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Hi, I’m Theo! 👋

As you know, I’ve been on a gender journey, and I have a new name!

Hi! I’m Theo. 👋

Several months ago, I started using the name Theo socially. (It’s always good to test out names with your friends to see how it feels.) I like it a lot, and Theo has stuck.

Going forward, I will use Theo Kane as my full author name. Hence, this site, along with most of my social media, will use it too. Yes, it’s a little honoring of my name origin story.

I’ve wanted to step away from using my overly long last name for my author work to give a bit of distance (though I am very easy to find, damn being an SEO) and because I lose people who spell my last name wrong. I will never forget my mother telling me, as she filled out a check, that for the 25 years we shared my bio father’s last name, she spelled it out every time she used her own name!

Thanks to everyone who’s taken to using my new name already and supported me on this adventure.

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Assigned F(aggot) at Birth

I hold a book "written" by Erica Kane called Having It All.
Erica Kane truly had it all. Including her own book! Yes, this may be a photoshop of me and the book, but the book is real. All My Children commissioned a marketing promo stunt book by a fictional character.

I arrived nameless as the doctor put a pink bow on my head: a diluted scarlet letter F.

My parents believed with their whole hearts that I’d be a boy. No reason. No shadow penis on an ultrasound. Only faith in my father’s chromosome-carrying sperm.(1)

I imagine, on that snowy evening, when a nurse asked them for my name, they both blinked, and my mother continued watching Remington Steele.

My father abhors being wrong, especially when a woman (girl) tells him so. But perhaps he clocked my birth as a half-win, proof of his virility against his ex-wife’s divorce petition stating his infertility.

Perhaps he considered my moments-old self the test run for his future baby boy. A lady from his Missouri Synod Lutheran Church wrote that exact sentiment in my baby shower card, and I read it 35+ years later.(2)

This left naming me up to my mother.(3)

Names are powerful. They speak to destiny. Continue reading “Assigned F(aggot) at Birth”

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The Girly Perfection of Flawless Polished Nails

Greco Roman statue that is chipped on the face

How I painted my fingernails like a man

I hated painting my nails. While I zealously painted my toenails for decades, I hated painted fingernails. They always chipped, and I’d pick at the remaining polish and destroy my nails as layers peeled away like onion skins. I couldn’t stop myself from picking them apart.

Until my late 20s, I was too poor and cheap to get professional manicures. But even when I did (not often), I’d dread the walk over to the neat little racks showing off what brands and colors the salon offered to pick mine.

My nails have always grown quickly and are strong and thick. Every keyboard bares indents from my nails, water carving through stone to form a river over time. While they eventually break, my nails stand against the wear and tear I’ve put them through, like ranching, gardening, and washing dishes. I’ve never had gels or professionally applied length because I could have natural long ones. Mostly, I’d look down at my nails one day, and they’d be very long again. Or I’d break an index fingernail, and suddenly keyboarding was catawampus. Or a cis woman would notice my hands, exclaim at how very long my nails were, and share how disappointingly brittle hers are.

But polish? Every chip made me feel like a failure. Like a little bomb telling me I did something wrong. I just had them done; they should be flawless like a woman in an advertisement with her flowing hair, lush makeup, and buttery hands with flawless nails.

Intellectually, I know no one’s nails are flawless, even if fresh from a manicure.

Every little chip felt like another flake of failure at being feminine, at being a woman. Continue reading “The Girly Perfection of Flawless Polished Nails”

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Sprinkles Around the Web: April 15th Edition

Sprinkles from around the web

I decided to add “equality” given that I do read a lot of articles with intersectionality that cover stopping a lot of -isms, and they are all equally important. As always, these are links that I found interesting and you might too.

Me

Books Nominated for 2013 Hugo Awards!
Woohoo! Chicks Unravel Time & Chicks Dig Comics were nominated for The Hugo Awards. Big congratulations to the editors, all the other writers, and everyone else involved in the production and love of these books. 🙂

Cute Animals

Black and White Friendship Story of a 4-Year-old Girl and Her Cat
Yep, pretty sure I was exactly like this with my cat as a child.

Entrepreneurship

The Skills Most Entrepreneurs Lack
Very interesting.

Equality

Donglegate: Why the Tech Community Hates Feminists
One of the best articles I’ve read about the larger messages and lessons from Donglegate.

How to talk about a woman’s looks
Yep, even President Obama messed this one up.

To my daughter (should I have one)
A lovely thought from my friend Susie. Continue reading “Sprinkles Around the Web: April 15th Edition”

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My Birthday Bash Day 7: Hair Monster

For complete context about why I’m not having a birthday party for my 27th birthday this year and how you can still celebrate with me, read You’re Invited to My 27th Birthday Bash.

Erica with a shaved head
This was about 1 week after I shaved my head. From my family Christmas photos.

When I was 16-years-old, I shaved my hair down to a quarter of an inch and bleached it. I’d skipped out on school to visit my friend Justin, who’d run away from home. While talking with Justin and his friend Michael, the two flamboyantly gay boys convinced me that I needed to cut my waist-long hair off. Michael kept telling me that I was hiding my beautiful face from the world with the unruly rat’s nest I combed maybe once a week. For a moment, I was a gorgeous woman surrounded by my stylists.

I followed Michael up to his bathroom and braided my hair. Then we cut it off. Justin was laughing the whole time. Michael did the cutting and brought out the shears. When it was all done, I was disappointed. Disappointed because my hair naturally lightens in the sun and near my scalp, my hair was dark. So we solved that with bleach. They both pronounced me as fabulous as Annie Lennox.

Moral of the story: boosting my self-esteem in a non-sexual way is the best way to convince me to do about anything.

When I got back to school, for creative writing club, my friends thought my hair was great. My mother, however, did not. Continue reading “My Birthday Bash Day 7: Hair Monster”