Ale:
Why don’t we start by you telling me how you heard about the project and what made you want to participate?
Zad:
I saw the application for it on Instagram. Lexi, my partner, and I have been talking about wanting to have babies for a while, so it felt like a cute lineup of events. I was also interested in being able to put my thoughts into words. That’s really what caught my eye. This felt like it lined up in terms of talking about having kids.
Ale:
Tell me a little bit more about you and Lexi talking about having kids.
Zad:
I think when I met her, I felt a kind of alignment that I had never felt before. Most importantly, I never felt like I could be genuinely one hundred percent myself with any of my previous partners; I wasn’t even being myself with myself either, to be very honest. From the get-go, we made this commitment that we wanted to be really honest with each other and it clicked for me that this was a person who I could be myself with and that would bring us closer together. Three months after we met, we went to Ecuador together.
Ale:
How did you guys meet?
Zad:
We met at the gay bar Pieces in the West Village, and a friend introduced us. We weren’t even thinking that it would be romantic or anything and at first, she thought I was a little bit too familiar with my approach, but in the end, we ended up talking for three hours straight and getting into very deep conversations. It was just very impactful because it was also the day I found out when I was going to get top surgery, it was the same day as my consultation and I was just fascinated by her. I didn’t even think about the romantic or sexual aspects of things, but I knew I wanted to get to know this girl better because it was the first time I felt so comfortable with somebody. That’s the whole thing, she made me feel comfortable to be myself, like she’s my best friend, and she allowed me to break away from a lot of my toxic masculinity and she still holds me accountable to it.
Ale:
So you guys were friends first before it became romantic?
Zad:
I would say the tension was always there, but I was really in denial. But from the first or second day we met, Lexi told me ‘I would like to date you’ and I think by our second date she asked me if she could kiss me. I said no and honestly, I had never said no to anybody, so I feel like that was the first step of honesty. I waited until I genuinely wanted to move things further with her and not in a way that was me holding back, but in a way that allowed me to have my senses guide me. I had the space to ask myself if I was saying yes because I didn’t want to disappoint somebody, which in a lot of cases I would have done before, but in this case, it was like, I’m not feeling it just yet. Also, at the time, I was dating somebody else and I wanted to check in with them before I did that.
Ale:
You mentioned this was the first time that you felt truly comfortable with somebody.
Zad:
Well, it’s my first time dating a Black trans femme; it’s my first time dating a trans person, it’s my first time dating a Black person. We come from very different backgrounds, but there are a lot of things that I don’t have to put energy into explaining that are at the core of my lived experience. For example, explaining to a cis partner what it’s like to be trans or explaining to a white partner how it is to navigate the United States and the whole world as a Black person. Add to that what it is to experience the world as a Black person of African descent who never lived in Africa.
It’s hard to explain what it is like to have the sense of never belonging in any place. For example, if I go to Europe, people tell me to go back to my country. If I go to Africa, people treat me like I’m European, and if I’m in America, I’m still a foreigner. Lexi travels a lot, so she kind of understands that feeling of not belonging. I can’t speak for her about whether she feels like she belongs or not, but she saw me in a way that other people didn’t see me. In a big part, it was also me; I was not showing who I was, maybe because I didn’t know who I was or because I was used to lying as a defense mechanism. I would think, if I lie, I don’t have to be vulnerable.
“I come from a very punitive background and as I got older, it never felt safe to say the truth and I wasn’t showing up authentically or I wasn’t allowing myself to see myself authentically either. It was like a ball, inside another ball, a Matryoshka.”
Ale:
I know the feeling very well. Not being from the States and migrating here when I was an older child, I feel like I’m a perpetual foreigner wherever I go.
Zad:
I was raised in Portugal with mostly a Catholic family, and Catholicism carries a lot of guilt, it’s a religion that thrives in guilt and shame. I come from a small town where you’d have to go to confession every week on a Wednesday, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to do communion when you went to church on Thursday or the weekend.
Ale:
I’m Colombian, I’m very familiar with Catholic guilt haha
Zad:
And what they don’t tell you is that most people lie in confession haha. I was very openly queer growing up but once the church found out about my queerness, I was pushed away from it. So I think a lot about this shame and how even though the church put it there, I carried it for a long time.
