Gem McGarvey

GEM MCGARVEY

The year is 2009. Our class is on the run-up to a school play, a silly little kids play called Oink! Our teacher is reading out our roles. A nine-yearold me is excited! Who was I going to be? The cool, badass, big bad wolf? The reserved, yet charming, Postman Pigeon? I can’t wait to find out! The list goes on and on and I’m still waiting… I’m getting bored. The teacher prefaces the next role with a, “No offence to this person” and announces that the role of Bernadette the Bearded Lady was mine. The class instantly finds this hilarious, of course. Who’s ever heard of a bearded lady, right? That’s not right! Right? My character was a one-liner in their fictional ‘freak circus’, literally. I had a single line announcing the character’s name and then I’d sit back down. The whole audience thought this was hilarious. Though I didn’t think much of it as my little nine-year-old self, this wouldn’t be the last time I’d be made to feel like the punchline to a joke.

Danielle Goodland

As most have, I grew up with many standards regarding how a ‘lady’ should look and behave. Facial hair was a gross and crude joke, there were constant jokes at school. In the media, I saw perceptions of hairy women being, for lack of a better word, obscene. I remember my schoolmates making fun of girls with more hair than them, they all talked about shaving their legs at age 11. It was a societal pressure that we didn’t realise had been instilled in us. School was kind of hell in terms of bullying; anything different was hilarious. That’s what we were brought up to think anyway.

Though I wouldn’t get a diagnosis for a few more years, I have polycystic ovarian syndrome, which, in its simplest definition, means that I have more androgen and masculine hormones than the average woman. Through puberty, side effects made my voice seem deeper than many feminine people in my classes, even some guys. I was also pretty fuzzy. I got picked on relentlessly for these traits, getting asked to say things just so others could make fun of the ‘manly’ voice that came out. I was asked repeatedly if I was a dude, some asked sarcastically why I had a moustache. I sometimes felt that every inch of my being was a joke, I was disgusting to others. During those school years, I learned to reject these parts of myself and tried my hardest to ‘fix’ them. Because, of course, who’s ever heard of a bearded lady? People like me, with too much hair, are gross and a joke, right? So college was a bit of a mess.

I wanted nothing but to be unapologetically me

Skipping to my A-Levels, things seemed better. People were adults now, so I didn’t get picked on as much, though younger years still picked on me for my ‘moustache’. Although things still seemed good, internally I struggled so very much with my appearance and feelings about myself and who I am. I felt these feelings especially strongly towards the end of my last year of A-Levels, when prom was coming up. I would have to wear a dress and I desperately didn’t want to. Despite my love for kawaii fashion and cutesy colours, I just realised I felt very uncomfortable wearing dresses. Despite their potential cuteness, I hated how my legs looked in a dress, or how my shoulders are so broad, or how no matter how much I shave I’m still just going to be perceived as a “gross hairy woman”. At least that’s what I feared. I just didn’t see me in the mirror when I was in a dress; I saw an imposter trying to be the feminine princess everyone thought they could be.

I didn’t know how to voice these feelings, and I wrote many memos on my phone just to get the thoughts out there. I was so tired of people trying to compliment me in a dress because I didn’t feel lovely, I felt dumpy, dumb, bad… and I realised how badly I just wanted to be handsome in a suit, sharp, and charismatic. I wanted to be just like the dapper suited men I saw in music videos, be able to own the suave look of the Doctor, to look equally as cool as all the guys in suits going to prom. But, instead, I found myself frustrated and crying to my mum in a fitting room. Nothing fitted right, nothing looked right and everyone was looking at me. I must be selfish to be so picky. I felt awful. I didn’t like how my chest looked, I hated that my legs just didn’t look right, my short haircut clashed so heavily with how I was supposed to look. I looked like I didn’t belong. All I really wanted was to bind, and wear some suit with an obnoxious pattern and a bow tie, to be me, and it felt like I just wouldn’t ever get to do that.

Danielle Goodland

Then it just hit me, like a bus of messy feelings, before the end of that final school term. I just really didn’t feel attached to femininity, and being read as simply “that girl with the purple hair” made me feel super uncomfortable. I didn’t want to be “a sweet pretty girl”, “beautiful young woman” or whatever anymore. I couldn’t even take their compliments seriously after years of being bullied; how can they think I was beautiful in a dress? I’m not even good at being a woman, according to what they said. I wanted to be me, to just be Gem. I wanted nothing but to be unapologetically me. I voiced all these feelings to my closest friend, and that was the first time I had ever really admitted it all out loud. To say out loud all these heavy, complex frustrations felt so scary, yet so freeing, and my heart warmed when they understood and respected all I said. They’ve been nothing but supportive, as my other close pals were when I finally told them also. I’m so lucky to have them by my side. That’s also the first time I started going by they/them pronouns. I never felt more at home.

From that point on, since July 2018, I have started to try and be more me than I ever have been. I started trying to embrace all these masculine traits I was bullied for during my high school years. I dressed how I wanted and was bold and ‘unladylike’ as much as I wished. I took a lot of interest in drag kings, and admired how free and confident they seemed on stage, and became incredibly inspired by the king Adam All. Hearing how they talked about breaking down gender norms and how drag helps them express their own identity, I started wanting to do drag myself and, well, I did! I threw myself into experimenting with different looks and drag personas, and soon came up with my drag persona of Jasper Fae. He’s that dapper-suited, confident and wannabe suave guy I was longing to be and, finally, I was just that! I felt so empowered. I soon found some friends also into drag in their own ways, and it feels so great to be able to just be who I want amongst pals who feel just like me. I can be as masculine as I want, or as feminine as I want, I can be who I am. After years of being made fun of for my apparent masculine traits, as Jasper, I’m now deliberately putting hair onto my face and, instead of being mocked, my friends support me. There is honestly nothing more freeing. My confidence has increased since allowing myself to be freer and, though I do have my self-conscious moments still, they feel more manageable than ever. Being gender non-conforming and a newbie drag king has helped me dismantle all these gender norms that I felt trapped by for so long, and it feels pretty damn fantastic! I’m finally me, fearlessly, totally me. “Who’s ever heard of a bearded lady?” What an outdated joke. People can look and identify however makes them most comfortable, or most themselves. I hope one day everyone can feel this unrestricted in their gender and self. Or more so. I’ve never felt happier in who I am! The future is free.