?

Can’t you love someone without them loving you? Yeah, of course, but is unrequited love being IN love, or is that admiration, love from afar? And besides, I don’t think anyone would fall in love with me.

“It’s like every identity I have . . . the more different I am from everyone else . . . the less interested people are. The less . . . lovable I feel, I guess. The love interests in books, or in movies or TV shows, are always white, cis, straight, blond hair, blue eyes. Chris Evans, Jennifer Lawrence. It becomes a little hard, I guess, to convince myself I deserve the kind of love you see on movie screens.”

It’s easier, I think, to love someone you know won’t love you—to chase them, knowing they won’t feel the same way—than to love someone who might love you back. To risk loving each other and losing it all.”

“You’re always talking about how you want to be in love. How you think it’s impossible for anyone to love you. Here I am. Telling you I fucking love you.” He raises his hands up, lets them fall to his sides again as he lets out a breath. “I love you, Felix. But—what, am I the only person in the world you don’t want loving you?”

“My dad is hardcore Catholic. I used to hope that he’d decide to change his mind—that he could accept me, because I was his son. And then I’d laugh at myself. Like, how fucking arrogant is that? Expecting my dad to love me more than he loves God.”

He has the decency to look a little ashamed. “It felt unfair,” he says. “It’s not like it’s easy to be gay, even if we are in Brooklyn, even if this is New York City, and now we have to deal with people like you taking our identity, taking our space.”

“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.”

Being trans brings me love. It brings me happiness. It gives me power.” Ezra’s biting his lip as he grins at me. I shrug a little. “It makes me feel like I’m a god. I wouldn’t change myself for anything.”