Tashi Duncan is an incredible tennis player. She is young, still in high school, but she just keeps winning. Everyone knows that she is going to be one of the best tennis players of all time if she keeps it up, goes to college, and then goes pro. Fellow tennis competitors and best friends Art Donaldson and Patrick Zweig are in awe and completely enamored by Duncan's ability to play. Both of them are jealous of her, but also incredibly attracted to her. A three-way love triangle… a game… a match… who is going to win? Using tennis as an innuendo for love, sex, and passion, Challengers is the hottest movie of the year. Early on in the film, and much to the frustration of Patrick, Art sparks up the courage to talk to Tashi first. Starstruck, he tells Tashi; “You were incredible today. I mean it wasn't even like tennis, it was an entirely different game.” At the end of the day it is, and isn’t, all about the game.
Game. Set. Match. I may not be very good at tennis, but I think I may have won another game: bingo. Are there winners in bingo? Or just those who “get a bingo” before others? Anywho… Bingo is a game where a number is picked at random and if you have said number on your pre-randomized board of numbers then you can mark it off. Once you have a full row complete, you have a bingo.
You might be wondering why on earth I am talking about a game most commonly played in geriatric care facilities when I am only a mere 23 years old…
It is because I have achieved LGBTQ bingo. I have officially lived my life, or identified with in some capacity, as the first five letters of the rainbow alphabet.
Let me catch you up to speed. My gender and sexuality have constantly been in motion. They just seem to keep chugging along and turning over and over with no viewable end in sight. Sure, I can use the umbrella term “queer” for myself in order to encompass how I feel, but I have believed myself to be multiple of these identities since I initially came out at 18 years old.
The year was 2019 and we were still being federally led by a monster. Fortunately, I lived in Washington state at the time and was in a bubble of hippie-dippie, tree-hugging, police-station burning queers (and some non-queers alike). It was pretty evident to me that I was queer once I was an “adult” and was having experiences with dating and relationships. I always leaned towards being attracted to women, but I knew that at the end of the day gender was not consequential to me in who I chose as a partner. 1 square is checked off: Q.
Because of this lack of consideration towards gender, I also considered myself non-binary and bisexual. My own gender was not founded in a binary framework and neither was my sexuality (I know… bisexual implies binary but people say it has evolved). I had a more serious relationship with a woman at the time of my coming out, but once we split I dated and had experiences with men and non-binary people, too. I was living the queer dream. No boxes or categories could hold me back from being expressively and sexually free. Not even the box that I could now check off on my bingo card: B.
It kind of surprises me that non-binary hasn’t been added to the rainbow alphabet yet considering the amount of attention enby people and they/them pronouns have received within the last few years.
Fast forward to the first month of 2021 and I was moving to New York City. I was feeling as fresh a start as ever. I was ready to be queer in the city. One big problem though… bars and restaurants still remained closed due to COVID-19. Because of that, it was difficult to date in the “conventional” sense (go out for food or a drink…), but meeting up in a park with a mask on was still possible. I’m also convinced that New York is the best city to walk around anyways, so that was always an option. Having moved to the city by myself, not knowing a soul, I turned to dating apps to make friends and partners. I went on dates with women, men and non-binary people.
However… *confession time*… part of my New York dream at the time was to have my first boyfriend. There was something about coming to a really queer city and having a really queer experience. I wanted it for myself. However… I was picky with men and I usually found myself disconnected from them. This was mainly in part because of my own gender dysphoria of them wanting me to be a man for them, too. I hadn’t really figured out my own gender yet anyways. I didn’t really want to be two men together, I just wanted to have a boyfriend. Was that too much to ask?
Kissing boys in Washington Square Park with my testosteroned lips, feeling the bristles of both of our facial hairs rubbing against one anothers rough skin was enough for me to feel in touch with being gay in the moment. It didn’t last too long and I never actually ended up having someone to call a boyfriend… but I had a good time while it lasted. Another point: G.
