Transcript 26- Cass

These transcripts deal with themes of mental illness and trauma

This conversation took place in Cassandra’s living room in Chicago. Cassandra and Cass met two years ago when they became game designers on a large scale project for freshman orientation. 

Please state your… name, your age, your gender identity and presentation

Okay. Um, my name, at least for the time being, is (insert deadname that was being used at the time of the interview) Cohen. Uh, I’m 23 years old. Uh… my gender identity is somewhere in the realm of nonbinary girl. Um, although it’s fuzzy even within that, um, one really good like text posts I saw online was like, “I’m a gender independent, but I caucus with the women” (Cassandra laughs) which… felt like really, uh, correct. Um, that has not always… Uh, so I present fairly femme where I can, although a lot of my outfits are basically just sort of very neutral, uh, jeans and tee shirt. When I… uh, have the chance, I like to wear a lot of makeup and dresses and stockings and go to town. Uh, I have not always been a nonbinary girl, as surprising as that may be. Um, I was born into this world, um, considered a man and… for a long ass time I was basically a man and that has… y’know since changed, but we all learn things. 

When did… um, your realization come to be and how did it come to be? (Cassandra) There was definitely more eloquent way to ask that… 

No, I got you. There were definitely multiple steps to the process. Um, it probably started, I’d say in like the fall or spring of 2015 when I was like, “hey, like, I have never actually liked investigated this gender thing before. Right? Like I’ve heard of trans people and I… know some of them tangentially in my life”. Um, but it had never occurred to me that I could also explore my gender because I was like, “oh, like I’m a straight man”, like, come on. Come on (both laugh). Um, and over the course of time, that gender questioning kind of became more and more of like a real thing. Uh, it was less sort of like a casual musing and more.. more like a, “what… what if?” um, I remember, uh, at one point, like… they got someone from one of the queer groups on campus to come and talk to my house about gender identity. And I was like, “hey, so I don’t quite feel like a man, but I don’t feel like a not man. Like… what can I do?” (Both laugh) What can I…

What do?

Who? Where? Um, and the person who was there, was just like, “oh yeah, you know, you just got to question it.” Um, and then afterwards my RA was like– something that was like, I think fairly kind of problematic, but actually ended up being helpful at the time like, “oh, I don’t think of like you and a lot of the other boys in your house as sort of being like, boy’s boys. More like soft academic types or something.” (Cassandra makes displeased sound) But like, as not great as that was, it for some reason dislodged this thing in me that was like, “oh, like that was a default that I was prescribing to”. It was not anything real. And so that, uh, as like weird as it was, it opened me up to like being able to play with that a little more. Um, the following summer I started talking to a few people about it. Um, and then in the… uh, the fall and winter of 2016, I really started to… investigate different like labels, pronouns, um, and it became like a… a real thing. And there were many steps to that as well, which I can talk about now or in another question or… 

If you.. if you want to elaborate now? 

Sure… um, so it started as sort of just like this… this is an experience that I’ve shared with a few other trans women in particular. Um, or like AMAB… cloud… 

Nebulous? 

Yeah. Um, which is that, like… when you’re still, like inwardly and outwardly kind of presenting as a guy, um, you just find yourself being like, “oof, men are terrible” and like, white knighting a lot for things that people are like, “why are you like, so invested in this issue? Like this is not your issue.” And you’re just like, “I just think it’s important that like… gender be explored. (Cassandra laughs) Like, I think it’s important that this character, have they/them pronouns because of the principle of the thing. Not at all because I want to project myself onto this character. No, not at all (both laugh)”. Um… um, and so… uh, like that turned into like, finding my first label. I was dating someone at the time who was like a queer cis woman, um, who brought me the label of “demiboy”, which felt like something closer to right. 

And what does demiboy mean? 

Demiboy is like… not quite a boy. 

Okay. 

Like it’s like… um, I mean, you know, as… as with many of these like gender terms, they have as many definitions of the people you ask about them. But for me at least it was, um, sort of like… there are parts of my masculinity that I identify with, um, and I like… I don’t want to like, lose those things, but at the same time, I am not fully a man and I need to kind of figure out what that is. Um, and you know, as it kept on going, my pronouns start to shift first from he to he/they then to “they” um, more recently to, like they/she, although I still mostly use “they”, I think partially just because it’s… scary to go by “she”, unless you’re like fully femme, which is a lot. Um, but yeah, and then, and so like the… the labels also kind of traveled with that. Like it was like demiboy, like non-binary, like non-binary girl, and then like… that space has its own sort of like many dimensional stuff. So I’ve been exploring that for awhile. So… that’s that.

Um…. debating whether or not to ask more questions now or let it come later. Okay. I’m going to… um, have you been officially diagnosed with mental illness? And if so with what? 

Heck yeah, so, everything like, I mean… I definitely have sort of like generalized anxiety and depression, you know, the good old standbys, um, more recently, there’s also been some ADHD in the mix. Um, you know, a lot of like… comorbid friendliness between all three of those guys. 

Yeah. That’s basically where I’m at. You know, uh, getting the ADHD diagnosis, um, was… was helpful in that it… sort of allowed me to put a few things about how… the frustrations that I had had with, uh, learning into context. Yeah. Like, like some of the things that I was frustrated by or thought that just like, everyone with dealing with all the time, um, were things that were more just like, “oh no, you just like have a brain that’s not really good at doing this on its own”. 

Um, but yeah, I think for a while, like in high school, um, I… I knew both my parents had struggled with like, anxiety and depression. Um, and you know, they… they still do, it’s not a thing you stopped struggling with. Uh, they got a therapist, both of them. But I sort of felt like it had like, skipped a generation. Um, and then… all of a sudden I realized it hadn’t and I’d just been pushing things down. 

Ah, good. Okay. (said facetiously) 

Uh, and… and so that was… it took me awhile to be like, “oh yes, no. Like these are things that I’m going to have to address like, now”. 

So that realization is what led you to being diagnosed? 

