Some Assembly Required and Rethinking Normal by Arin Andrews

Author:Arin Andrews
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

3

THE ARIN JIG

I met Arin my senior year of high school at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center—or OKEQ—a center in Tulsa that serves the LGBT and allied community. At that point I had been living as a girl for about two years. I was taking hormones to halt any male puberty and to feminize my features, but I hadn’t yet had my surgery. Even though I passed as a girl, and had for a while, I still experienced severe bouts of gender dysphoria—anxiety over the way I looked and discomfort with my body, especially my penis.

One random Wednesday night I was feeling especially down. In addition to dealing with my body issues, I was also recovering from a recent, painful breakup with my first-ever boyfriend, Hawthorne. I decided to drop in on a weekly teen trans support group at the center. Talking to and learning from other trans people and giving them advice always made me feel better. The article about me in Tulsa World had come out a little less than a year prior, and since then I’d begun giving trans advocacy speeches at high schools and camps and was seen as a role model in the Tulsa queer community.

So I showed up at this meeting, not dressed exquisitely, just jeans and a jacket, no makeup, hair pulled back into a ponytail, and as soon as I walked in, I saw Arin sitting in the group of five or six people. A couple of weeks before that, my mom had been going on and on about this transgender guy she’d seen at the center, and I knew this must be him.

“He is just the most adorable, sexiest trans guy I have ever seen in my entire life,” she had said.

“Okay, Mom. I get it. I just broke up with Hawthorne and am not exactly ready. Thanks, though.”

“No, I don’t think you understand. If I were seventeen again, I would totally go after this guy. He is so cute. He is just—”

“Mom, enough!”

As soon as I walked into the meeting at the center, I was like, Oh my God, that’s totally the guy. Because my mom was right. He was friggin’ adorable. He had tousled brown hair and really soft features, and the way he sat, the way his voice sounded when he spoke, warm and kind—he immediately enticed me. Naturally, I sat as far away from him as I could. I introduced myself to the group and told them a little about my story, but was still feeling pretty down and was quiet for most of the meeting.

Afterward Arin came up to me.

“Hey, Katie? It’s really cool to meet you. I know who you are.”

I had a horrific vision of my mom telling him all about me.

“Um, you do?”

“I read your article in Tulsa World,” he continued.

Right, of course.

“Oh, cool,” I said.

“Cool.” He grinned back.

Just then our moms—who were both over in the Parents of Trans Teens meeting that happened at the same time—came back, and Arin and I said good-bye.

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