Trans and gender nonconforming people have always existed.

That is a reminder at the heart of a Locavebanon's work, and not only that, but gender.

Our ideas of it and how we define it, they're fluid.

And depending on where you are in the world,

you might have a very different experience of gender. There are places outside the U.S.

and even in the U.S., where gender nonconforming people are formally recognized parts of society.

I say that because the future that Alok is working for, for all of us,

it's in our grasp. It's not as far away or foreign as people think. Now, I originally

got to speak to Alok about a year ago when their book Beyond the Gender Binary came out,

and it's always been one of my favorite interviews, so I wanted to replay today for you

while I'm on a small break. Next week, we will be back with a brand new interview, so until then,

please enjoy this dip into the LGBT Q&A archive with Alok Vade Manon.

You know, reading your book, Beyond the Gender Binary, as well as your poetry book,

Fem and Public, it brought up a lot of stuff for me.

And I think it all goes back to that big question that you write.

What feminine part of yourself did you have to kill in order to survive in the world?

And I want to start by turning that question on you. Was there one big moment when you decided that

you would no longer kill to use your words, the feminine part of yourself? Actually, yeah.

You know, most times when people ask me questions like that, I'm like, it's nuanced, it's complicated. There were multiple moments, but this question is one of the few in the world where there was like a defining moment. I believe it was in 2014 and I hooked up with an ex-partner, which is always a bad idea. And on the other side, he was like, you're just using they-them pronouns to be political,

but you're not actually trans, right?

And I just remember feeling so deeply violated because what occurred to me is that the only ways that I had been loved

required my disappearance and misrecognition.

...