I think I had like sort of suspicions a while before I actually like… saw therapists to like… talk about these things. Or rather before I started like, regularly seeing a therapist. I may have used a student counseling services a few times for much more sort of short term things like…like specific, uh, relationships and feelings about relationships or like… not knowing exactly how to like, do some work, which of course… all these things are related, but it felt like a sort of like a short term kind of thing. Um, I’ve been with the same therapist, who’s been my own like longterm therapist, uh, from the winter… uh, the beginning of 2017. Um, and so a lot of work, you know, has been done in that time. 

How would you characterize how you felt about being diagnosed?

For… for all three of those? 

Yes. Like was it a different experience for each one of those or do you generally feel the same about each of those diagnoses or…? 

Um, well, like I said, I think the ADHD was sort of like vindicating because… um, you know, it’s not like a thing you’re like, “oh yay, I have ADHD”, but um, to, to have someone say like, “these are some common tendencies of people who have ADHD and like, this is you”. Um, and me to be like, “oh, like all those times that, like I was saying, I was having trouble, uh, but no one was believing me because my grades were still okay. Um, because I was like, panic doing things in very bad ways”. Um, uh, it was… you know, it was good to have that sort of like, “yes, we can put a little more of a name to this like struggle I’ve been dealing with.” Um, I think for the… like anxiety and depression, it was more sort of like, all right, this is just going to be a kind of blanket on my life. Like what am I going to do to help lift it off, you know? 

So it wasn’t quite as vindicating?

Yeah. Cause it was.. it was more something I like… rather than sort of being like this thing that like I was like, “oh this puts the names of the things that I’ve been feeling”, it was more like I slid into something that I already knew the name of. It was like, “oh no, no, I’m here. Like I’ve got to like… I’ve seen this before in other people, I’ve got to deal with this”. 

Um, so maybe part of that was that like… the time between symptoms manifesting and the diagnoses was a lot shorter whereas ADHD was kinda like, these symptoms have been here for a really fucking long time and took a long time to get diagnosed? 

Yeah, like, “I’ve been saying this”, yeah

Okay. So like as a very broad question, um… what would you say your experience with mental illness has been so far? And part of that can be like how… what has your experience been with treatment so far? You talked a little bit about that. Like how has it changed over time? I guess I basically want to know your journey– (Cassandra laughs) your journey, Cass!

Well, I’m… trying to remember. I think it was in the.. summer of… I want to say 2015 but it might’ve been 2016, um, before it was going off to… oh no, I think it was 2016… before I was going off to camp. I was talking to like, my general practitioner at the time and I was like, oh, so I’m like, I’m feeling kind of down, you know, like… like I have depression lite, you know? 

Yeah. 

And uh, you know, she was like, ”all right, well we’ll start you on some welbutrin and we’ll… we’ll see how it goes.” Um, and… no, it didn’t… go anywhere, but didn’t not go anywhere. Like it was hard to tell because I was in a different environment at camp. Uh… uh, I think until this year I haven’t really been dealing with people who were… like especially focused on how to address those things. Um, and so like, whenever I was like, oh, I still feel bad, like… just the dose got increased. You know, I’ve been seeing a psychiatrist recently who…. like we’ve been doing more, like, tweaks to like my medications. 

You don’t think medications have been particularly effective with you but you’ve been on them for this long? 

(Cass laughs) You know, I don’t even know at this point. I don’t remember what it was like before some of these medications, but like I guess is that if it went off of them, I would get to a worse place. Can you repeat the question again? I feel like I was focusing heavily on like medications, which is part of it, but not all of it. 

Um, well I just asked about your experience in general, so like… where you started from to where you are now. 

Um, I think at various points, uh, you know, I’ve… I’ve been able to be like, “oh, like I’m in a depression hole”, like, uh, the beginning of this year I was definitely in a big hole then and… it took a lot of concerted effort from myself and my therapist to like, help us help me get out of there. More of the time, it’s just kind of felt like this kind of like passive… kind of thing that’s just in the background, you know, the casting (inaudible) on me. Um, yeah. Um… it’s not something that’s ever sort of like, um, I’m someone who… who really stays inside their own head a lot. So it really has been sort of just like…a paralyzing thing more than anything else because I just sort getting like, lost in the labyrinth of my thoughts rather than sort of having it manifest as like doing things. It’s much more sort of like retreating in on myself. Going… going still, not interacting with people. 

Um, so yeah, I guess that kind of ties into the next question, which is what is your like… relationship to it? So you, you did kind of go a little bit into this…like people have different ways of I think conceiving of their mental illness, whether they externalize it, whether they see it as like something… like a very specific thing inside of them. So like… how do you… how do you conceive of that? Like what’s your relationship to it? And how has that changed over time? 

Yeah. Um, I think one thing that, you know, sort of, I had to internalize and I think that everyone who either has a mental illness or you know, knows someone who has a mental illness and is close to them, which is…. basically everyone… (Cassandra laughs)

Whether or not they know that. 

Yeah, um, is that like, mental illnesses can make things harder, but, uh… it’s very  important not to make them like, excuses. Cause at first it’s very easy to feel like, “oh, I didn’t get this thing done because like, I have depression and I’m just going to sit with that and like, you know, flagellate myself” and, uh… kind of… you know, accept that this is the hole that I live in. It’s much harder to say, “oh no, no. It’s just like I have to get out of this hole with another, you know, extra weight on my back that someone who doesn’t have this mental illness doesn’t to deal with— things that may come easily for them, uh, may not come as easily for me, but that doesn’t give me the excuse not to do those things”. 

Um, and that’s been especially important in sort of like interpersonal relationships, uh, especially when, uh, I have dated other people who have mental illnesses because you know, they… they come up against each other and you sort of need to take a step back and say, “okay, like we’re both, um… bringing these things into what we’re doing. We need to… uh, figure out how we can exist without sort of this being the spearhead of the conversation”. So I… you know, I… I never really have visualized it as like a physical entity… If anything, like it’s just kind of felt like a racing feeling sometimes. Like… just my brain, like… different parts of my brain are going at a different speed and so it’s like, hard to like translate words sometimes because like, you know, they come out one way in sort of like this like raw data kind of thing. And then the rest of your brain grabs on like, “what the hell are you saying Cass?” 

