SOPHIE: Capturing the Oil of Every Nonbinary & Trans folks/x' Un-Insides

The Extended Cut

Trigger warnings: body dysmorphia, gender dysmorphia, insinuating event of sexual assault

Original art before edits. Drawn in Procreate on the iPad.

Track 1: It’s Okay to Cry

We¹ are not met with vulnerability. In a climate of capitalism, our parents didn’t (and don’t) have the capacity to nurture us outside of our immediate needs. We were clothed, fed, and sheltered, and hardened in different ways to ease the responsibilities in the home. These children were parentified² and learned immediately that crying did not receive comfort, but rather punishment. An aversion away from gentleness and softness was negatively reinforced in an attempt to protect us from the “real world.” 

It was here, a lonely thirteen-year-old, sat cocooned in a room of purple, in front of her hand-me-down laptop scrolling through Tumblr. It was here that this young person found language to the myriad of their identity: questioning then queer then bisexual; girl and fem and nonbinary. It is to this person SOPHIE beckons, calling them to the surface (before they knew they were they).

Not even a minute into the OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES first song, “It’s Okay To Cry,” SOPHIE tells me, this thirteen-year-old girl: don’t take this the wrong way; I think your inside is your best side. 

And the thirteen-year-old girl who is now in their twenties cries and cries and cries.

Track 2: Ponyboy

The nonbinary experience is a varied, expansive one. The environment and decisions made around each of us carves the path toward the declaration of our selves. For me, this turmoil was masked by bravado. Those who know me now would find high school me completely unrecognizable. Ponyboy, the speaker and protagonist of the novel, The Outsiders, is our parallel. Where he and we are sensitive and resilient, we are also naïve. We create a façade of loudness and banging. But underlying is always a note of confusion, of uncertainty. We enter relationships with our false confidence. This is where a wavering sense of self intersects with assault. This is the start of our scars. Almost ten years removed from these incidents still incites the sour of fear. The last fourteen seconds are a shrill silence.

Track 3: Faceshopping

Halloween meant opportunity. Here, I could explore without invoking too many questions. My face is the real shop front. I draw on my face. The face I deem too round, too soft, too feminine. With eye black, I un-become. I wear my dad’s hoodie and basketball shorts. That year, he also bought me Nike high tops. I hide my butt-length hair in a bun under my hood. I keep my eyes down. “Oh my god, look at her! She really looks like a boy!” “Huh, I wouldn’t have known?” This is still not the truth. But the climax of the song is angelic: “Do you feel what I feel? Do you see what I see?” I am the artist and this is the first stroke of revealing my un-insides. This is the first taste of euphoria. 

(Replay) Track 3: Faceshopping

In retrospect, we pinpoint events formative to our self.

Here, my brother and I are sitting at the kitchen table. He’s watching a Minecraft video on YouTube while I doodle in my diary. We are held by the warmth of the orange light and walls.

I didn’t know it yet, but I was exploring gender. My sagittarius moon, then and now, a shield of laughter and bravery. My brother and I are in conversation, but here, he calls me Kuya by my request. He is thinking of my new name.

”How about Kuya SuperLaWolverManHulk³?”

And we burst into laughter.

I loved it.