-normal
Once, I saw an alien—is something I wish I could say. For me, the possibility of extraterrestrials has always held a certain brilliance. Child-me at times wondered whether I was really from space, if only because the idea of being human seemed absurd.1 But in truth, my feelings and features are as earthling as anyone else’s, which is to say, as complicated, unrelated, alien. They don’t always make sense, and they’re not always mine. Not consciously. But my feelings and features are inescapable. They are where I’m headed.
Estoy escribiendo esto para mi.
In Spanish, “para” is used to reference the destination of a journey.
I only know this because of my hours of Spanish-language study.
It’s not something I grew up knowing. It’s something I grew up
learning.
My last name is Manuel, meaning Of G-d,2 and my first is Marisa, the sea
and the sun.3 My grandpa claimed we were Panamanian.
I had no reason to doubt him.
I assumed we were from Panama, indigenously,
inarguably.
So, I took Spanish classes.4 I researched
Panama, bought 23andMe to uncover
the remaining pieces of my history.
The test results showed Spain. Less than a 5% match. Not a drop
of Panama
in sight.
-meter
Once, I saw a news story about someone who wanted to be an alien. They were searching for an operation that would remove their sex organs. But that wasn’t the beginning and end of their plan: They were going to get plastic surgery to distort their face, to make them look not just unmale and unfemale, but otherworldly.5
If someone came up to me on the street and offered to remove my sex organs—well, I’d run away, because any stranger offering to cut you to pieces is a little less-than-human. But if a doctor called and said they could change me, we’re broaching a different story. I might say yes. I might say no. But I’d certainly pause and think.
I often think about genitals, because I wish I didn’t have any. When you don’t want sex and probably can’t have bio-kids—when you can’t figure out why people would want to put anything up anything else—it’s easy to land at, “What’s the point?” But the switch from “it’s annoying” to “get it out of me, seal it up” isn’t one all cis women make, which might cause you to wonder whether you are really a cis woman at all, and what it means to be something not-trans, not-cis.
I have never been sexually attracted to anyone. Thus I identify as