Would that be more ADHD or…?

That’s the ADHD but also sort of like the… like the… the… the depression thought sometimes. Or like.. this thing is flying by my head that like I’m having trouble confronting and I can’t really like put my finger on it, but it’s just going to kind of sit there and be mean to me. 

Do you feel very distinctly different toward each one of these mental illnesses or are they kind of like this… mental illness glob, that’s kind of like, “I’m going to make life harder?”

I think I do consider them pretty different. Like… I can think of sort of where the symptoms for those things tend to show up. So I can be like, oh, you know, like I find it hard to make phone calls. That’s like my anxiety. And my social anxiety telling me like… it’s not even saying like, “what if they’re going to hate you?” It’s just like saying like (Cass screams, Cassandra joins in)

Phone calls!

Yeah, like, what is the worst that could happen? You got to tell yourself nothing is gonna happen and your brain’s just like, (makes screaming sound) um, depression is like… “I have this thing to do and it will only take five minutes to do it, but I’m going to wait for a month to do it because… doing it means that I let myself feel okay that having done something and I can’t have that”.

I can’t feel good about myself. That would be absurd. 

Having a clear schedule without feeling like there’s something I’m like… a month overdue on… like how am I supposed to fucking like be sad? (both laugh) And the ADHD is a lot of that sort of like… racing or like… not feeling like I can start things or like starting things and then not be able to continue on it. So they each do have their own personalities. But I think at the end of the day they do also kind of… exist together. 

Okay. So, I guess that partially answered the next question, which is, what are the specific things that trigger worsening of your mental illness? Are there other… things you can think of for each one? If not, that’s okay because you did kind of answer. 

Yeah. Um, I think in my relationship with my parents, um, there are definitely some triggers that like… don’t exist elsewhere. Um… I think it was probably because of like… our particularly tense relationship this year, both because of gender and because of like the (makes screaming sound). Um, and the anxiety about me being far away from home, there’s just general worry for me. I think my…my weight used to be much higher on my list of sort of triggers, like, especially like in high school. Um, and as time has gone on, I’ve been more like, “fuck it, I can still rock a dress”. Um, sometimes it’s… it’s… it’s frustrating to feel like there are not articles of clothing that fit me well. Um, but that… you know, it’s just another sort of way in which things are a little harder, but it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be done. 

What has the experience been like of having parents who deal with mental illness and are actually like diagnosed and getting treatment for it? Like how does that interact with your experience? 

Um, it’s not something we really talked about early in my life, um, you know, I mean they went to therapy, but I thought that was the thing that everyone did, which, you know, a lot of people do, but um… I think it means that they project a lot of their own specific anxieties on to me, which are sometimes accurate and sometimes not. They’d been like… very adamant about my seeking therapy from fairly early on. 

So kind of positive and negative things? 

Uh, yeah. Um, I think they haven’t really… we haven’t really had any talks where we sit down about how like, “oh yeah, I experience mental illness in this way, I experience mental illness in this way”. It’s either… it’s mostly been conversations about my own things. Um, and or… or it’s like a thing about one of their things, but we have… it’s a very hard conversation to broach, like… “let’s compare our mental illnesses”. (Cassandra laughs) 

Um, so that… that’s kind of how you talk to your parents about mental illness, which is… to say not that much. Um, but in general, how do you talk to people around you about your mental illness and that can like… involve multiple different spheres of knowledge or…? 

I mean… I think as a result of being largely in like a queer young circle of Chicago, especially like sorta like, a more academic circle, it turns out that most of my friends are mentally ill in some way. And so I think there’s kind of like a general, you know, millennial kind of… like “this is awful but yeet” kind of thing, you know, like… like we’re all just kind of dealing with this shit and you know, we can all just cry about it all day. Or we can just kind of be like, “whatever”. And then just continue, like banging your head against rocks (both laugh). 

Healthy options 

Healthy options. You know, I think like in… in like a work setting, it’s not something I really bring up. You know, you can sort of talk about the anxieties of like… working hard or frustrating, um, or like, pay being frustrating, but it’s hard to sort of be like, oh, I’m going to bring my own like internalized thing to this conversation. Um, because it just feels like an overshare. Like, “I don’t want to let you into my life in this way” or “I don’t want you to have to be let into my life in this way”. Like, “I don’t want to put that on you”. Um, yeah. I mean, I’d say both through like the language of memes and just like kind of dealing with it together. Most of… the way I deal with mental illness within my group of friends is sort of like… like an ironic detachment. 

And so you kind of talk about it with them, but in the sort of detached way? 

And then you get really drunk and you sometimes talk about in a less detached way (Cassandra laughs) thankfully most people don’t remember in the morning. 

Well, how do you feel like it colors interactions with those around you, whether that’s like how people interact with you knowing that you have mental illness or… how you internally feel about interactions? 

Mmm, well I think… like the depression with like a spice of anxiety in particular has… for a long time made me feel like, “oh, like I am… in this group by accident or like, happenstance and like, given the first opportunity to drop me and they all will”. Um, and also it makes it hard to sometimes seek out a new people because you’re like, “oh, like what are any of them going to see in me?” Like… I think that my mental illness coupled with like… dealing with masculinity things really made me like… oh, like anytime, like I… bring myself towards someone else, it’s like kind of like an imposition on them. Like I’m only doing it for me at the expense of them. Like I’m taking up space and I don’t want to take up space, but like, I want to talk to people, but you can’t talk to people if you’re not willing to like, reach out in any way, shape or form. You kind of just let it… uh, you try and like, send waves out and like, no one’s ever going to get those waves.

Has it gotten any better since identifying as femme? 

