Available on the website we have started for the project at:
https://medium.com/@loganslife/transcending-gender-3e01f7097670
WHO PAINTED THE ROSE BUSHES RED?
April, 2010: With a black and bubblegum-pink spandex bodysuit fitting tightly to her body, the slender 15 year-old girl with dirty blonde hair in pigtails strode out onto stage. Iridescent light shown down on her face. She was a guard for the Queen of Hearts–a tap-dancing guard with a cardboard tunic signifying her place as the ace of clubs.
It wasn’t a good time to be a guard: the Queen was in a rage. Someone had painted her rose bushes red, and she wanted to know who had done it.
It was a confusing time to be Logan. She didn’t care much for the rose bushes–or the entire performance, really. She just wanted to know who she was. Ever since she had entered middle school she had felt a lingering discomfort. The summer between eighth grade and high school she had made a last-ditch effort and bought really “pretty” clothes–dresses, skirts and the like. She only wore them once. Since then the pressure had been building.
After the set was done, Logan rushed off-stage. She headed to the dressing room, a place that for a while now had meant confusion for her–women throwing clothes off carelessly in the frantic transition between dances was routine for everyone else, but not for Logan. The blur of bodies–including her own–confused her, made things even worse. Now, at this performance, Logan decided. It wasn’t worth it anymore.
She was done pretending like she loved to dance. Done forcing herself into a norm that she didn’t believe in. Done wearing red lipstick. Done looking awkward and having mannerisms that were different from the other girls. Done with feeling so tired of it all.
Tears started to fall with the realization that trying to maintain friendships she had forged through dance at the cost of being herself was too much.
“Mom I don’t want to dance anymore,” she said, ripping off the cardboard and spandex. “I just can’t do it anymore. It’s a waste of my life.”
And she walked out. Despite the expectations of friends and family, despite her former passion for dance, despite her mother’s connections with other families in the studio. Logan ran out in the middle of the competition, carrying a bag filled with makeup, costume jewelry, sequins and sashes. Objects that had defined her as girl, but didn’t make sense anymore.
The drive home was in a still silence. Her mother had suspected the changes that were going on in Logan’s mind. It still shocked her, though. She hadn’t expected such an abrupt break. Logan started to take off her makeup in the car mirror. She didn’t know how she felt about the person she saw. This person was not who she wanted to be. Through the ever-present confusion there now ran a current of guilt at upsetting her mother.
The person in the mirror had painted her face in a facade for so long, masking confusion with femininity and Maybelline. Logan wiped the rose red blush off of her cheeks and sighed. It was time to try and move forward.
ARE YOU GAY?
A few weeks before Logan walked out of the performance, Logan’s mother Paula took her to Max and Erma’s for dinner. Logan’s baseball team had just finished a game. But the dinner was shattered before it even began, with a single question.
“Are you gay?”
Logan was floored–and unsure.
“Well… I don’t know. Yes. Maybe. No. I’m not ready to talk about this.”
Logan had gone on dates with boys before. And yet she was attracted to girls sometimes. Although her mother had suspected this conclusion, she didn’t take the news well. The food remained untouched and the waiter was afraid to approach their table. Tears and cold food became the icons of a new normal for Logan: the realization that nothing would ever be normal.
MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS
December, 2010: another dinner lying cold on the table. Logan’s mother had told a distant cousin–the loud-mouthed one who hid rumors carefully and then, like a child, blurted them out “on accident”–about Logan being “gay.” At this point, no one knew of Logan’s confusion except her mother and father. At this point, she wasn’t even sure of her own self well enough to say she was anything. And at this point, her loud-mouthed cousin would become the one person to tell Logan’s grandmother, Peggy, about Logan’s identity. Peggy, the one person who could have gone a little while longer without knowing anything, who would be most hurt at not being told by Logan herself.
Peggy didn’t say a word. She just went back to her bedroom in solitude. Logan sat alone at the table.
“Merry fucking Christmas,” she said to herself. She might have been confused as to who she was, but her family seemed willing and ready to categorize and pass judgement on her.
She wasn’t gay. What was she? That remained to be seen, but one thing was certain. Logan, female-born, tap-dancing, gorgeous but awkward girl was no more. “She” was replaced with “they.” And “they” began the journey that would become gender neutrality.
Data:
Based on the National Transgender Discrimination Survey. Ohio (194 respondents)
School:
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Those who expressed a transgender identity or gender non-conformity while in grades K-12 reported: 86% rate of harassment, 40% rate of physical assault, 14% sexual violence
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Harassment led to 15% to leave a school in K-12 settings or leave higher education.
Workplace:
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81% reported experiencing harassment or mistreatment on the job
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28% lost a job
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27% were denied a promotion
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46% were not hired
- 50% experienced an adverse job action, such as being fired, not hired, or denied a promotion
MEDIA