Ale:
We’re conditioned into shame by the church. It’s such a learned behavior and so hard to deconstruct. We just take off with it and apply it to everything we do for the rest of our lives very subconsciously.
Zad:
Yes. It’s an avalanche and it’s not to justify my lying as a pattern, but in order to never deal with the shame, or so I never had to talk about it very deeply, I just made up a lot of lies. The first couple of times in my younger years, I didn’t even realize it, but when I got caught I would get hit or get the belt, so in order to not get the belt I would lie even more. I come from a very punitive background and as I got older, it never felt safe to say the truth and I wasn’t showing up authentically or I wasn’t allowing myself to see myself authentically either. It was like a ball, inside another ball, a Matryoshka [nesting dolls]. As I kept thinking about what I wanted my legacy to be in this world, I found an opportunity to reframe myself, but reframing it’s hard work.
Ale:
But things changed with your relationship with Lexi?
Zad:
Yes. I think it was a matter of timing and experiencing loving this Black trans femme specifically that made a difference. Even though we’re part of a group, we come with different baggage and specific traits that are unique to us. I’m at a place where I’m mature enough to love her authentically, and that also lines up with her being open enough to love me authentically. I think I was very lucky that we were in alignment.
Ale:
Since we’re talking about being mature enough to love someone authentically, you mentioned that you got on birth control when you started dating Lexi.
Zad:
Yes. I wanted to experience intimacy with my partner without worrying about condoms and at the time, we were just having sex with each other. I felt safe doing it and even though I do want to have kids, I want it to be an intentional choice when we’re ready and I didn’t feel like I had to choose between one or the other. I wanted to be able to connect with my partner without having to worry about unexpected outcomes.
Ale:
How do you think you and Lexi will go about having children when you’re ready?
Zad:
I feel like even if we adopt, that would be great because I just want to build a family with her. We went from being best friends, to being partners, and now I want to experience parenthood with her. It’s not about having a relationship elevator, but about our next adventure together. I think about how she’s my favorite person in the world, and I know this sounds crazy, but I think she’s so cool and creative and how much she loves learning that I’m just curious about how little Lexis would be. I think about how interesting and funny the intersection of the two of us would be because I was a terrible child haha.
Also, our kids might be entirely different from us and I’m totally cool about figuring that out with her. I’m not thinking about our kids as being our legacy or the reason of why we’re having them. They’re gonna be their own person, a whole different human, and we’re going to be really intentional about our kids not feeling like it’s their responsibility to carry our name forward or whatever family pressure kids are typically presented with, but obviously I’ll be the one getting pregnant.
Ale:
How does the thought of pregnancy land with you? How do you think it would feel in your body?
“I noticed that as I go through my transition, it’s less about being super manly and more about knowing that I don’t have to prove my gender, I get to play around with the expressions that make me feel more like me.”
Zad:
I have no idea. We’re both going to have to stop hormones for a while. For me, it’s going to be at least six months before pregnancy and during the time of pregnancy, so I don’t know how I’ll feel, but I’m not afraid to find out and I know we’ll support each other through it. I think it’s one of those things that we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
Being in a relationship and in community with Lexi has allowed me to really question the sides of masculinity that serve me and the ones that felt like I was trying to prove something. I noticed that as I go through my transition, it’s less about being super manly and more about knowing that I don’t have to prove my gender, I get to play around with the expressions that make me feel more like me.
Ale:
That’s the thing with transitioning, you almost feel like the pressure to be super masculine is lifted from you.
Zad:
Before transitioning, when I was a lesbian, I would try to be hyper masculine and I would be ashamed of exploring with my femininity, which we all have in different percentages. Some people are really connected to that duality and the two coexisting [masculinity and femininity]. And I wasn’t, but when I met Lexi I got to be more zesty and to play around with gender roles. Sometimes she’s baby girl, and sometimes I’m baby girl, and from the first time we met she told me how she likes when I embody both and I never had a woman said that to me before. It made me feel really safe and really vast, and being able to express and explore my gender in different ways makes me feel comfortable with not knowing how I will feel just yet if I’m ever pregnant, but confident that when I find out, we’re going to find the skills and the ways to navigate that together, and that’s going to bring us closer.
