We Are All Shirtless Now

Aug 01, 2010

Posted by: abandonedboyjon

Bloggers - Jon

Yes, well, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it? I’m not really going to get into the reasons
why, except to say that I guess I wasn’t really prepared for some of the
demands of being a transgendered person in a big city like this. I began my transition in a small, cozy little
gay town, and though that time was definitely not without incident, there was
always somewhere I could go, some queers I could see, to make me feel normal
again, and I don’t really have that here yet, and it’s been a problem. But I’ve been doing better lately, and I’ve
missed writing this blog, so hopefully, you all haven’t forgotten me and are
ready to read my ramblings once again.
So, here we go¦

One of my favorite parts of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is when we hear about the
magic Harry performed before he even knew he was a wizard. He jumps onto the roof of his school,
re-grows his hair, and, of course, who could forget the vanishing glass? We are told that this sort of thing tends to
happen around him and at the point we meet him, even Harry has bought into this
idea of his aunt and uncle’s that he is simply odd. In hindsight, it seems obvious, but how is a
kid who doesn’t know magic even exists suppose to know he’s a wizard?

When I was a kid in the early nineties, I didn’t know what
transpeople were, not many people did then.
I’d heard my father say something horrible about someone he worked with
and it was only years later that I understood that that person had been
trans. It was probably lucky that I didn’t
realize it then, because his story framed the person as mentally ill. Gender was a blurry issue for me at the
time. There wasn’t too much delineation in
my life in regards to that; I played sports and
went to opera camp. I wasn’t one of
those transgendered people who “knew” way back when. I hear that a lot: “I knew I was a boy” or “I wondered why I
didn’t have the right parts.” I remember
having some feelings like maybe I was different than other “girls’ but I had
some “girly-girl” type friends that were always so feminine and perfect in that
way, I think I was more curious as to how it was so easy for them to be like
that. To add to the confusion, their
being that way made me kind of nervous and while I know now that gender and
sexuality aren’t linked, it did tend to add to the confusion, especially since
I had huge crushes on some of the boys in my class. No, the only thing that always stuck in my
mind, though I didn’t think anything of it at the time, was this recurring
dream I used to have. I don’t know how
old I was, but I know I hadn’t turned eleven yet because we were still living
in my old neighborhood. We lived next to
a family with six children, including five very athletic and rowdy boys. My sister, who had a talent for baseball, had
absolutely no problem holding her own with them. I was always a little shy when they were
around though, but in this dream, that changed.
I would be marching along our street, my then-strawberry blonde curls
whipping in the wind, and I was shirtless, my flat pre-pubescent chest bore,
but there was no reaction from the boys.
In real life, I probably would have hidden in my house for a week if
they’d seen me that way, if only because I had learned some serious lessons in
modesty from my mother. But in this
recurring dream, well, it seems corny to say it now, but I felt free to do that
because I belonged, and I would wake up with that feeling.

I guess we all used to have dreams about flying motorbikes
and shirtless freedom and it’s hard not to think you’ve missed the signs, to
think that you should have known something from these clues you left for
yourself. But we dream every night, we’ve
all had countless dreams, and these are the ones we remember, we choose to hold
on to, and we use to bridge the connection between who begin as and who we’re
going to be. Harry was always a Wizard,
and for a great deal of his life he was also the Boy Who Lived, but it was only
after years of trials and tribulations did he become the one to vanquish
Voldemort, as much a decision as a destiny, and, of course, as anyone whose
read Deathly Hallows can tell you,
that made all the difference.





The Leaky Cauldron is not associated with J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros., or any of the individuals or companies associated with producing and publishing Harry Potter books and films.