Slowly but surely we are running out of spaces until we can say bingo. Well the most obvious of all the letters can be checked off: T. Yes… I am trans! I may have always been a woman deep down, but I began my transition last year (September 9th to be exact…) and have been on this journey of embodying who I know I am and want to be for almost 10 months now. While being trans is primarily what this blog is about, gender and sexuality evolve and are oftentimes intertwined with one another. I have found that my relationship to sex and intimacy is directly affected by my gender. But everyone’s kind of is though, right?
Yesterday I was on the G train during rush hour and me and two other trans girls all held onto the same pole. There was something powerful about all three of our hands with acrylic nails wrapped around the same one out of all the poles on the train. Sometimes it's small moments like these where I feel connected to my community.
So there’s only one letter before I can claim an LGBTQ bingo and I have another confession to make…
More and more I have been feeling like a lesbian.
Not only am I in a long term relationship with another woman, but oftentimes my attraction in general leans towards other women. Most of my deeper romantic experiences have been with other women, and I always knew that it wasn’t straight (I know… I’m sorry I even said *straight* during Pride month). Now being a woman, feeling the soft touch of both me and my girlfriend's skin against one another feels right. Loving with a deep understanding of what it means to be two women in this world is so comforting. It wraps around us like a blanket made from the softness of our lengthy hair.
We are *finally* living in an era where sapphic pop is getting a significant spotlight. Billie Eilish’s new album couldn’t be more gay… singing “I could eat that girl for lunch”. Chappell Roan comes out with the first line of her most popular song singing
“She did it right there, out on the deck… Put her canine teeth in the side of my neck”
And of course… Towa Bird and Reneé Rapp being iconic and openly lesbian. I truly feel represented and uplifted by these sapphic moments in pop culture and it makes me giddy thinking about the fact that I may have finally figured out my gender and sexuality…
As a trans woman it feels hard to claim being a lesbian, as it has long been gatekept for cis women, but I do genuinely think there has been a shift. While there is undoubtedly, and probably always will be, transphobia in the lesbian and WLW (Women Loving Women in case you didn’t know) community, there is still an increasing sense of inclusivity towards trans women. With the amount of attention that we have received as trans people in recent years (mostly resulting in discriminatory laws limiting our freedom), there seems to have been a radical re-understanding of gender, and therefore sexuality, in some primarily cis spaces. This isn’t to say that all lesbian spaces are primarily cis, but I would guess that the majority are. At the end of the day, if you are a woman who loves women, you can be a lesbian.
I am learning more and more about what it means to be a WLW, and trans, in this world. Some days I feel like dressing more “masc”, but I feel like I am able to do that as a woman. Now that my body is feminine I feel comfortable wearing what used to make me feel dysphoric… jean shorts and a baggy jersey just like the other dykes in Brooklyn. The more I understand about womanhood the more and more I think that I can claim my last bingo spot: L.
No doubt there are many more letters that are a part of the LGBTQ+ (emphasis on the plus) community, but a bingo doesn’t warrant achieving all of them, just a significant amount in a row. I think I’ve done that. Because of that, sometimes I feel like Tashi Duncan. Maybe I am good at LGBTQ bingo… But as Art says; “I mean it wasn't even like tennis, it was an entirely different game.” It’s all about the game but also not at all. Sure, Challengers is all about love and sex between two men and one woman, using tennis as an anchoring symbol, but it is also about the difficulty of relationships, fluidity of friendships and attraction, and lust for the game. My LGBTQ bingo is no different. It is wrapped up into personhood with feelings of love, loss, jealousy, and strength. The game of life and LGBTQ bingo is all an innuendo for something greater; a journey of finding meaning and sense of self in a world that would rather see us not.
The mental image of you and the other women all holding that pole on the G line together... I feel like there is a poem there just asking to be written, something from the pole's perspective, maybe about how all of that power and unity turned it into an anchor, or how the city was orbiting around the three of you in that moment.
And really, I think I might have a couple bingo cards filled by now, too! Which means we're winning. We are definitely winning at this.