"Firsts on Gender Euphoria" by David Salazar
I think everything began to get better when I got my first haircut.
I was still halfway in, halfway out of the closet, but that day was like the sun shone on me. I asked my mom if I could get my hair cut short, as short as she'd allow. A pixie cut, maybe, the one all the transmasculine people get when trying to test the waters on short hair. And she allowed it. I was only eleven: it was June, the first semester of sixth grade on its way to the end of it. We headed to the hairdresser and I got my hair cut.
I had never worn long hair, not as far as I can remember. There's old pictures of me with my hair down to my mid-back, but as far as I can recall I always had my hair down to my shoulders. Dysphoria kicked me then, every time I looked in a mirror. I was a little girl, developing, only eleven and with that hair I'd always be seen as a girl: if I cut it all off maybe I had a chance or two of a stranger calling me a boy.
Staring at the hairdresser's mirror was like looking at a different reality. I was round of face and my beetle eyes squinted at the image as I put on my glasses to see it better. There I was, with my hair short--too short, almost not a pixie cut. It felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders, like all my burdens were eliminated with the snip of the scissors, a halo on the floor that was soon swept up.
My dad freaked out, of course. He stared at me like he'd never seen me before, but I was so happy that he couldn't find it in him to be mad. They took me to the supermarket to buy groceries and I followed them along, my step lighter than ever before. Everything was easier. Everything was beginning to be better.
The day after was the first time I was gendered correctly, as well. I had been gendered correctly before, technically, but that is because my birth name is obscure enough for its masculine version to be more well known, and so more often than not at doctors' offices they'd be calling out the masculine version of it until I came in, little girl haircut and smile. It felt wrong because that wasn't my name, but I never thought about the wrong gender part until much, much later.
When I got called a boy for the first time, we were at a restaurant. I was wearing what I knew to wear best, and still is my safe choice for clothing: a hoodie and jeans. I was wearing little boots that, according to my mom, were feminine enough that she doesn't get why I wasn't called a girl over them. It's not like waiters are looking at customers' feet, so I'd say it was on that. But he gave us the menu and he called me joven, young man, and I spluttered and went red-faced, eyes wide with embarrassment. My parents laughed at my reaction, but I was so happy I couldn't help but smile, even though the orthodontist appointment I went to right before our restaurant visit made it quite a bit harder.
I am sure he must have noticed how flustered I got, and yet he called me joven again when he gave us our plates. My parents mockingly called me joven afterward, but I took it all in, breathed in that feeling of being called what I wanted to be called, the reward of correct assumption. I think about that waiter a lot, and what he may have thought about me. Did he see me as a young cis boy? Did he read me correctly, somehow a little thing in a hoodie clockable as a young transmasculine person, and decide to give me the benefit of gender euphoria? I don't know. It's not like I'll ever see him again--it has been six years since then, but I still think of running across him and him somehow recognizing me, because I surely will not recognize him. Face blindness aside, he is only a specter in my mind, a vague idea of a nice young man who gave me a dose of what I knew I desperately needed: he is a blank, a vague silhouette.
The bigger chance is that we will cross paths but we will never know we did. Maybe I've passed him on the street, maybe he's moved to the same place I've moved and he is in the bus right in front of me. I'd never know. I wish I could thank him, tell him how much I needed that boost, that sensation of yes, this is what I am. As my gender developed and went everywhere, all over the place, I fell back on him often. On how he recognized me as a young boy and called me what I was. Joven. Maybe that's my gender, really, until I'm not all that young anymore.
More acceptance and more correct gendering, those just-right assumptions, happened more often afterward, of course. From first graders asking me if I'm a boy or a girl to a barber not questioning my presence in his shop in the least. But the first time is the sweetest, and I will always treasure it in my mind. The beginning of a gender journey is what tends to be the most beautiful, albeit confusing, part.
