You don't need me to find a topless woman for you...
My roommates and I moved a fridge last night and felt very proud of ourselves. Our landlords were getting rid of their fridge and gave it to us (since it wasn’t really very old), but only had the moving guys bring it up to our sunroom. So one door-removed-from-the-hinges-to-fit-the-fringe-through-later, we have a shiny, huge new fridge. That isn’t really relevant to this post, other than I’m excited about it and the fridge-moving immediately preceded a conversation I had with my two roommates about being topless.
Our apartment has central heat and air, but we try not to overly rely on them in the interests of keeping our energy costs low. So there’s usually a few weeks of the summer where, with fans on and windows open, the apartment is livable, even though it gets pretty hot when you try to go to sleep. We had one of those evenings a few weeks ago (yes, in Chicago it can go from being almost 90 to barely 50 in the span of a week) and I ended up sleeping topless. Which made me come to the conclusion that I should be allowed to be topless in my own apartment.
I am not a stranger to discussing and thinking about toplessness, but this is the first time I have made a concrete decision about a specific space in my life where I think I should be allowed to be topless. I actually realized that being topless would make me feel good, both physically and emotionally. (Insert comments about exhibitionism here, if you must.) I’d talked with one of my roommates about this that very hot weekend, and she said that she wouldn’t be joining me, but didn’t care if I bared my boobs. Last night, I asked my other roommate if he was OK with me being topless in the apartment
He said ‘no.’
Continue reading 'So you can be topless but I can’t?'»
Just like this. Except I wasn't vacuuming. Or in a dress. Or in heels. Really, nothing like this at all.
My room opens out to the apartment dining room. One of my roommates has been working from home lately, and he often sets up his laptop and materials on the dining room table.
This morning, I’ve been in a bit of a rush (though I obviously paused long enough to write this post…) and was trying to pay bills while getting dressed. I had my shorts on, but hadn’t gotten around to putting on a shirt or bra, when I realized I needed the tape dispenser from the other room.
You can probably see where this is going.
Forgetting I was topless, I boldly opened my door to my roommate working. At which point I remembered I was topless, helpfully squeaked, “I have no top on!” and retreated to my room.
I’m the classiest.
Pretend you can see my dad!
My father marched at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. He went to Washington to see Dr. King speak. His work as a defense attorney has helped demonstrate the unjustness of the death penalty and his was one of the cases referenced by Gov. Ryan when he issued a moratorium against capital punishment. In my mind, I still sometimes imagine my dad like I did when I was ten: the Good Lawyer protecting the innocent from Evil Cops, fighting for Civil Rights and Other Important Issues Warranting Capitalization.
Life rarely that simple. Family certainly isn’t.
There was a slowly dawning sense of discomfort during my teenage years, as I started to notice the times my dad would talk about clients he knew were guilty but would receive reduced sentences based on police misconduct. Now, to be perfectly clear, I think police misconduct is almost always a greater societal problem than the guilty person getting a break. Better ten guilty men go free, and all that. I still believe my dad is one of the Good Guys, and that even the guiltiest among us deserves fair and competent counsel. But my dad is also a more nuanced and complicated individual than I as able to acknowledge as a child.
Still, I sometimes expect him to see all civil rights and justice issues the way I do. Which made speaking with him tonight something like banging my head against a wall. The discussion began, as so many do, with talk of breasts.
Continue reading 'Banging my head against a wall'»
One of the questions I’m sometimes asked is whether or not there’s anything I regret about transitioning. Generally I either say “Nope!” or comment on how I missed the testosterone-fueled muscles I had pre-hormones, but not much else.
As summer approaches – and Chicago experiences an unseasonable streak of 70+ degree weather in early April – it made me realize I do miss one other thing: going topless.
Continue reading 'Topless while trans'»
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