Ale:
That sounds like the perfect dynamic—someone who makes you feel comfortable in your gender and to f**k around with it as much as you want. What’s something you did before Lexi that felt performative to your gender expression or to your sense of masculinity?
Zad:
Before, I felt like I couldn’t be upfront about my excitement when meeting somebody. When someone I liked texted me, I would wait an hour to get back to them so they don’t think I’m too excited to talk to them. With Lexi, eso se borro [that got erased]. We’re both neurodivergent, and I’ve dated so many neurotypical people, I didn’t want to do that anymore. I wanted for us to say things how they are and say things how we mean it because before when I dated white women, they would say things like, “I want you to think about what you did that made me mad,” and I wouldn’t know what I was apologizing for and my apology would become a performance.
Ale:
I’ve been there, when you’re only apologizing because the other person wants you to, not because you know what you need to apologize for.
Zad:
Exactly, the people-pleasing of it all. Now, I try to be more intentional and ask “what am I apologizing for?”, but it also helps that we try to take away the guesswork of what happens. We talk about everything, which I didn’t do before and there were topics in my relationships that were taboo.
Ale:
What kind of topics?
Zad:
I’ve always had a really strong libido and for someone who is AFAB, Black, and from a predominantly white Catholic country, you’re not expected to enjoy sex. So I blamed and was disgusted with myself for enjoying and wanting sex. I had previous partners who even though we were super close, I couldn’t be best friends with someone who made me feel like I was walking on eggshells regarding certain topics. With Lexi, we just talk about it and I stopped having to perform and letting topics be taboo. Now, I’m an open book with my family. My mom knows I do Go-go [dancing] and my grandma knows I strip and that I’m trans and queer.
Ale:
Want to tell me more about your family and your relationship with them.
Zad:
Women have a very important place in my life and my family is very matriarchal. I remember when I first told my grandmother I was queer, she woke up in the middle of the night and said “Hey, I want to talk to you about this, because your life is going to be hard.” In 2019, when I first came out as trans, she again woke up in the middle of the night and she wanted to have a conversation. She told me “I just want you to know, no matter how hard your life gets, I’m on your team,” and that was the biggest demonstration of love that I could have asked for from my grandmother. She also helped me talk with my grandpa and she always corrected him with my pronouns, that way she became such a big part of my transition.
When I think about the kind of elder I look up to, I think of her. I don’t think of a man or any specific masculine figure. Instead, I’m thinking about the people that are examples of what love actually looks like, which is standing up late at night and talking to their grandkids and figuring out what’s going on in their minds. I also started having a really close relationship with my mom when I started telling her the truth and when I told her about my transition. I have incredible women by my side, and the only reason I was able to be close to them is because I started being real with them, because I stopped pretending or masking.
Ale:
Would you say you learned how to be a man, whatever that means, from the women in your life?
“I noticed that my toxic masculinity doesn’t get much better when I’m just with dudes. Instead, I heal it by having a really solid community of Black trans femmes who not only hold me accountable but also give me space to explore and play with whoever I want to be.”
Zad:
Absolutely. My father wasn’t there, and is still not present. My mom went with me to change my name in Portugal, she lent me money for the lawyer, and she was with me in every single appointment. Even if she didn’t agree with it or understood it, she still wanted to help me. So it’s a love that goes beyond possessiveness, and it’s the kind of love I aim for. How do we love from a place of removing ourselves and leaving our egos behind in the moments where it’s especially hard to do? The women in my life have shown me how to love in a way that none of the men have, which to me connects to toxic masculinity. The way I have healed my own toxic masculinity is through my femininity and through the women around me. I noticed that my toxic masculinity doesn’t get much better when I’m just with dudes. Instead, I heal it by having a really solid community of Black trans femmes who not only hold me accountable but also give me space to explore and play with whoever I want to be. My friends are like my siblings, we look after each other and check in when something is not feeling good in a way that liberates us from toxicity.
Ale:
It’s really sad when men feel like that sense of play and feminine masculinity is something they don’t have access to.