I was still halfway in, halfway out of the closet, but that day was like the sun shone on me. I asked my mom if I could get my hair cut short, as short as she'd allow. A pixie cut, maybe, the one all the transmasculine people get when trying to test the waters on short hair. And she allowed it. I was only eleven: it was June, the first semester of sixth grade on its way to the end of it. We headed to the hairdresser and I got my hair cut.
I had never worn long hair, not as far as I can remember. There's old pictures of me with my hair down to my mid-back, but as far as I can recall I always had my hair down to my shoulders. Dysphoria kicked me then, every time I looked in a mirror. I was a little girl, developing, only eleven and with that hair I'd always be seen as a girl: if I cut it all off maybe I had a chance or two of a stranger calling me a boy.
Staring at the hairdresser's mirror was like looking at a different reality. I was round of face and my beetle eyes squinted at the image as I put on my glasses to see it better. There I was, with my hair short--too short, almost not a pixie cut. It felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders, like all my burdens were eliminated with the snip of the scissors, a halo on the floor that was soon swept up.
My dad freaked out, of course. He stared at me like he'd never seen me before, but I was so happy that he couldn't find it in him to be mad. They took me to the supermarket to buy groceries and I followed them along, my step lighter than ever before. Everything was easier. Everything was beginning to be better.
The day after was the first time I was gendered correctly, as well. I had been gendered correctly before, technically, but that is because my birth name is obscure enough for its masculine version to be more well known, and so more often than not at doctors' offices they'd be calling out the masculine version of it until I came in, little girl haircut and smile. It felt wrong because that wasn't my name, but I never thought about the wrong gender part until much, much later.
When I got called a boy for the first time, we were at a restaurant. I was wearing what I knew to wear best, and still is my safe choice for clothing: a hoodie and jeans. I was wearing little boots that, according to my mom, were feminine enough that she doesn't get why I wasn't called a girl over them. It's not like waiters are looking at customers' feet, so I'd say it was on that. But he gave us the menu and he called me joven, young man, and I spluttered and went red-faced, eyes wide with embarrassment. My parents laughed at my reaction, but I was so happy I couldn't help but smile, even though the orthodontist appointment I went to right before our restaurant visit made it quite a bit harder.
I am sure he must have noticed how flustered I got, and yet he called me joven again when he gave us our plates. My parents mockingly called me joven afterward, but I took it all in, breathed in that feeling of being called what I wanted to be called, the reward of correct assumption. I think about that waiter a lot, and what he may have thought about me. Did he see me as a young cis boy? Did he read me correctly, somehow a little thing in a hoodie clockable as a young transmasculine person, and decide to give me the benefit of gender euphoria? I don't know. It's not like I'll ever see him again--it has been six years since then, but I still think of running across him and him somehow recognizing me, because I surely will not recognize him. Face blindness aside, he is only a specter in my mind, a vague idea of a nice young man who gave me a dose of what I knew I desperately needed: he is a blank, a vague silhouette.
The bigger chance is that we will cross paths but we will never know we did. Maybe I've passed him on the street, maybe he's moved to the same place I've moved and he is in the bus right in front of me. I'd never know. I wish I could thank him, tell him how much I needed that boost, that sensation of yes, this is what I am. As my gender developed and went everywhere, all over the place, I fell back on him often. On how he recognized me as a young boy and called me what I was. Joven. Maybe that's my gender, really, until I'm not all that young anymore.
More acceptance and more correct gendering, those just-right assumptions, happened more often afterward, of course. From first graders asking me if I'm a boy or a girl to a barber not questioning my presence in his shop in the least. But the first time is the sweetest, and I will always treasure it in my mind. The beginning of a gender journey is what tends to be the most beautiful, albeit confusing, part.
David Salazar (he/xe/she) is a teenage writer from Chile. Xe dabbles in all genres, from haikus to memoir. He is nonbinary, bisexual and autistic. Xe often writes about romance, gender, trauma and neurodivergence, with the more-than-occasional speck of horror and cannibalism. She can most frequently be found raving about her latest special interest, losing it at Richard Siken poetry and/or writing self-indulgent nonsense. You can find xir on Twitter at @smalllredboy.