Cologne: or how your choice of gift can give a gender-diverse person gender euphoria

For now, I’ll just go on pretending that the perfume is aftershave, keep patting it into my skin the way they do in commercials

BY FAY BARRETT, IMAGE BY LUMIN VIA UNSPLASH

I’m crying. Over perfume. Cologne, to be precise. Men’s cologne. Not because it smells bad and is assaulting my nostrils. Far from it. Dolce & Gabana’s The One is a beautiful, light fragrance. I’m crying because my Mum made the conscious choice to buy it for me.

She could have chosen from an endless array of women’s perfume, but she chose men’s.

Back in the day, when I was femme presenting & masquerading as a straight girl, I’d have been gifted Angel, Chanel, or a Beyonce scent. All gorgeous. All lovely. All feminine.

We’ve been on a journey around my gender identity, and we’re still on it. I’m not open with my immediate family about my non-binary/trans masc. status. We haven’t had the talk.

And perhaps if people looked, truly and honestly, at the person in front of them, perhaps we wouldn’t need to.

We’ve had difficulties around my choice of men’s clothing, hard words over my cropped hair and buzzed sides. The last two years particularly have seen us clash over boxers, whether what I’m wearing is a shirt or a blouse, and how my long blonde locks were preferred over my Tintin quiff.

I’ve felt trapped and frustrated, locked within myself, aware that the real me is screaming to get out, has always been screaming to get out.

And now here’s my lovely Mum, coming back from her cruise, presenting me with something that, not only smells great and is a lovely gift, but says: “I see you”.

“It’s from the section you buy them from”, was all she said. No more words needed. No explanations. Just acceptance.

The release flooded inside me like a warm bath. I’m seen. I’m known. I’m loved. A world of possibility opened, a world in which maybe I can talk about being enby (non-binary) or trans masc., where I don’t have to justify my masculinised fashion choices, or defend my right to the (oh so personal, and oh so private) choice of boxers over briefs.

Maybe, just maybe I can open up about the Holy Grail: top surgery. That I think about it everyday. Even though I’m not sure it’s something I will do, it now feels like a tangible possibility.

And, for the first time, it feels like that could be met with understanding instead of fear. That any tears cried are for the joy of me fully realising myself, not because people are devastated by my choice. That small gift of cologne has given me hope. In my mind’s eye, I see myself recovering from top surgery, surrounded by loving family. I can see myself running down the beach topless on holidays, wearing a tux at my wedding (need to find a girlfriend first) and having my beautiful trans mascness (that’s clearly been there since birth) held up, accepted and loved fully into existence.

Later:

I google Dolce & Gabana, The One, while writing this piece, and am mortified to see I was wrong. There’s a men’s cologne and a women’s perfume. Guess which one I have? Yup. I’m crushed. I want to cry because I’m back where I was, unseen and lost, misgendered and feminised. Those little words, “it’s from the section you buy them from” are the only things giving me life. A thin whisper of hope, like smoke, rises inside. Maybe, just maybe she thought she was buying me men’s cologne?

Really what we need is to talk. Cards on the table. Me saying, “this is me”. But instead, I’ll push it back down to the ‘dark place’ where it’s always been. Although, now I know it’s not a ‘dark place’. It’s the part of me that’s full of light, the part that’s most authentic and alive.

I know I need to address this, my gender identity. But I don’t feel strong enough for that today. For now, I’ll just go on pretending that the perfume is aftershave, keep patting it into my skin the way they do in commercials.