Um, yes, I think that… I mean like in… in for example, in the sphere of dating, it was more just like… the match up between like, who I am interested in, who was interested in me and who I think will be interested in me lines up better. Right? So like… when I was presenting as male and like, looking for women, like it…it felt like almost, right. Um, but like the idea of like being perceived as a man, without even realizing it sort of was like, “oh, like gross” (both laugh). Um, and so like, being able to sort of… go into those conversations and be like, unabashedly like, femme, has been really nice. Like it’s… it’s… it’s… it’s like, so affirming whenever someone is like… like, “I love the color of your lipstick. Like, what is it?” Um, because it feels like they’re, they’re taking an interest in like something that I worked towards myself. Um, like they’re at least in some small way, like coming along on that journey… Um, there was another side to this question. This was about approaching people and people approaching me. 

Yeah, how people treat you and how you interact with other people. 

Um, I think… for the people who know me well, they know that that’s kind of just where I’m at. They’re usually in the same place and then we’re all just kind of like, “yeet” together, um, for people I don’t know as well. Um (pause) I don’t know.  Like, I… I feel like a lot of people with mental illness, um, have gotten pretty good at hiding it. Um, sometimes without even realizing it. Uh, and so only when I like… open my mouth that… that, uh, like people are like, “oh, you’re not okay are you?” But… yeah… that’s like a half formed thought. 

Um, so I think we already covered the next question, which is, um, how do you interact with other people with mental illness but if you have… if you have any other thoughts on that? 

Um, yeah, I mean like, you know, there’s… there’s sort of like a, capital M like Mental illness. I feel like… most people I talk to, you know, you start with depression, anxiety, kind of work from there into whatever kind of like fun offshoots you have. Um, and… and so obviously the experience of mentally ill and neurodiverse people… very different from each other. Um, so it’s not always the same for… for… for everyone. But I’d say as a whole, even if you know, the way we experience our mental illness are kind of different, we can still bond over just like… the feeling of like existing in society in this kind of way. 

I am not at all familiar with that (said facetiously). 

Yeah, what? Noooo (said sarcastically) You know, like, um, it’s, it’s enough to be like, man, like you’re a particular kind of thing. That sucks. And I can feel that for you. And you can feel like, even if my thing is different, it also sucks. 

It’s like general community building. 

Yeah. 

Um, so what has your experience been identifying as femme? And I don’t.. I don’t mean to limit this to just the part of your life when you started being more open about this. Like if you want to talk about prior to that and like… what the changes have been like, go for it. 

Sure. So we can look at a few examples from earlier in my life. Um, I remember sort of on… on this life journey of questioning, at one point I talked to my dad and I was sort of like, you know, I’ve been doing like a little bit of thinking recently and like, there’s like certain aspects of masculinity that are not quite sort of finding myself fitting in. Uh, I’m not sure what to do about that. And his response was kind of, “uh, well, you know, like I… I’m not a typical man” because, you know, he’s a composer and like a pianist and a cantor, so he’s like a, you know, like a… like a pacifist and, and so, you know, he’s not like a “manly man”. So, um, he was like, you know, ”I was your one role model, your manly role model and uh, I did not quite do it this way.” And I was like, “I don’t think that’s quite it”. And I talked to my mom and daughter and she was like, “well your father like, blah blah blah” and I was like, “I still don’t think that’s it” (Cassandra laughs). 

So there was definitely this feeling that like… right, there’s… there’s sort of like the idea of like this like platonic man as like macho meat eater, easy to get into fights, probably does something blue collar, um, like…  will bury their emotions until they die. Um, and then there’s sort of like… how men actually are in practice, which is like… just them but like… colored by some of those things sometimes. Like you can’t not be defined on or against that. Um, and so…you know, there… there was definitely a period of time being like, “all right, how can I like, carve out a space of masculinity for myself that like doesn’t need to sort of like, make room for… for… for like these things that I don’t really like… want to even kind of interact with?” Um, and like… at first it felt like a selfish thing. Like, “oh no, like I’m a man, I still need to address the ways in which men are shitty because I’m a man and men are shitty”. Um, but as I sort of… as it went on, I was like, “oh no, it’s not quite that simple”. 

I remember, uh… the camp that I went to, they had two different, uh… events that… I got it to be a lot more femme for, um, before I was even like really kind of thinking about that at all as like a thing, you know, it was even before I was thinking about it as like a performance, it was just kind of like… whatever. Um, so the first was, uh, I worked in the dungeon, which is the RPG department. And, uh, every once in a while we’d have this thing called “girls only dungeon party”, um, where the idea is that you could be there if you were a girl or if you were not a girl and you agreed to like, have your nails painted and like, put on like, a little bit of make up maybe wear like, an article of clothing that you normally wouldn’t wear. Um, and so it was like, I was like, yeah, well I don’t want to leave the dungeon so I’ll… I’ll subject myself to this. So I just had like my nails painted. Um… maybe a few other things and… definitely got out of that space and back into the world and a few of my like bunk mates or something, were like, “what…what are you doing?” (Cass and Cassandra sigh exasperatedly) 

Great (said sarcastically) 

“Why… Why are you not performing masculinity right now?” 

“We expect to be performing masculinity” 

Yeah. Um, yeah, this was like 2010 or 11. So it’s quite some time ago that like… I was really doing that a lot. Um, and then we also have this thing called Mister and Miss ILC– ILC is the name of the camp.  Where, uh, it would sort of be like this… like a pageant show where they would get four male counselors to dress up as various like women, like celebrities and counselors and… ideas and whatever. Um, and four women to dress up as male counselors, same thing. And then, you know, they kind of like do a little cheer dance, whatever… You do like some stuff. I’m trying to remember. There was like… I did it twice. Um, yes. So the first time, uh, I…I did this with my friend Chris who was like shorter than me, like very skinny, long hair. Um, and they got him to play wonder woman and you know, like the daily show. We both… we both shaved our legs, you know, like you had to like commit to the bit. Um like, one of the older girl’s bunks, uh, got us like dressed up. Um, and I was supposed to be Marilyn Monroe, which I was very, excited about, they had selected that for me in advance, but the dress did not fit. And so they sort of like rushed to make something happen and I ended up being made into the Chiquita banana girl. Which like… was basically just like a kind of like… fabric Poncho type thing with like some bananas thing off the strings. I shaved my legs and there was a little bit of makeup. Um… it was a lot. Uh, I… I remember feeling very disappointed that I could not perform the femininity that they wanted me to perform because of my body. 

