Humiliated in Mexico
We returned to the gay club where Katia and I saw a male stripper two nights earlier. We are trying, I think, to recreate our experience of seeing a fully nude man gyrate onstage for the first time, watching his semi-erect cock bounce on beat to the pop music like one of those solar-powered cat figurines whose arm swings up and down as a greeting. But two drag queens are performing when we arrive. Katia points out a man sitting at a table in the corner who they think is attractive. I purse my lips and shake my head. But then he stands up and I realize he is tall, at least 6’3”. Ugliness in a tall man is so much more forgivable.
Katia talks to him, He said he’s not gay. He’s just here with his gay friends. Does that mean he would or wouldn’t fuck me? He tries to include me in the conversation but it doesn’t go anywhere, mostly because I can’t understand him over the music and try to use the simplest vocabulary possible. It is simpler to say nothing, I decide, ashamed by my inability to communicate and my total reliance on Katia as a translator. But the shame passes; I can rarely understand people over the music in Chicago clubs where most people speak the same language as me.
He is trying to hit on you, Katia insists, He wouldn’t make the effort to talk to you otherwise. But I am distracted by his friend, a short femme with a cropped bob—an obvious fag hag—grinding on a taller man while facing me and smiling mischievously. She says something to me in Spanish. I smile and shake my head as she inches her ass closer to my groin. I avoid catching her eye as she climbs into the lap of another man and downs a shot offered to her by one of the drag queens, but I continue to watch her. She reminds me of a cat in heat, slinking around the room and rubbing herself on whatever pound of flesh is closest. Is she a lesbian? I wonder. Same question: Is she trying to fuck me?
Earlier that afternoon, a man approached me on the beach. I was alone. Katia was taking a Zoom call from their apartment. I was wearing a bikini top and an old Tuckituppp thong. I had never worn this thong in public and regretted the decision the second I took off my skirt and stretched out on my towel, paranoid that my tuck was slipping, the faint bulge of my pitiful, squashed genitals and unshaved stubble like a billboard announcing, Look, a tranny! I laid and read my copy of Inferno and kept one of my knees lifted and angled it inward so that it would cast a shadow across my groin. Occasionally, I alternated knees or rolled onto my stomach. I saw him out of the corner of his eye. His dog, a small black lab, ran circles around me, kicking sand onto my towel and into my face. He apologized. I smiled and flapped my hand to indicate I’m fine.
Her name is Celia Cruz, he explained.
Celia Cruz looked disinterested. And fat. I suspected he somehow trained her to interrupt lonely women at the beach to give him an opening to introduce himself. He sat beside me and told me I am beautiful. He described a novel he has been dreaming about writing for two decades after I confess I am a writer. He invited me to swim with him in the Gulf. I declined, worried he would notice my bulge and become violent. But I watched him swim back and forth. He gave me his WhatsApp number and told me to visit his cafe later. Obviously, he wants to fuck me.
Later, Katia translates a message for me and I send it to him. The gist: BTW, I don’t know if you knew, I’m trans. He is surprised. He could be faking to win my affection. But I am satisfied, opting for a happier conclusion that I am marginally less clocky after two rounds of FFS. But I also feel somewhat humiliated, aware that passing creates a new predicament. Misrecognition. The gap between my perceived and embodied gender. Am I finally a trap?
In Humiliation, Wayne Koestenbaum describes a parallel experience when a salesperson mistakes him for a girl during a date in eighth grade: “It was humiliating to be mistaken for a girl—not because ‘girl’ was a shameful identity, but because it didn’t belong to me. I was supposed to be something else, and it—my identity—was supposed to be obvious at first sight.” Girlhood doesn’t belong entirely to me. I’ve always been a bit of a klepto. My identity is often opaque and uncertain, even to myself.
I am trying not to think about my transsexualism so often. Such a hard ask of myself. But this is a special occasion. It is my first time in Mexico (barring a brief excursion to Cancun as a kid during the one and only cruise trip my family ever took) and my first time abroad since I started transitioning. I am relearning my relationship to the world, to other people. I am excited by this prospect—being freshly marked by a language I am unfamiliar with. Mexico isn’t like the US. Duh. My transsexualism is so blatantly obvious in the States. Here, I stand out for different reasons: I am a gringo; I am 6’1”; and I dress eccentrically (even though I tried to pack my least attention seeking outfits.)
I smile at his message, I just saw a beautiful woman. Men proposition Katia and I to buy tours for local cenotes, Chicas, please. Comical, confusing interactions because they affirm me and misgender my friend, both of us feeling suspicious about the interaction; like that time a man called Liv and I dykes at the intersection of Milwaukee and Kimball. Or the woman who sold us chocolate balls garnished with coconut shavings on the beach. Thank you, chicas. These encounters leave me gleaming even if I recognize there is an economic relationship underlying them. Whatever. I have succeeded.
On the last day, Katia walks me to the train station. It is 85 degrees. I am sweating in my cropped t-shirt and shorts. My luggage sags like tumors, or wrinkled flesh, around my body. My hair is limp and flat from the humidity. I’m not wearing a bra so my nipples protrude aggressively, like pimples. Two men, obviously tourists, glare at me on the street and one of them says,“That’s a dudeeeeee.” He draws out the last syllable. He is the prettier one between the two with a broad, sculptural nose, like an Eames chair. This makes it sting worse. A helpful notch for my ego, I suppose. Maybe he would fuck me anyway.
Image: Lou Fratino, The Beach at Noli, 2023.
Current obsession: Erika de Casier’s Still. But especially Home Alone and Twice. It’s been a nice ointment for nursing my wounds after a breakup.