Threads of Self

by Harmony Wilson

art by Geena San Diego

The room was packed with about seventy other black and brown women mingling awkwardly. Some knew each other, most didn’t. I didn’t know anyone. Social anxiety at an all time high, I tried to keep away from as many people as possible. I knew other people were as uncomfortable as I was and it made me even more uncomfortable. We all wandered around, eventually floating into uneven lines for the charcuterie boards. I remember not having eaten the entire day and feeling anxious to leave. Maybe Women of Distinction was the wrong decision for me. 

I placed my stuff down at the table that had the least people, one that thankfully, held people that I felt a little comfortable having casual conversations with.

“Okay, ladies! Time to settle into your seats!” an older, maybe middle-aged, white woman shouted into the crowd. Everyone shuffled towards the tables that they belonged to, seemingly more comfortable than when we walked in. The woman told us her name and began to talk about her experience in whatever position she held at Smith College, then invited the staff to briefly introduce themselves as well. After all of the staff went around and shared their names, pronouns, and hometowns, they started going around with the girls. Slowly but surely, the other WODies began to share their names, pronouns, and hometowns. 

I began to further dread my choice to travel across state lines — for free, admittedly — to visit this school. Was I even interested enough in this school to attend? Did I really want to meet new people? Was I ready for this stage of my life? The questions continued to pour in as the girls all shared who they are. Emily, she/her from Texas. Roselyn, she/her from New York. She/her, she/her, she/her. What are my pronouns? 

As all circles go, it eventually reached my table. The minutes broke into their second counterparts as everyone at my table shared. One name after the next, as my hands started shaking. Eventually it was my turn.

“Hi, my name is Harmony, I’m from Brooklyn, New York and…” There was silence and anticipation. I looked around and then looked down at my hands. I picked at my skin for comfort. 

“I don’t know what pronouns I use.”

Pronouns were something that I had been trying to understand for a long time. When the concept of pronouns reached TikTok, I began to question mine. I never felt fully feminine, fully masculine. There were days where I felt both, days I felt neither, days I felt one or the other. Was I really comfortable explaining that to this crowd of women? Did they understand? Was I an imposter?

There was resounding silence within the room for a short yet uncomfortable amount of time, almost like we had all froze in time in response. I never wanted to share it with anyone again. 

And I didn’t. Not for a long time.

Throughout the rest of my senior year, I continued to question my gender identity and explore different gender representations. I often used she/her pronouns to hide my difference from the people around me. I was thoroughly and utterly lost, trying to discover the ways in which I wanted to be me, to become my one natural self. There were so many things that I had to evaluate, so many things to think through. What did it mean if I wanted to use other pronouns? What did that make me? Who did that make me?

One of the people that knew about my search for myself was my partner. Being able to be openly out as a queer woman was something that came naturally to me. My partner, a genderfluid masc, was someone that I was proud to be with and so I never questioned whether or not to be out with my sexuality. I’ve always appreciated everyone, no matter their presentation or their biology; who I was with was a representation of my values and I never faltered in them. Everyone around me knew I was queer whether or not I told them. I wore it as a badge of honor. I hung out with those like me. I made myself a comfortable space within an uncomfortable situation.

However, being open with questioning my pronouns was another battle. Being openly trans within the black and brown communities is not something that’s easy to face. It was hard enough to become comfortable with my homosexuality in public. To be queer within the black and brown communities is to be a dishonor to the “naturally-born” heterosexuals. I was a sin. It was a sin. And I needed to change. At the same time, I was thankful to have grown up around those like me, which allowed me to become comfortable in my own skin. My mother never judged me, my best friends were also queer, my schools openly “tolerant.” However, within black and brown community, being transgender is like committing a hate crime. Most black and brown communities come from cultures that reject the presence of homosexuality or transgender ideology. So I tried to hide it while I was figuring it out.

There were even parts of myself that internalized transphobia due to the general public’s reaction to transgender existence. There were parts of myself that denied the occasional masculinity that I felt. Being masculine meant being abnormal, not being who I was meant to be. That idea was shut down very quickly, though. Despite the internalization, transphobia wasn’t something that I was subjected to overwhelmingly in my childhood, so — thankfully — it didn't impact me very much.

However, I wasn’t that good at hiding my struggles. Gender dysphoria plagued my mind and it was openly expressed in my physical features. There were days that I went to school in full glam makeup, as feminine as I could possibly be at a uniformed public school. There were others where I purposely tried to look more masculine. I would put makeup on to highlight as many masculine features within my face as possible. Some days, I dressed more against the norm than others — baggy clothes, walking more masculinely.

Eventually, I got tired. It was hard work covering up such an important part of my identity from people I would see every day. I was trying to ease into becoming a person that I wasn’t. I didn’t care that I didn’t know the label that I was going to place myself into; I knew that I felt different than others. I believed that the issue wasn’t with myself. It was with the world around me. That they were the reason that I felt the way I did. They were the reason that I couldn’t be my authentic self. The world needed to change, not me. Not my perspective. 

So I did what any normal person would do and spoke to my friends.

When doing so, there were a variety of reactions. Half of my friend group was queer, making it easy to explain to 50% of the people I cared about the most. My closest friend was able to notice that something was off immediately. 

In her words: “Yeah, I could tell something was up.” 

I told her everything I was going through, from feeling internalized transphobia to gender dysphoria. She listened and digested what I told her about dressing in many different gender expressions. She watched me as I became overwhelmed and began to cry, listening to me break down every step of my day-to-day life regarding my gender expression. Then, she simply put my struggle into one word.

