my name is max Becker and I’m the gender
non-binary champion and I haven’t needed
to sit beyond the boundary of gender for
as long as I can remember for as long as
long before I knew the word gender
non-binary for sure and that’s given me
a lot of time to try and subsequently in
1976 Adrienne Rich wrote the line
no one has imagined us she was speaking
at the time to lesbian visibility that
through a heterosexual lens lesbian
queerness remains on the outskirts of
our own imagination I like this one so
much that I had it tattooed on my left
arm below of anatomical heart in my
sleep they just spoke to me so how I
talked about my gender how I felt about
my sexuality just how I felt about
myself in general so I’d like to take
you along on a journey through a history
of my gender expression starting in
childhood now before I start I want you
to know that I’ll only be talking about
my gender identity today which is the
personal sense of one owns gender now
this pen or cannot correlate to the sex
you were assigned at Birth and when I
say sex assigned at birth think genitals
also gender identity you don’t have to
be LGBT it’s you can feel it odds with
your gender identity
now I don’t know why in the way but
there’s some theories of course nature
will tell you that an influx of male or
female hormones estrogen or testosterone
in utero can affect the way if someone’s
gender identity turns out sounds like a
way to blame moms he asked me now I was
assigned female at birth which came to
relief to my mother because she had just
had three sons in a row the last one
came in in almost eleven pounds how she
had a fourth child I’ll never know
joke was still um her but she had it on
now nature will tell you because I grew
up with those three boys I just picked
up the way they are well a lot of people
have brothers
I can see holes in both theories I also
don’t care most kids figure out their
gender around three or four now I have
both masculine and feminine attributes
will be masculine first I loved my
brothers and I looked up to them
especially the one closest to my age
Trevor we did everything together
we bathed together we played sports
together
basketball football full-contact
baseball WWF wrestling it’s called WWF
back in the day full-contact ha we
played video games when he’d let me and
we were just very aggressive and
competitive with each other just like
you think to steroids with the golden
boys but I was also very feminine I was
emotional I cried a lot I was very
sensitive
I loved my mommy and I love today
now you think I would being taken aback
by those about renounce its that I had
to wear but it turns out I like drag but
I was still at odds with my body and how
I felt inside as you can see I’m the
only ones hopless and listen gaggle of
kids and when I had to start wearing a
shirt I was really mad at my brothers
didn’t have to and as far as I could see
couldn’t be the trevor anymore probably
and basically I just didn’t consistently
did not fit in and I couldn’t stand for
my friend Brandon’s house that’s right I
couldn’t stay away from Brandon’s house
cuz he was a boy and I was a girl that
logic was afoul suits me and of course I
couldn’t join Boy Scouts which still
bothers me I had this many Girl Scouts
which involve cookies in sewing neither
of which I had any interest do you know
what happens next
yeah she gets real puberty everyone’s
face likes it with that so if you really
happen on his face with a very
biological reality when I got my period
I was so traumatized and in denial of
this I hid it from everyone I knew for a
year for a whole year not normal as it
turns out well I had to wear a training
bra I would feel physically ill my body
was changing and I couldn’t trust it
anymore but I grew up in the 90s
baggy pants flannels everything
horrendous hair I could at least hide my
changing body underneath some of these
big baggy clothes I still did boy things
I still did girl things but you know
what happens next high school sink or
swim time I tried to date boys long to
try to fit in because I’m also running
now I came out when I was 15 without
therapists without a support group
without the internet without LGBT
positive role models in my life and
without my consent because I was outed
publicly by adults in my high school and
the trauma that that cost cemented my
desire to be a mentor to be a teacher to
be a professor what it almost killed me
I did survive high school because I knew
something better was coming and I also
survived high school by a couple of good
friends of mine feet straight female
friends who said we’ll get you through
we’ll teach you how to do some makeup
we’ll fix your hair we’ll put you in
that weight down but if you’ve ever seen
someone’s human cells going farther to
the right from a male body but their arm
x3 okay
so I went to an all women’s college yeah
it was like I was a liberal bubble and I
finally could be who I was I started
exclusively dating or exclusively
wearing men’s clothing listening to
masculine albeit sensitive emo music
indefinitely in my own version of math
are toxic masculinity if we’re going to
be honest I was dating in an exclusive