Zad:
Yeah, and it’s both trans men and cis men. Some men would say things like “I can’t talk about this with my mom,” but what they don’t realize is that they could try, that their mom has had examples of masculinity because they’ve been at the receiving end of masculinity all their lives. I think we’re never going to find the perfect person to have a conversation about stuff that is so personal, but when it comes to masculinity, women could bring a fresh perspective.
Ale:
Yeah, it’s just about taking the leap to start a conversation.
Zad:
With just having a conversation, you create access. It’s not insurance or rules of transportation, or things that are inaccessible to us haha. A conversation is accessible to everybody. That’s also something I learned from Lexi. She’s really good at wanting to get to know people. When she wants to meet someone, she will check in and be so intentional about spending quality time with them. I used to be ashamed. I used to think I couldn’t fully be me with new people but she pushed me to just be myself and I’ve been able to nurture deeper relationships because of that.
Ale:
Yeah. Most of us just want human connection, despite of who we are. I often wonder what happens to people who don’t feel like they can access community or who stop themselves from connecting and creating their own network of care.
Zad:
It’s something that has to come from within. If you don’t feel it, you can’t force it. If I’m not feeling like I’m up to creating community, what’s stopping me? Is it because I’m not being truly me in certain spaces? And if I’m not being me, what am I hiding from? What am I afraid the outcome would be if I am myself? Will people not like me? If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll discover there might be something you don’t feel comfortable with people knowing yet, which is totally fair. Although I’m noticing that while we need each other as a community and for collective liberation, we’re coming at it thinking what we can get out of it. We’re approaching it from a place of extraction.
Ale:
When you approach connection from an extractive mindset, people will immediately feel that and it’s going to dictate the dynamic in a way that ultimately won’t feel genuine, or reciprocal, or balanced.
Zad:
For sure. And I noticed that a lot of women, but specifically trans femmes, have a very expensive way that they do gender. When I’m lucky enough to be in spaces where the dolls are having conversations, I hear them constantly talking about how we can make things better for the community. I hear them say “how can we make community gardens? How do we create community networks to make sure people get food?” The way I’ve experienced masculinity even in my own body is asking “what can I get out of this? How can I fill in my time with other people or things so I don’t have to be confronted with the reality of asking myself what can I share or give?” The comparison of being in very intimate spaces with the girls has really opened my mind.
Ale:
You said something very key. That feeling of extraction a lot of the times comes with masculinity. Do you think that’s always the case?
Zad:
I don’t want to generalize and say that’s everyone’s masculinity, but in my experience of it that has been the case. Have you ever been on Grindr?
Ale:
Haha, yes I have.
Zad:
In ninety or eighty percent of the times, does it feel like the person at the other end wants to get to know you, or does it feel like they want to get something out of you? When you first meet up with somebody from the app, their first move is [Zad puts a hand on Ale’s knee] haha. It’s very different, gay sex has shown me that I’ve never had non-transactional gay sex, even with other trans men. The most interesting sex I’ve had has been with women, it’s always about, “how can we both enjoy this? How can we both have a lot of pleasure together?” There’s a lot of questions asked. At times, it feels like the social interactions are very similar to the sexual interactions.
Ale:
It’s crazy how gender dictates so much of what we do and how we move through the world.
Zad:
I have great guys in my life, and I love them, but it’s a different mentality. I’ve learned how to notice when I operate from a place that doesn’t serve me, but it’s hard. I was partially raised by my uncle and he was very straight edge and kept track of everything I did. There’s a lot of things I know how to do because of the way he raised me, but a lot of his mindset was very much “you didn’t do that, you can’t do this,” when in reality I could do both.
Ale:
Sounds very binary. Like, instead of operating from a place of abundance, it operates from a place that’s punitive.
Zad:
Yes! Very scarcity mindset, very either/or. I appreciate him so much, but I do feel like a lot of my limiting thoughts come from thinking like him. So I’m just noticing the ways that different genders operate, and the neural pathways and thought processes that are created because of that. I feel incredibly lucky to be really close to a lot of femmes, and to be really close to my mother, in the same way that I get to be very close to a lot of my friends. That approach helps me love and look at the world more expansively. I want to love Lexi, my fiancée, the mother of my children, for the rest of my life, and maybe in other lifetimes, but in order to do that, I need to be able to change myself and mold so I can receive her when she tells me things just as they are.