Gender-fluidity.

My problems were dumbed down into something simple. Something that was obviously easy for her to understand. My problems were almost a non-problem. 

gen·der-flu·id (adjective): denoting or relating to a person who does not identify as having a single unchanging gender.

That was something that I wasn’t necessarily unfamiliar with. My partner, also genderfluid, had told me his perspective on his gender and the way that he expresses it. Yet, when I heard my best friend refer to me as gender-fluid, I somehow became so shocked that I didn’t know what to do. The fact that the problems that I was having with my gender identity were something that could be chopped up to something so simple, something that I already knew and vaguely understood, overwhelmed me. 

With that newfound information, I quickly told my partner and asked their opinion. 

“It sounds par for the course.” 

And to that, I began to reflect. Reflecting on what it meant to not be solid within my gender. What it meant to shift, sometimes within the same day, week, or month. What it meant for those around me to accept my authentic self. The pros and cons of being open about who I am. 

I decided to hide myself for the rest of senior year. I wasn’t ready to be open about change and to have the world accept that. I needed new scenery. I remained open with the people closest to me about my gender identity while keeping it undisclosed to the rest of the world. I didn’t want to have to deal with the mixed reactions from those around me. There was already occasional open homophobia that I dealt with and I decided I’d rather not deal with additional transphobia on top of that. 

After graduation, I became more open about my choice in pronouns. When I began my first job and was asked my pronouns, I automatically said she/her. All of my coworkers assumed that I used she/her pronouns, even when I came into work masculine presenting, since even when I am at my most masc-state, I still look feminine. This began to cause a lot of issues with my self-worth and image, so as I became closer with my coworkers, I became more open about my use of any pronouns and my gender expression.

Soon enough, I found out that my coworkers were also queer-identifying; one of them was also genderfluid and the other two nonbinary. I felt more safe and began to be more open with them about the things that I was experiencing in terms of my gender expression. We all understood each other and knew what it meant to be casually trans in a cisgender world.

Soon enough, it was time to start my journey at Dartmouth. This created a lot of anxiety on whether or not I should be open about my pronouns. It would be the first time that I would introduce myself to a new crowd of people as gender-fluid. Openly transgender for the first time in a brand new space, with brand new people. 

When I first started to introduce myself as, “Harmony and I use any pronouns,” it was something that felt so natural to say. The ability to be comfortable with addressing that I am not cisgender was an ability that I was grateful to tap into in a new environment freely. I was not judged by anyone that I told. People still referred to me using she/her pronouns, which I didn’t mind, knowing that I pass off as feminine-presenting. Being one of the few genderqueer students in the group that I was surrounded with was honorable. I was open in the fact that I was testing out my comfortability with unconventional pronouns which people respected me for and allowed me to feel more connected in my experience at Dartmouth.

However, as my time at Dartmouth continued to grow, I became more uncomfortable with opening up as genderqueer to other individuals. People that knew my pronouns only referred to me using she/her pronouns. Despite knowing that I am comfortable with any pronouns and even on occasion prefer some more than others, people made the conscious decision to only refer to me using she/her pronouns. I expected people to switch pronouns with me on occasion in an effort to encompass my broad use of pronouns, not continue to refer to me with what seemed “easiest.” My gender expression wasn’t made to be something that was easy for others, it was meant to be something that was easy for me. Yet, I still had a hard time explaining that to people. I still had a fear of judgement and misplaced insecurity over my use of other pronouns. 

My solution to this problem was similar to what I had done previously. I went to my friends, but this time, instead of my childhood friends, I decided on the newfound close friends that I made at Dartmouth. I asked one of my closest friends why they only referred to me using she/her pronouns despite being one of the people who was closest to me, who understood how I felt in reference to my gender.

“I don’t know. I guess it is truly just easier to refer to you using she/her pronouns. If you want more people to not always refer to you by she/her pronouns, then you need to open up about it. Pick and choose who you talk to the most and discover how their reference to you via pronouns impacts you the most. Not everyone is going to know how you feel about your gender, but some people matter more than others.”

That advice rang in my head.

Those were the questions that I began to think about. It made me question the village that I had formed for myself in this small school. Who really mattered and why? Why should I let the way that they refer to me impact the way that I saw myself? 

I then opened up to the group chat with my closest circle at Dartmouth.

“Hey guys, I want to say that I use any pronouns, but it would be great if you were to switch up the pronoun use. It makes me feel more seen. Thanks for supporting me.” 

Then I waited. And waited. And waited. 

It took unforeseeably long for my friends to stick to switching my pronoun use on occasion. Over a Dartmouth term, actually. It made me question the validity of my request.

But I began to notice a genuine shift in the way that they referred to me through casual conversation. My friends began to occasionally use he/him pronouns with me. The other friends that I told as well began to refer to me in mostly they/them pronouns. I began to feel included and heard in the Dartmouth community. For the first time, I didn’t have to hide my true feelings regarding my gender identity and the unknown aspects of it. I could finally embrace the unknown and tackle the knotted parts of my identity that make me who I am. 

That being said, it’s still not a simple or cut-and-dry situation to be in. It is still incredibly difficult to discover who I am. Am I doing what is best for myself? Is this truly who I am? Does it even matter at the end of the day? I take everything day by day. Identity isn’t something that you figure out or understand in two days, two years, or two generations. There’s a possibility that I won’t ever truly be okay with that. But sometimes yarn will remain tangled, no matter how hard you try, and sometimes you have to work around that.