More recently, I’ve seen a strong reclamation of beautiful trans bodies in the work of Ezra Michel. He’s an Instagrammer, music-maker, model and hairdresser. After his top-surgery scars faded, he decided to get them tattooed. A thin, black line is inked over his top-surgery scars on both sides, curving up slightly at each end. When asked why, he said that he missed the visibility of his scars. He said they were part of him. They were his story. His history. He didn’t want them to fade. He said that it was a kind of power, an opportunity to remember the strength and resilience of his own mind and body, and how we can bend and make ourselves into something stronger. For him, his scars are part of his joy rather than pain and they are not something to simply be massaged away. They are something to be shown and celebrated. I couldn’t agree more. Since then, Ezra has modelled in waist-slandering corsets, showing off an hourglass shape cis men could only dream of achieving. He’s fashioning typically ‘female’ clothes in a trans-masculine body and distorting notions of binary gender. I relate to this so much. Because as a young person I was viewed as a girl and a woman, there were clothes that I didn’t want to wear and couldn’t feel comfortable in, like dresses or heels or tight tops. Now I am comfortable in my gender and I know I am seen by the world as male, I don’t feel confronted by traditionally female clothing. I can happily play with gendered clothing and it doesn’t threaten my sense of self. I can wear a skirt and heels and still be seen as male without it feeling confusing. Playing with gendered clothing and being referred to by other gay men as ‘she’ is a huge part of gay culture. And so it’s affirming rather than confronting to play with these gender presentations.

In the last year or so Ezra has launched his own US-based clothing brand called PUSSY BOY of the Revolution. When I saw it I thought, ‘Yesss!!’ Finally, we’re being brave enough to stand up and say that transness is not only about wanting a certain body part or wanting to get rid of another. Being transmasculine doesn’t just have to be about wanting a dick. Some people do, some people don’t. Our masculinity and experience are so much more than our genitalia. And we can celebrate the bodies we have rather than the bodies we do not.

The word pussy, for many trans men, can make us feel uncomfortable. It’s gendered and can be quite harsh – especially if we remember that word being battered haphazardly around the playground by teenage boys trying to assert their new-found power and hypermasculinity. I know of a few people who squirm when they hear the word and can’t say it out loud. That’s understandable. For some people, their bodies give them an immense feeling of discomfort. But for me, I feel there is power in reclaiming these words for the bodies we have and saying, ‘Yes, I am a man and I have a pussy. And you know what? I like that. I enjoy my body. It makes me feel great and I will not allow you to take that away from me.’ What Ezra is doing is a revolution because it is so far away from what cis people think of transness and even what some people within our own trans community view transness to be. There are so many conversations and battles we have with ourselves about who is trans and who is trans enough. Can you be trans if you want hormones but don’t want a dick? Or if you don’t want hormones but you do want top surgery? Or if you are trans but don’t want to pursue any medical diagnosis or intervention at all? And here is Ezra, breaking so far away from the relentless policing of bodies and saying, ‘I am going to do what is right for me. I will embody, embrace and enjoy this amazing trans body I have been gifted.’

I am comfortable and happy to say that I am a pussyboy – a part of the revolution. I don’t want to have bottom surgery for reasons that are my own. I exist in the world happily as male, and the genitalia I have doesn’t make the faintest difference. I’m claiming it. It’s ours. We can celebrate ourselves for the people we are, not the people we might become. We are saying we do not need to scar ourselves or need to change if we don’t want to. There is so much strength in that.

***

I don’t aim to pass as cisgender. It’s no longer a goal of mine. I don’t wake up anymore and think, what can I wear that would make me pass in the street so people will call me ‘sir’ or mother’s can say to their little ones ‘mind that man coming through’? Yes, that used to make me happy in the early days when I was still figuring all this stuff out. But I no longer let other people’s view of me dictate my own sense of self or self-worth. I just wake up, put on what I like and wear what I feel comfortable in. Whether that’s a packer, or a shirt with a T-shirt under it, or, fuck it, short shorts, heels and a tank top.

I know I ‘pass’ as a cis man. I know this because whenever I come out to new people they look shocked and say ‘You’d never be able to tell!’ as if that’s a compliment. But the difference is that I no longer try. It’s not a goal or aim. I don’t seek to be cis because I am not. I’d be denying the endless possibilities of my body. And the very act of not denying myself feels revolutionary and important because for so long trans people have been told to push, stretch, scar ourselves until we are fixed. I no longer want to be seen as fixed because I am not broken.

I’m very conscious that unless I wear a T-shirt that says ‘I’m trans’ or wrap a humungous trans pride flag around my waist, I pass. To society, I’m cis until proven otherwise. I’m cis as default. If we went back some years ago, back to when medical professionals were telling people this is how we must be, this would have been great. Job done. Fixed. But we’ve not yet had the conversation about how invisible passing can make someone feel. Passing is an assumption about your life so far and how you have experienced and do experience the world that isn’t the truth. And transness is all about truth. Personally, I think we should replace the phrase ‘pass as’ with ‘mistaken for’ to get to the real root of the problem. As a trans man who has been on hormones for over seven years, I am often mistaken for being cisgender. I acknowledge that this comes with a huge degree of external safety and comfort, but it has also screwed with my sense of self over time. Being seen as a man, as if this is the person you have always been seen as, means so much of your personal experience is missed and looked over. My experience as a trans man is completely inconceivable. My experience of being trans is hiding in plain sight. Sometimes I want to scream, ‘I’m here, I’m here, I’m here. I exist. I exist!’

A little while ago I was at a gig on the Southbank. I was supporting a friend at a show; she’s in a group of four women who sing about growing older and being a bit naughty and silly. It’s funny and empowering for them. They have a collective age of 280 and sing retrospectively about the menopause and tackle many of the taboos and misogyny they have faced in their humorous, and sometimes raucous, music. It’s a fun show. They have a huge number of supporters, especially women who can see themselves in their humour. After the show we had celebratory drinks. One of the lead singers, who I’d not met before, said ‘Oh, it’s hot in here! It’s probably the menopause, not that you guys have to worry about that.’ The male friends around me laughed. I laughed, too, but what I wanted to say was, ‘I do worry about that! I don’t have the body you think I have! I’m here, I’m here!’ It’s lonely and difficult to be invisible. And the ironic thing is that so much of their art and music is about exactly that – feeling invisible as older women. I wanted to say, ‘I understand! I’m invisible too!’ But that’s the point, isn’t it? To be invisible is to be on your own. After that moment had passed, I wished we could have recognized each other and understood that we are more the same than we are different. I wish we could have held space for one another. I hope that next time we can.

Reprinted with permission from A Trans Man Walks Into a Gay Bar: A Journey of Self (and Sexual) Discovery by Harry Nicholas. © 2023 Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Reprinted with permission. This article may not be reproduced for any other use without permission.

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