he, she, whatever
My son is narrating me in the third person. “‘Blah blah blah’, he says.” Looks at me. “Or she says. Whatever.”
*
Later that week, I read a plot summary of Hamlet to my son, who accompanies my recitation with appropriate battle sounds, such as clanging swords when the prince is duelling with Laertes.
Now we are wrapping a friend’s birthday present. My son unravels the last curl of the patterned paper and wields its long cardboard tube playfully. “Face me like a man!” he declaims. Pause. “Or like a woman!” he adds. “Whatever. You know what I mean!”
Thrust. Parry.
*
Lying down to sleep.
“Did I mention you are my favourite dad?”
“No. That’s lovely”. I bask in the glow of his honour.
“Even if you are an odd dad.”
Well, that was short lived. I stay quiet and wait to see where this is going.
“I mean, you like K-pop!”
“Well, yes, but I don’t like all K-pop,” I say defensively.
“What do you like about it? Is it the sexy women on the album covers?”
I have always thought it weird to listen to music for the pictures. We agree on this. He wonders if my new love of K-pop is because of some secret masculine part of me inside my transgender self, still attracted to women. I resist the impulse to explain that gender identity and attraction are unrelated – it feels as though that would be missing his point. As my head rests on a pillowcase patterned with retro furniture, I ponder his insight – an increasingly overt engagement with all things feminine that he observes in his parent – even if he hasn’t quite the tools to express it. Since transitioning, have I oriented more openly to feminine things as my way to express attraction to them? Has that included hyperfeminized cultural artefacts, ranging from K-pop girl bands to ultra-high heels? In the dark as I wait for his breathing to slow into slumber, I wonder what messages he receives from this. Am I putting at risk his feminist orientation in our culture; his engagement with the young women he is growing up around, through my subliminal reactionary messages about womanhood or femininity? I am on tricky terrain, though it has taken me a while to realise it.
