Got my hair cut. Short. Shaved sides. Even got my eyebrows did.
Ghurl, my shit is looking correct.
I scraped my pennies together and indulged in some self-care. Hit up mi hombre, Hermán, at the barber shop in the Heights near my girl’s crib, and got a cut.
Ever since my best homegirl passed away, getting a haircut has been this saving grace, one I dive into whenever my reservoir of sanity is running low. A little shave, a little buzz, the hum of Dominican Spanish, the sound of men treating each other with compassion, all of this is calming to me.
Breathe in, hair fucked up. spiraling, twisting, out of shape. Breathe out. All my lines are sharp. Skin smooth.
Baby-faced boi looking good.
Tip him well. I tell Hermán in my broken Spanish ‘until next time, papito’.
Fresh to death, walk the block, feeling myself.
And all of a sudden, men on the street notice me.
Men on the street have been such a constant source of conversation and discomfort for so many of my sisters and brothers and weirdos in the struggle.
Videos being passed around all day on all the feeds.
Look at these fucken guys. They can’t keep their mouths shut. Predators. Rapists. Women deserve to be left alone. Women are people not objects to be groped, shouted at, mistreated. But look at how these men are all black and brown. But what about the white guys? What about them? No one’s making videos about how Wall Street fucks us all over every day.
I am a feminist. I listen to what women say. I listen to queers. I listen to kids and people and humans and if someone says that something hurts them or doesn’t feel good or is fucking assault then I listen. We need to listen.
We need to stop the bullshit.
There is something about street harassment and something about the way men speak and spit game that unravels us.
That’s me summarizing all the points. my feelings fall somewhere in between.
This how my brothers are taught to speak to women, to each other. Mad loud on the block.
what up, my N?
yo shawtay, what’s good?
you lookin’ good mami.
oye primo, que lo que?
oye oye oye
whatever bitch.
yo, son, keep walking for I cut you.
but baby girl, i just wanted to say hello. have a beautiful morning.
Stop talking to us. It’s not talk. It’s a threat disguised by a good morning.
Fuck your good morning, dude.
Should they stop talking to us? Not sure how i feel about that.
It might feel different if we weren’t made to feel like we’re always on display.
Feast your eyes on this, gentlemen! Girls! Girls! Girls! Real women XXXX. Look at how she walks to work! Sex. All the sex. Say hello, say good morning, maybe sex. On display. Walking down the street. No one just says hello anymore.
But being on display is interesting, and after a shape-up, I’m on display.
Who are these men noticing me? Who are these men giving me the long, soft stare, eyes holding mine like they got something for me, something they can’t talk about, something only eyes can pass along.
Who are these men whispering ‘hi, papi’ to me?
I don’t think I look more male today than I did yesterday.
Being cruised by men feels different than being hollered at by men.
I don’t know if the difference is mine or theirs or if this is the difference created by fluids mixing in the air.
But it is different.
Being cruised is being let in on a secret. Being hollered at is an act of dominance. These are my distinctions.
Being cruised is what happens when heterosexism is pushed aside for a minute. It’s what would happen, I imagine, if none of our interests —sexual, spiritual, emotional — were shackled to any sort of expectations. In a world where no one expects anyone else to be straight, people could reach out to whoever they wanted to or not.
Now as far as eye contact or verbal contact goes, for me, I’m not bothered by it, not when it’s a cruise. I’m flattered, first. Part of me wonders if they think I’m a pretty boy, especially when they call me ‘papi’. I don’t want to be a man but I’m very comfortable with my masculinity. My masculinity is intertwined with my femininity.
This gender expression of mine is a balancing act between them both and I feel fine.
But somehow, the idea that they might think I’m a boy excites me. It makes the exchange even more illicit. Like, yes homo, all the way homo, you think I’m a dude and you want some and it’s a cruise because you’re quiet and possibly nervous and I wish we lived in a world where you didn’t have to be nervous, homie.
And some days, I hope they know that I’m a flyboi, queer dyke brown badass. I hope they’re besides themselves over being attracted to a masculine woman. I hope they’re having their first gay moment with my tits and my shape up. And I hope it feels good.
It is all illicit but I’m a willing participant. I’m unafraid of being cruised.
I am fortunate so far. None of these men have ever touched my body. None of them have ever spat out threats against my person if I don’t continue eye-contact or follow them when they beckon me to a corner.
Mostly these are moments in passing.
She keeps on passing me by.
Or maybe this human, cruising me, is as queer as I am. Maybe they’ve recognized me as one of their own. Maybe i’m stuck in my own world, presuming gender and intent, forgetting how hard we cruise for each other.
I do this. I seek other queers in the world. Walking down on the block, riding the A train, at the supermarket, wherever I step, I’m looking. Queer is sexy, desirable, community, worth taking a pause in my step. Beyond gender, beyond assumed sexualities, being to being.
It’s a thing that happens but no one talks about it. No one talks about the ways in which men respond to masculine women. That is, unless the conversation revolves around acts of aggression or shame, or assault in which the man is attacking a dyke because she looks like a dyke.
That is the only conversation.
It’s an important conversation but there is more. There is always so much more.
I wish I could stop these men on the street, after the looks and the whispers, and ask them what they’re thinking.
If i cared more, I’d ask them how they see me.
As my haircut grows in, the cruising happens less and less. I’m ok with that too.
My signifiers become more dyke than boi, more girl than in between, still so very homo.
Maybe no one is looking for me.
A cruise is just a cruise.
I keep my eyes open.
I keep looking for my own.
It’s a strange strange thing. I’m ok with this strange world.
Some days.
Haircut days.
That Hermán even does eyebrows.
