I Identify as Ambivalent

I always swore that if I took Testosterone I would never be someone who constantly talks about it and posts about every little hair growth online complete with photos, blogs and vlogs. Three months on T, here I am doing exactly that. Well, sort of.

The main thing I have learnt so far from being on testosterone is that I am definitely not a man, or not just a man at least. I don’t know why T has taught me this but as soon as I started looking and sounding somewhat more masculine I realised that this is only a part of me.

I spoke in my last post about how when I was a teenager/in my early twenties I felt like a boy but didn’t give a shit about pronouns or what gender people thought I was, I was just me. I often got read as male and was happy about this but didn’t mind. I guess I feel that again now, in a weird way T has made me come back to that, and even when I stop T I think (hope) I can still retain those feelings.

I don’t think my identity has changed that much from when I was younger if I'm honest with myself. In the queer/trans scene I have at times felt pressure to put a rigid label on myself and who I am, but I still feel like a boy and a fag and a dyke, all of it. Everything I have ever been is still a part of me. To deny that would be to deny myself.

It hit home that I was not a man in an uncomfortable encounter with an older relative recently who asked me what I was, and, he said, sounding somewhat relieved, ‘You’re not a lesbian, I know that’ and then asked me why I didn’t just do things properly and have ‘the operation’ (he is one of the many who believe there is one mystical operation where you go in a woman and come out a man). To be fair to this relative, he was 90 and actually trying to be supportive and acknowledge who I was. Unfortunately the idea that me being a ‘normal man’ was preferable to me being a lesbian/queer twisted in my guts as wrong because (aside from the implication that being a lesbian was somehow bad) I knew, think I’ve always known, it’s more complex for me.

I am 32 year old teenage gay boy who also likes girls and has the same posters on my bedroom wall since sixteen years ago. I am a trans boy who likes being called 'he' but is still partly female and if anything I’ve said sounds contradictory then so what? We are all a walking mass of contradictions, I’ve never been very good at being at peace with mine, whether it be about gender or politics or anything else, there’s always been so much push and pull within me, often causing catharsis and slumps of depression and anxiety. All I’ve ever wanted was to render myself easily legible both to myself and others but I’ve realised these past few months I probably can’t. I don’t believe in any kind of essentialism, if you are trans and say you are purely a man or a woman then you are, but that isn’t me.

I relate to Mykki Blanco’s unwillingness to take on a gender narrative that doesn’t fit them, just because it would make things easier for everyone if they categorically stated a preferred pronoun, identity, etc. I relate to Justin Vivian Bond — their genderqueerness with a foot still firmly in queer fag culture, their playfulness, irreverence in performance and writing. I relate to something that is always on the outside.

TLDR: I identify as ambivalent.

Now here's a dark and twisted but also beautiful video from the indefinable courageous genius that is Mykki Blanco. Surely one of the best music videos from last year.

Side Notes

Since my voice got deeper on the T, Beat Happening are one of the few bands I can comfortably sing along to because of their, ahem, lo-fi style of singing and Calvin Johnson's deep voice. I mean, it's comfortable for me, possibly not for anyone listening. I have learnt to play Angel Gone on the ukulele and do so daily — my poor housemates. But I couldn't sing before T either — as long as my ability to shout tunelessly is intact I am happy.

Hormones affected me really quickly and I think my experience proves how little some of the psychiatrists who actually prescribe this stuff really understand. I’m happy with my changes so far but they did come about very fast and for most of the time I’ve been on the T (three months) I have taken half a sachet (ie half my daily prescribed dose) of testosterone gel. The ‘gender specialist’ psychiatrist I saw was pretty adamant that I should go on injections as gel ‘didn’t really do much’ but he grudgingly agreed to prescribe it at my insistence. Shows what he knew.

WELCOME TO HELL BITCHES!

MYKKI BLANCO / PSYCHO EGYPTIAN / BOY CHILD / BLUE DAISY / THE VISIONIST

Live @ The Village Underground (10/06/13)

One day I will get a camera good enough to take 

photos at gigs. For now, a Mykki Blanco video. Enjoy!