Um, and then the next time that I did, uh, like a year or two later, um, I was Mother Earth. So again, this kind of like matronly like… maternal figure. Um, basically just had like green and blue clothing and my friend, like, painted like… the earth on my belly. And it was fun, you know, like I had a good time, but it also, that was like the… the, like the height of sort of like the intersection of like… my issues with my body. Um, and, like presentation before I even really knew that that was sort of what was going on. 

So, you know, I think there was this feeling from some of those early experiences that performing femininity was not an option. That even if it was something I wanted to do and I didn’t think I wanted to, that I was just doomed to kind of… be the schlubby man for my entire life. You know, like every once in a while I could clean up in a Tux, but like that would be like the extent of like my performing a gender. 

And then sort of during the more recent like actual gender identity changing step, um, you know, really started with like… sort of on a whim, decided not to cut my hair. Getting some makeup, uh, realizing, “oh hey, you can like… use a hair tie to like manage your hair if you don’t like it to out all the time”. Like small things like that. There were sort of like, “oh, there are like things you can do to like care about your appearance and they don’t need to be like these… these like super crazy things. You just need to like, think about what you want to have done and like do it and like talk to people who… who are good resources and have them help you and they’ll be happy to help you because they care about you and they want you to feel good”. Um, I think it was… it was definitely sort of like, uh, like the first time wearing even like lipstick out in public or like painted nails, it was like a big deal. I was like, “everyone is going to stare at me and they’re going to stare me into the ground. Like… they’re going to… to through their… like judgment show me why I cannot do these things, why cannot perform these things in this way”. You know, as with anything you do at a few more times, that gets easier. 

Um, one day I was walking around in target cause I had a few hours to kill. I ended up in the clearance women’s section, found a dress I liked… found a few dresses… kind of like hemmed and hawed, like went back and forth for like an hour between like there and somewhere else. Eventually it was like, all right, look, I’m just going to try it on these fucking dresses. I tried it on one… it didn’t feel perfect, but it felt good and I was like, “okay, I’m just going to ride this feeling. I’m going to purchase this, it’s like 12 bucks”. Um, uh… you know, like each… sort of new article of clothing feels like a new kind of… rebellion. Um, maybe that’s a little too dramatic. It feels like… another reaffirmation of like, “oh no, these are… this is clothing that you could wear. Like you just need to find things that fit you well and like, that’s not going to be impossible. Um, and… you need to kind of like, this is not all going to happen at one time. You need to make these steps happen on your own”. 

I remember even as early in this gender transition as the word “demiguy”, I was on tumblr, going through the demiguy tags and I saw a lot of… y’know, thin, white, androgynous uh… people in like… crop top, jean shorts, like who else care, y’know… the rest is sort of… like whatever, that was sort of the look, right? Like the androgynous, thin little midriff. Um… and… uh… I think that’s sort of been like… a sort of blessing and a curse because it’s felt like… I want to get to a place where… like that is an outfit I want to wear. And I want to get to a place where I feel like… good and in the right… in the right mind and body to just rock that outfit but… it’s also not something that was really designed for me. Um… and… y’know, even if I feel good in it, the rest of the world may not respond to such. Yeah. 

Last thing, I guess is (insert name of mutual friend) helping me get a bra. Um, and… uh, the whole process was a lot less stressful than I thought it was because… I thought it would be because people who were there were very professional and nice and just wanted to make me feel good in my body. Um, and… 

Now you, too can be attacked by the underwire 

Exactly (both laugh). Like it’s felt… it’s felt so nice to just like have them like dig into my sides every once in a while (Cassandra laughs). Like, you know…

You’re like, “ah yes, this struggle. I understand it”. 

Yes. Like, I… you know, I mean I intend to go on hormones, so, uh, you know, the bad joke, which is also just the kind of big ass mood of like, I wanted a big titty goth girlfriend, but I couldn’t get one. So I decided to become one instead (Cassandra laughs). 

Excellent

Right? Like, I mean, it’s the mood. Um, so I still only have one because I don’t want to have to like… get a bunch and then grow out of them. Um, but it’s… it’s nice to have to wear on like dates and sometimes to work or just on outings to just give me like an extra… little reinforcement of what I want to be performing, you know, sort of like that’s another prop in the… in the performance arsenal. 

So… I guess a lot of this has been about like… performing femmeness so that… that kind of takes us into the next question, which is like, what does your femmeness mean to you and how do you define it? Which I do think is the hardest question on here to answer. 

Take a minute to think about that. 

That’s okay. 

I mean, I think at first it was really just about sort of like… I don’t even… I don’t even know which came first. Like, I… I don’t think it was like, oh, like I want to wear dresses and makeup. It was like, “oh, like I want to perform femmeness because there’s like aspects of it that, um, resonate with me and like… the… the look that goes along with that will help that and is something that is appealing to me”. Um, but I don’t think it started as like, “ooh, like, I would look good in this dress”. 

Um, I think for me femmeness is a lot about… a certain kind of openness and… reception to the world and to people in general, um, that I sort of didn’t feel access to when I wasn’t trying to actively employ it. Um, so like… I mean in the example of like… like sex, it… for me being femme, this is like probably not the greatest thing, but that like, not… not saying that like… not being feminine is about no consent, but like, femme is about like being like… incredibly like open and communicative in like what you want and like making sure that um, you and your partner, um, feel… like a level of like comfort with the situation. Like I feel like I’m… I always want to make people feel like comfortable and at home and not just in like sex, just like in any situation. Um… 

So maybe like… emotional labor but in kind of a positive way? 

Yeah. Like…it’s about like what… what… taking what’s like already good in the world and finding ways to like make it shine even more. Like to find… to find the beauty in things that sometimes it can be hard to find the beauty in. And that’s a very abstract answer, but… 

But it’s a hard question. 

