I’m done all my grading and the grades are submitted, so I am working on my script polish and reading these old diaries of mine for gender clues. I did find some. Some have none at all but I still read the entire thing just in case and I was discovering A LOT about my old self. I also read a whole diary about a frenemy I let get close to me who basically bullied me through our whole friendship. When Facebook came around we were briefly friends again until they were trying to tell me war is bad because I mentioned something about my Great Great Grandfather Mistatimwas being a War Chief at the Battle of Cutknife Hill. And basically, if he hadn’t been a War Chief our family would have been yet another massacred by the government, and I wouldn’t be here at all. So I unfriended them, so annoying, like oh you’re being violently colonized and your community could all die, but for Godssakes don’t fight back because that’s violence and that’s not okay. Please die peacefully. It would be better if you had. UGH. But reading this old diary I also found all these other ways they were a terrible person. Like my newly ex girlfriend and I went to their show and they made us get on stage and then said something about our “Doomed relationship” while we went back to our seats. If they were still id’ing as a girl I would call it mean girl energy. Anyway though, I realized they were just a bully in general reading these old diaries. And that most of my conflict with that particular community centred on this one person.

I also realized I was rejecting people A LOT. Like I have this whole story about feeling like a loser and always being rejected. But I probably rejected more people than people rejecting me. Or I would like someone a lot but oh they didn’t call back on such and such day so fuck them! Like dramatic, but also part of that was probably my undiagnosed bipolar disorder, and the other was probably this more unconscious part that wanted to be a man with men than a woman with women. So I pushed people away, or didn’t notice romantic invitations from women on purpose. And also I kept writing about like, how fucking many people would stare at me on the street or follow me or ask for my number. Like one time I was walking down the street and this guy in a sports car jumped out and came up to talk to me and gave me his number. But I was trying to be a lesbian so I never called him back. BUT people were chasing me in this way I never really like, followed up on. I once told the aforementioned bully about how people kept staring at me and they were like “It’s your hair.” Because I had coloured hair at the time. But one time I chopped it all off and the stares continued. To be honest I think that person just told me it was my hair because they were a bully. Because I was definitely attracting people and still attract people.

Anyway I also felt at times that I wished I could go back and talk to myself when I was younger, like to not be so hard on myself and not let people push me around and to see more clearly what was going on, not always with a negative view of things. It’s wild going back to those old diaries. I do feel like I turned into a better person than I was too. I’m a lot less judgemental, a lot kinder to myself, gentler with others too I think. I also have strict boundaries around being bullied and who I allow into my space vs who I don’t allow. Like cutting all those people off by blocking them two years ago was probably the healthiest thing I’ve done for myself. I just have no need to allow violence in, even if it’s people liking a post bullying and slandering me. Why should give any of them another chance when they never gave me a chance? Forget it. But that’s something I might have allowed in my younger years. I’m just not that person anymore.

Anyway my birthday was kind of a bust. Not totally. I had a lot of sex in the lead up to my birthday, four guys in three days! Two at a different bathhouse than I usually go to. I also did karaoke with some coworkers on Thursday. But my actual birthday I woke up feeling sick and gross and so I had to cancel everything. Probably got the cold at karaoke or the bathhouse. Anyway, I’ve been staying home since then working on getting better. And reading these diaries. I still got a birthday cake the day before my birthday, and also made a pot of chili so I had food on my birthday. I’m going to Helsinki next week so that will probably be my real birthday stuff.

I was telling my therapist this morning about all the things I realized about my younger self by reading my diaries. She was helping me unpack it all. I still have more diaries to go through, but yeah it’s a lot reading stuff written back then. I was so miserable. I really needed to transition but I also wanted to fuck queer men and I think I was too scared of HIV to go the whole way. I read a passage from the 90’s of a queer friend telling me most of the men they knew who were still virgins were virgins because they were scared of AIDS. Like, that honestly did traumatize a lot of queer men, including myself. We saw all that shit happening in the 80s and 90s. I came of age when people still died of AIDS, just on the cusp of the antiretroviral medications coming out. And even after that, it was still terrifying. I know there are people still dying. But there are some who are fortunate to have medications that work now. And PrEP exists. And I made a film about how I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I came out as a queer trans man after PrEP had been around for a while. It’s kind of wild to see that I had the same kind of living through AIDS trauma that a lot of queer men had, to the point I held on to trying to be a lesbian for so long to avoid it.

I read once about how there’s a famous gay man who is older and won’t get a partner because he is still terrified of AIDS. Even with the medications we have now. It’s kind of sad. Younger men are fortunate to not have to worry so much. And also it scares me because I know they just have to restrict access to those medications to start the whole awful trauma of living through AIDS again. Wild times!

Anyway I will probably not write again until I’m in Helsinki next week, or afterwards. I don’t write while traveling often, because I am too busy doing things. I’m doing a performance at the Trans Library with this video component based on these diary entries. I feel disappointed that the older diaries don’t have a ton of gender clues. They are there now and then. But really brief things like “This shit happened in my dream and my wife was there (also I was a man)” like really brief asides like that. I feel like I just wasn’t ready I guess. I was reading about trans stuff though. Like when I look back with my memories I remember being VERY curious about gender and transitioning. But it’s not as obvious in these particular diaries I guess. I have way more to go through though.