So there’s much talk in the alternative press about a surge in queer rappers coming out of NYC at the moment, artists such as Mykki Blanco, Le1f, Cakes da Killa, Zebra Katz and Azealia Banks to name but a few, but maybe it’s just that the predominantly white hipster (social) media has recently caught on and started fawning over such artists bringing them to the attention of those who don’t know much about hip hop, like me. Whilst representation is undoubtedly important in a white hetero dominated world, most of the above-named artists have stated they don’t want to all be lumped together and put in a box, some eschewing the ‘queer hip hop’ label. Mykki Blanco repeatedly says in interviews that her musical lineage is influenced as much by glam rock as by hip hop. Whatever the case I’m glad I get to see Mykki Blanco in London for a second time, particularly as perhaps owing to the venue, perhaps owing to who she brought along on tour with her this show is way more enjoyable than when I went to see her at Birthdays earlier this year. Unlike at Birthdays, there is room to dance at The Village Underground and the sound is better. In fact the sound is so good it’s deafening. If you go to this venue wear earplugs people. Fortunately they had some at the bar, along with the FOUR POUND mini cans of beer. OK, old man rant over.

I enter the venue and my ears are blasted with the beats of London-based DJ/Producer The Visionist. Grime-y genre-blurring and all round super fun. You can’t help but dance or shuffle-bounce very occasionally in time.

Another local artist Blue Daisy is up next, he’s all about the balaclava (which he comes on wearing but very sensibly removes later – I mean he must be so hot!) His show is a slightly mixed bag, but overall an energetic, enjoyable performance from the rapper, complete with a good old jump into the crowd at the end, something that’s a staple of tonight’s performers.

Next up is another DJ who I sadly can’t find the name of, he accompanies Mykki and friends’ set but first plays one of his own which is hella awesome, blending hip hop, pop, r n b, electronica and other genres. Spliced up snatches of Rihanna’s ‘Diamonds’, Shanks and Bigfoot’s ‘Sweet Like Chocolate’ and Madonna’s ‘Vogue’ can be heard and it’s all awesomely danceable.

Mykki Blanco comes out and everyone goes nuts which you can tell she is fully anticipating. She’s wearing bright red lipstick, some very flammable-looking long silver stretchy hot pants and a wig, she looks predictably wonderful. She makes a thinly veiled statement about how London can fuck you over which she mentions later in the show too so I deduce she may have fallen out with a promoter/venue person…She tells us she still has to do her hair and introduces Psycho Egyptian, another arch hottie and pretty great performer from NYC. He comes on repeating the refrain ‘Black guys in leather jackets’ getting louder as the track builds and goes on to do songs about welfare and personal demons. He’s uber bouncy which is a plus. Generally I’m anti-flag but the tight Italian-flag hot pants with a big cock drawing adorning the front which he tells us he bought in Rome last night do look pretty fetching on him.

Next up is Boy Child, a performance artist who stands before us shaven-headed, face and body painted ghostly white. She comes on in a white sheet which she then rips off to stand topless. She resembles a twisted gothic one of those ‘moving statue’ people you get on the Southbank/Monte Martre/Las Ramblas but unlike them I could watch her for hours. I don’t know how she does it but as she twists to the sound of Rihanna’s ‘Rude Boy’ electrical lights flash from her mouth and hands like she’s on fire and the effect is entrancing. Whoa.

So Mykki B swans on for proper now, glass of wine in hand. ‘Y’all got me feeling like Beyonce!’ she announces quite a few times, alright Mykki, on with the show. Her set is a mixture of more conventional –for her- singles like Kingpinning and the infinitely addictive Wavvy and lyrical poetry/spoken word, sometimes without any musical/beat accompaniment. The set is pretty short, but I'm often a fan of short sets. I do wish she’d play ‘Join My Militia’ because it’s so messy and dark and distorted and raw, a bit acid rap Marilyn Manson but better. Sadly she doesn’t, or she plays what sounds like the start of it. Still this is a small loss in a great show. For the finale she invites the audience onstage which is glorious and leaves health and safety scratching their heads.

A pretty spectacular night of sweat and underwear and trash and style and bragging and explicit twisted rap and explicit everything else, if this is the hell Mykki is talking about in Wavvy then I'm glad I'm such a dirty sinner.