Yeah. 

Um… is there… anything specific beyond what we’ve talked about with femmeness or mental illness that you feel like you’ve struggled with the most? (Long pause)

I think taking… my identity in its various forms into like, a workplace was very difficult. Working at the MSI now, like I interact with a lot of people on a day to day basis and whenever I see someone who like is visibly queeer, um, like I always make an effort to try and like be especially open to them, be like, hey, like come here and engage with me. Like I’m wearing, they/them pronoun buttons. Like let’s just acknowledge each other for a minute and like, just… just like live in that. Um, and I definitely have people can come up with new like, “Ooh, like I love your pins”. Somebody today as they were walking through ticketing was like, “your makeup is on fleek”. And I was like, all right, random teenager. (Cassandra laughs)

Um… of course being in like a guest service, um, situation also opens you to the other side of people making critiques of you for just existing. Um, yesterday I had someone who sort of like looked at me very inquisitively, you know, like probably a kid in their like early tens, um, but not very young, who at first was like, “is that a wig?” It was in a bun. And I was like, “no, this was my hair”. And then he was like, “you’re wearing lipstick”. And I was like, “yes, I am”. And then he was like, “are you a man or lady?” And I was like, “yes”. (Both laugh). Um, to which he was like, “oh, so you’re a man lady”. And then he kind of left (both laugh).  I was like, well, if he had another like… 10 minutes to have this conversation, we can sort some things out but he was already gone.  

Bye small child 

Yeah. And so it’s like a lot of like… opportunities to… to get like a micro judged to whole lot, you know, you can see like the looks of some people or they like ask about my pronoun buttons and then I’ll be like, yeah, like my pronouns are they and them, you know, and people sort of like disengage. They’re like, “I don’t want to deal with this. Like I’m not ready to receive this. This person is delusional. I don’t know what they’re thinking”. Um… uh, and most of my coworkers have been pretty good and reaffirming, um, it’s nice to be in a space where I feel… you know, I’m… I’m planning on taking like my physical and social transitions to the next level in the coming months. And so I feel like I’m in a place that is a sort of good launchpad for that. Um, because having to… transition in a workplace that wasn’t as receptive to that would be a lot less fun. Um, trying to think if there’s anything else. 

What about on the mental illness side? Also would you prefer that I… that I use, she or they pronouns in this interview because like there’ll be like… I might transcribe like, (Cass laughs), if I ever… if it ever comes up that I refer to you in the third person without using your name, would you prefer she or they? 

Yes. Can you use a mix of the two?

Yeah I can 

Thank you. I saw that on like a pamphlet or something once with someone, like using, like, both she and they because they’re both their pronouns and I was like, “oh wow, you can actually just do that in the wild”. Um, so yeah. Um… 

I’m just mentally combining the… the… the words in my head and I was like, “shea”, that’s like… my gender is shea butter (both laugh) 

I think one thing that’s been interesting in sort of like the various ways that I tried to like put on femme personas, is that like all of them are kind of like… translated through things that… in one way or another I feel like I didn’t have access to before. Um, so like, you know, like over the past few months, I’ve made a concerted effort to, pardon the word, like “slut it up”. Um, it has felt like something that… not that I needed to do, but that… it’s sort of like helpful to like my growth as… as a person. Because, you know, I felt so unable to like… approach people before, just sort of like getting out there and I’m trying to like make myself available and open to people. It’s just kind of a new way of dealing with the world. Um, I think it’s also been good for like… dealing with parts with my mental illness because, um, when you’re kind of just throwing yourself out there so much, it like takes the edge off of any one particular kind of thing. It’s… it’s… it’s more just kinda like this flurry of things. Um, and just like staying in motion in general, um, has been a thing that has helped me with my mental illness, especially since it manifests… it manifests usually in the form of like getting still. Like being sedentary. Can’t think of anything else right now. 

That’s okay. Um, do you feel like your femmeness and your mental illness have interacted? 

Yes. 

How so? 

Um, I mean some of the ways that we’ve talked about already. Uh, like, uh, you know, self perception, uh, you know, mental illness takes a big hit on… on how you see yourself and how you perceive others to see you. And there’s felt like a part of femmeness that like… like “if… if I’m going to be femme, I need to like, do it right”. And… and so there’s kind of this worry that like, “I can’t be femme until I’ve done x, y, and z”. Um, and that I can’t interact with the world in that way until I’ve done those things. So it’s definitely a sort of like another layer on the kind of just like, “you can’t do this” um… 

Kinda like gate keeping? 

Yeah. Like gate keeping myself. Um, I think there’s also the aspect of it that’s like… that, like the femmeness can actually like fight back against part of the mental illness. Um, sort of, as I mentioned was sort of like, just keeping myself in motion, like, being… being femme and like performing femininity has… given me new ways in which to stay in motion. Um, both in terms of sort of physical upkeep in the way that I interact with people. Various things like that that just change other aspects of how I’m moving around the world. So they definitely, you know, feed and fight off each other. 

Yeah. Um, are there any other factors or identities whether it’s like…. being Jewish or being queer… like being an academic (both laugh), um, if you identify yourself as such, like any of these identities interacted with femmeness or mental illness in anyway? I’m just going to rattle off your identities (Cassandra laughs) 

Yeah. In terms of like… being like in an academic circle, I think there’s definitely the sort of idea that like, one, everyone suffers and suffering is kind of natural and expected and maybe even good. Um, and two, that it’s kind of a time when you are expected to investigate your identity and that it will often be considered a phase. Um, that’s sort of like a fleeting thing that comes with like kind of the “fun” of college. So there was a lot of ways in which you need to like… fight back against the… the sort of like gut reactions to… to sort of like what tropes tell you about how you should be existing in the world. I think being like, a recent college Grad in the space of Hyde Park and UChicago as a whole has been really interesting because I’ve sort of… gotten to see from an outsider’s view, but with a certain kind of insider’s knowledge, how… um, those forces are affecting my friends’ life and the responsibilities they see themselves having and you know, the way even that they like date each other. It’s been interesting to kind of just like, be able to be someone who, like people have come to talk to about those things because I have a sort of like outsiders perspective on it, but also still have some of those of my own experiences fresh in that kind of way. 

