I spent 30 years looking in the mirror trying to find myself, trying to make sense of myself.

Or rather, trying to make sense of how I fit in—perhaps the most terribly cliché of human pursuits—and largely finding that I don’t. (I’m a medievalist for a reason.) Along the way, I played some good roles, and some of them rather convincingly: the studious and obedient son; the sassy gay; the militant social justice activist; the corporate aspirant.

Despite being told as a child that I could do and be anything I wanted, I found the options rather lacking. In trying to define myself relationally to the world around me, I lost myself.

I spent so many years thinking I hated myself, when what I really hated—what I was reacting against—was the way the world told me I should be feeling about my thoughts, my feelings, my voice, my body, my gender, my sexuality, myself.

But I don’t hate myself. In fact, nothing further from it. It’s a discovery I made a couple years after finishing undergrad at a Christian college, and it’s a sort of re-discovery that I’ve had to make since getting divorced.

I have never disliked my interior life; in fact, I find it quite rich. I love to get lost in my thoughts; to express myself and to figure out what it is that I think or feel about something. To encounter art, music, or writing that speaks to me. To imagine new ways of being, and rediscover old ones.

The problem has always been that I get pulled away from my own pursuits and told, “That’s nice, but it’s time for you to make yourself useful.” Is it any wonder that I’m an anxious person?

As for my body, it’s never been a problem for me. Oh yes, I wish I were a little more trim, a little more in shape—all the usual things. I can’t help but notice the shiny reflection beneath my thinning hair. But conceptually, my body is fine. Or more than fine: good.

The problem is everything going on outside my body, the expectations of it.

Just like Hogwarts, you get sorted into houses on day dot—though notably limited to two options. What imagination! We like to think that progress is linear, but things have gotten worse; it starts in the womb when parents invite friends over for pink- or blue-themed parties.

Death and taxes are inevitable; progress is not.

Look, I’m a medievalist, and I probably understand as well as anyone the rigid systems in Western society that have bequeathed us these rather constricting views on gender—and I understand that people within these systems have been rebelling and pushing back against them for a very long time.

Frankly, my gender is the least interesting thing about me and the only reason I’m interested in talking about it at all is that I want to help create space for others.

As soon as my hairline started receding and I grew a patchy beard, people stopped misgendering me. It would be pretty easy to slouch back into indifference.

What is it I owe you—if anything?

Well, I don’t owe you a play-by-play of the low-grade, quotidien childhood traumas of someone who doesn’t fit neatly into a pink or blue box. Healing your trauma is important, and I think there’s a time and a place to speak that out loud. However, I also think there’s something performative about it (gender, anyone?) and I think there’s a value, too, in asking people to use their imaginations, to reflect on what experiences they’ve witnessed or participated in that could prove painful for others who prefer to be something besides a Barbie or a GI Joe. Ironically, both dolls—but besides the point.

Neither do I need your validation. I know what it’s like to have no life at all. The closer I can get to my most authentic self, the more alive I am, the more validation I feel. That’s something that comes from within.

I’m still not free from my anger, but I’m no longer chained to it.

I’m still not free from my fear, but I’ve learned to set it to the side.

I’m not worried about being part of a fad. For God’s sake, I’m a medievalist. The word “trend” makes my skin itch. I can barely type it. I’m just lucky enough to be alive at a time when there’s a critical mass of LBGTQ people that have come together to give voice to their experiences, and to humbly add my own for whatever it’s worth.

If you enjoyed this article, please consider supporting me on Patreon for as little as $2/month!