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“I’m just fucking with you,” he says. It’s about gender; more specifically, manning up. I’m non-binary and consider gender to be the fucking problem that aims to control who and how we fuck. He hasn’t seen my transness yet, but he also has been seeing it the entire time, for if transness is part of who I am, then it is always present regardless of whether I “come out” as something other than a man. He appealed to science in response to my sharing that a friend was non-binary, implying that science proves there are only two genders — to which I interjected with a reminder that sex and gender are not the same. If sex and gender were the same, then being a man would mean acting like a dick — but most men probably wouldn’t agree with this rudely homoerotic framing of manhood. I withdraw; he notices I am upset, and I say that I am tired.
“I’m glad that you are okay,” I tell him after learning that his fall was not serious. “I care about you and don’t want you to die.” He responds by saying that he is a suicidal boy, indicating that I should be careful about not wanting him to die. We had recently discussed how my sister’s second suicide attempt continues to haunt my dreams; I remind him of this, and he tells me that he is…