Um, in terms of being Jewish, uh, I mean, that’s such a weird one, right? I could write many essays on this. Um, because uh, like… Judaism at least for me is all about like… sort of not taking things for granted. It’s about like… questioning even the fundamental tenants of what your religion is based on and having that be okay. Um, my father even as sort of like a religious figure  has always been sort of like, “it’s important to keep on questioning these things. I don’t take the Torah as a literal thing, as with anyone who wrote anything over the years, it’s all about allegory and metaphor and trying to take life lessons out of it without having to prescribe to every letter of the Bible”. 

Like, you know, my, my direct descendants were, uh, victims of the (unclear word) or they fled the (unclear). Uh… um, and, uh, especially, you know, like it’s… it’s not like violence against Jews has stopped happening. Uh, Jews are in a sort of interesting minority situation in that… whereas most sort of minorities are… you know, the… the… the impression is that, you know, they’re sort of like lesser, there’s like something very sinister about the ways that Jews are viewed. Cause just like, oh, you know, like they’re controlling everything from… it makes it hard even in like leftist circles to like interact with… with Judaism in a good faith way. Especially with like the complications of like… the fact that there are literal nazis walking around right now and, uh… Israel and the way that Republicans use Israel and all sorts of different things. Um, like if anyone asks me about my opinion on Israel, I sort just like, nope the fuck out of there. 

Damn, I’ll have to scratch that question out (said jokingly)

Yeah (Cass laughs). Uh… um, I think particularly for like the way I interact with my… synagogue, it’s been weird to like, go back and present femme because, you know, like I’m the Cantor’s son, there’s like certain expectations for me. And so it’s been sort of hard to… come back into that space. I don’t feel at home in it and the way that I used to. But uh… and so my other times in like synagogues I also felt that same thing, like, because it’s so connected to sort of like… my identity as like… my father’s child and… specifically sort of like a Cohen, the son of a Cohen, which comes with its own things. Um, it’s… it’s just like a very gendered space in the way that like, I dunno, like a performance can be gendered. And so I’m still kind of working on… how I can engage with Judaism in a good faith way, on my own terms that also allows me to not have to feel like I have to stifle part of myself to do it. Which has been a…journey. 

So it’s kind of like the… the pros of having this community that’s constantly questioning and that’s probably like, been maybe helpful from what I’m hearing, but also like that it’s not always the most welcoming space for your identity?

Yeah. Like, it sort of like… comes with like this idea that like questioning things is good, but maybe when it comes to… to practice, it’s like, “oh, but not, not like that”. Um, one of the things that sort of just came… came up in my thinking about this is, you know, like, uh, I… I sang for, for most my life, and yet I still, I am not currently in a choir, but I do still sing. And… that’s a very gendered space. Um, you know, uh, especially if it’s like, oh, like tuxes for the boys, black dresses for the girls. I just remember more and more as like my gender was starting to come apart at the seams, um, just like… every time I had to like put on a tux for a performance and I felt like the light like beating down on me, um, or… every time that my choir director would be like, “all right, men sing this part now”. There was a… a feeling that like I… no longer quite fit into that space at the same angle. Not that there was no place for me in that space, but just that it would be something that I would need to reevaluate. 

Um, so…this is two part question. Um, how has being femme affected your experiences with intimacy, whether that be platonic or romantic or emotional or physical or sexual, like any… any of the intimacies and how has mental illness, so you can take those one at a time? 

Yeah, I mean I think one of the ways that I realized, oh, like um, like maybe like… I know I like women but maybe I’m gay was like, just like going on tumblr and like… I originally got on Tumblr to like follow Magic the gathering blogs (Cassandra laughs). And then like a lot of those Magic the gathering blogs were very gay and just because Tumblr’s very gay. Um, and so like I incidentally started seeing lots of sort of like lesbian feelings. I was like, “oh (Cass laughs), like this resonates with me so much more than like… anything I’ve ever seen before. And like, I’m not a lesbian, right? That can’t be right, right?” It can. And it is. 

Um, I think that my… um, experience… like interacting with other like… queer non men in particular has been… very solid in that like, we’re all just working from like a shared language that feels so much more comfortable and, um, intimate off the bat. Like… I bared my soul to random internet strangers that I’ve matched with on a dating site like minutes before. Um, and they’ve done the same for me. Um, and… you know, even without sort of any intention to like, meet up or interact with each other again, there’s just like… this is very freeing feeling of being able to sort of like, put as much of your authentic self as you can out there. Not feeling like you have to like hide anything in or like be playing a game. It’s just sorta like, let’s just like… revel in the gay. And I mean particularly like, it took me a long time to sort of like… get to a place where I was comfortable, you know, like switching my gender on dating apps, um, and then like putting more femme pictures on those dating apps and, uh, just like kind of… being unapologetically in that space, even as sort of like cisnormative as they can be. 

Um, but… I have found other people there who are either in the same boat or willing to receive me like… in good faith. Like, you know, I haven’t really experienced any like transphobia from… from women on dating apps (Cass laughs). Um, just feels like a whole bunch of people trying to figure a lot of shit out and we’re okay feeling vulnerable in that and sharing that with each other. Um, and that’s been… really nice. 

And as I sort of alluded to earlier with like, sex…. the first time I had sex in a while it was just like, such a like sort of like…”alright,  I’m going to do this thing next. Is this okay?” kind of experience that like… we were both like laughing about how much… how like gay the experience was. Um, it’s like we’re being so goddamn gay about this, like… like… like intimacy feels a lot more like play than it used to. 

It’s nice 

It’s really nice. Um, it’s something that I would like to continue, which thankfully it has. 

Are there any things that you feel like, uh… you didn’t get chance to talk about in any of the questions or you want to elaborate more on?  

