My life without gender: ‘Strangers are desperate to know what genitalia I have’
I spent weeks struggling to pull my eyes away from her and, every afternoon, would spend hours Googling my way into my sexuality: I think I like a girl
Raised a girl, became a boy, and now? From navigating public bathrooms, to choosing what to wear, Tyler Ford on living as a genderless person
T his morning, I got out of bed, put on a yellow vinyl miniskirt with a tight black-and-white striped crop top and posted a picture of myself on Instagram. I often post selfies online and today the comments range from “Slay, Tyler!” to “WTF! Is this a boy or a girl?” to “rehab would be the solution”.
Am I gay?
Later, on the street, a man standing two feet behind me yells, “ Damn, I wanna smack that ass! You look so good!” I don’t respond. I am a poet who sings, and later, after a performance, a 60-year-old hugs me and tells me how wonderful I am. But on the train home, the people sitting opposite whisper about me, trying surreptitiously to take pictures of me on their iPhones.
Five years before actor Laverne Cox became a household name, five years before Miley Cyrus said, “I don’t relate to being boy or girl, and I don’t have to have my partner relate to boy or girl” and five years before Caitlyn Jenner would share her transition with the world, I came across the term “transgender” for the first time. I was 20 years old and attending Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee – if it is possible to “attend” when you are depressed to the point of not being able to get out of bed. I happened to discover a YouTube video of a trans man documenting his first year on testosterone.