Um, I guess sort of… sort of on… on the subject of like dating and relationships. One thing that like was very difficult for me when I was still sort of rooted in my birth gender was, like… the idea of like… the structure of monogamy. Like, uh, I think I was just so insecure about oh, like, you know, if I find one person who likes me, that’s already such an incredible feat that I like needed to do everything in my power to like keep that solid. Um… and… taking the opportunity to be open with a lot of people and… share myself in various ways, um, has… made that sort of like, come crashing to the ground. It was like, what? It’s… it’s… it’s weird. It’s sort of like hard for me to think about how I even used to think that way. Right? Like it’s just so like… not… not that monogamy is like inherently bad, but just like… it’s just not for me. Um, and like feeling good about that. Just like wanting to spread love as far as possible. Um, you know, I talked earlier about how to think being femme is about… sort of like… finding beauty in… in places where one might otherwise not,  I think this is sort of along the same lines that just like… you can’t like put a stopper on like, love and emotions. Uh, you need to just let them… you need to give them the space that they want. Which I think is also definitely related to my mental illness. You need to… you need to give it space. You need to account for it. You need to, like, make it feel comfortable in… you need to give it a house to live in so that you can just get on with your fucking life, you know? Because if you like… bottle it up in there with you, it‘s just going to wither you away. Um, and that same way, I think it’s important to.. project that love. 

Makes sense 

Yeah 

Um… so yeah. So it’s very important that these are a little bit more, veering towards conversations than, uh, interviews. So just… are there any questions you have for me, whether it’s about this process or the project, um, you have made yourself vulnerable to me so are there any questions you want to turn around on me? Um, and hear my answer? 

Um, Well, I’d love to hear if you have any in the moment reflections on anything that I’ve said so far. 

Like specifically responding to like… reflections on things that you have said? 

Yeah. Yeah. Or like, or…or that this conversation has brought up. I’m curious to see like what your big takeaways are. I mean, cause you know me fairly well. So I imagine that like… not a lot of this was, if not like new information, like it couldn’t have be surprising. Right? 

Yeah 

Um, so what did this like, format bring out for you? 

Um…I think something… that kind of sparked a moment of recognition in me was when you were talking about femmeness… being kind of like… finding beautiful things in the world and kind of polishing that… is that when I was a lot younger, um, and by which I mean like middle of high school, um…

Ages away (Cassandra laughs)

Ages away! Um, I was very strictly nonmonogamous… which part of that I think was like commitment issues (Cassandra laughs). Um, y’know. But… but another thing was that I… I had like a very strong belief, like, everyone has beautiful things about them. Like just, I really believed in the beauty in other people and that’s something that’s… faded a little bit for me. But I think kind of you… well actually no, I… I think there’s a more violent verb that I could… I could use there that would probably be more accurate than “faded”. But I think you saying that kind of brought that up and reminded me of that. 

Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think that’s interesting. Like… I sort of had like, you know, I’ve had models for… for femininity to like, craft things out of, but part of this has been things that I need to come up with as I go  along, you know? And so… there are… there are… there are ways in which sort of coming into this later in life has given me a chance to sort of bury some of my shit and my masculinity and like, kind of throw away the key (Cassandra laughs) and like have a bit of a new lease on this. Um, y’know a lot… a lot of the… a lot of the people I know who have been femmes for longer than me I think would express a similar sentiment that sort of like, there’s a lot of beauty in the world, but like… it’s covered in a lot of other stuff. And, um, I’m just now beginning to see some of that for the first time. And so I’m sure that eventually it’ll… it’ll get covered up in… in… in shit and whatever. 

But, um, you’re being allowed to see it 

yeah, I have this… I had this part of the process that I get through experiences as, um, an older person and just, it’s just, you know, it’s not a better or worse experience, it’s just different. But yeah, that was… that was really helpful to talk about. Um, and it was not something that I really like conceived until we talked about it, but it feels right. 

It also got me thinking about like… where… how do we differentiate like emotional care and emotional labor, which I think probably has to do partially with like… well, I… I would want to say mutuality, but it’s not like it’s a transactional experience. 

Right. 

So I’m trying to parse through like… like I would know it if I experienced it. Um, but I think like… what you were saying kind of brought up that question for me. I don’t know if you have any thoughts on that. 

Yeah. I mean, I… I feel like… definitely the way that the people have like put things on me has changed over the course of the past year especially. I think to some of my friends, uh, I’ve become this sort of like… nonthreatening, genderless vessel for them to put things into. (Cassandra makes a sound of displeasure) Which is not great. There… there are definitely ways in which… sort of… making yourself more open to the world, uh, will… uh, the world will give you some things that you don’t necessarily feel like it’s… it’s your…. your job or your responsibility to deal with. But I know that’s also stuff that I dealt with before, yeah. 

I think one thing I’ve had trouble with this is sort of like a larger thing is just like… there is… there is a trans narrative that is like, “oh, like I’m… I’m a woman. I was born in a man’s body. I’ve always wanted to be a woman, always known I was a woman. Now I’m just making my outside match my inside”. And that is a narrative that is true for some people. I’m not trying to discount that, but it definitely wasn’t true for me. I… I… there’s, there’s no version of my narrative where I say, I’ve always been a woman or not a man. Like I was born a man and I was like, okay, I like took the stick and I ran with it for a while. Like it was just… it was what I was given. Um, there was no real questioning yet, but it was something that I lived for a long time and you know, so I… I can’t just like go back through my life and like… put this like feminizing narrative onto all of it because that’s not the world that I was living in at the time. It’s the lens that I have now, but it would be dishonest to entirely discard those parts of my life because they shaped me as much as any. And so, you know, I… I’m sort of always wary about like, oh, am I just thinking about this emotional labor now? Because like, now I’m in a position where like, that’s a gendered thing for me to like be on guard for. Um, or… or is it really that things will change? 

It’ll be interesting to see like, as you go forth, how… whether you’ll come to any conclusions, whether you’ll notice any shifts. 

Yeah.