butch femme binary clearly I was boy but
it was at wells College that a women’s
studies professor of course did a
spontaneous Q&A session with a
transgender guy whoa whoa this was the
first time in the flesh side exits from
the transgender person so who was this
unicorn in front of me how dare she
I was fascinated in and I was appalled
complete abject moment he was tall
slender a dragoness physique idiot big
beautiful feminine eyes only slightly
changing and medical transition but I
was only in my 20s early 20s to be fair
my frontal lobe patentees it was hard
enough to be a butch lesbian I couldn’t
be that great so I’d file that one away
for later and I just went full steam
ahead into the 20s out of that liberal
bubble of wells College I was still
trying to fit in them real bad I just
wanted to be liked for instance I
actually once while I was in my mid-20s
let my sister-in-law dress me up like it
how many was her wedding but come on I
was looking for proper acceptable which
lesbian archetype to reach so naturally
change from the hour it’s uncanny
was that tanishka then came grad school
haha grad school I was finally being
pushed into my queer scholarship further
and that was affecting how I felt about
my personal self like good academics
Duke I realized that lesbian wasn’t
gonna fit for me anymore because it
denotes female gender identity so I
started using the word queer queer was
kind of an umbrella term for me that
covered anything that was not normative
anything that was not normative not
straight and like only a grad student
can do I declared gender is over with
the black and white short film where I
actually took my brother’s body and
would put it over my own bodies create a
lot of visual confusion and then I met
after grad school and I remember when
she was living in Boston and I was
trying to convince her to move back to
Rochester to eat me I would write long
emails to her and sometimes if I felt
worried I would sign it max she never
questioned this
she’s never judged me she’s always
accepted who I was and that’s why we’ve
been together ten years now well when I
turned 30 I got that community that I
was looking for I became a slam poet and
I finally got to surround myself with
artists performers and people again
folks who were accepting me for who I
was in 2012 I did lamda which is a queer
only writers retreat in Los Angeles and
now I had friends who were just like me
performers who were just like me and I
went in his max and I never came back
and the two women that I’m flanking to
my right have a lot to do with that
they’re still good friends and then I
became a professor and this morning this
is where things come full circle for me
because I could finally be the mentor
and the teacher and the professor that I
didn’t have and honestly this Fox the
trans city’s Fox that I taught last
semester the first trend Studies class
at st. John Fisher College and it’s with
it’s with their open hearts that I
finally started living my authentic self
because I was only max the performer max
who will be maximum let me be Max and I
wasn’t joining the two they had to pull
less well how could I be what they
needed me to be if I wasn’t going to be
that authentic self or that so this year
is the first year I’ve been living by
Max full time maxim sara backer board
megan no longer shape so my intention is
to full I can’t go back and tell that
pitch is okay not only are you okay
Peter awesome via caterpillar freakin
butterfly weirdo go get it I can’t do
that but I can sit here on this weird
stage that I’ve been given and do
something I’ve looked for in other
people all my life the validation to
exist today I give myself the validation
to exist as I am and to we are
surrounded with a lot of anti-trans anti
queer hate speech rhetoric proposed
legislation educate yourselves we cannot
let this happen
we cannot if you’re an education or if
you’re a parent or whatever we have to
normalize honor and celebrate full
gender expression especially in hit and
especially within ourselves so if you
found yourself even just a little bit
relating to what I’m saying to you today
because you two have been forced into
congratulations you are humans too [Applause]
non-binary champion and I haven’t needed
to sit beyond the boundary of gender for
as long as I can remember for as long as
long before I knew the word gender
non-binary for sure and that’s given me
a lot of time to try and subsequently in
1976 Adrienne Rich wrote the line
no one has imagined us she was speaking
at the time to lesbian visibility that
through a heterosexual lens lesbian
queerness remains on the outskirts of
our own imagination I like this one so
much that I had it tattooed on my left
arm below of anatomical heart in my
sleep they just spoke to me so how I
talked about my gender how I felt about
my sexuality just how I felt about
myself in general so I’d like to take
you along on a journey through a history
of my gender expression starting in
childhood now before I start I want you
to know that I’ll only be talking about
my gender identity today which is the
personal sense of one owns gender now
this pen or cannot correlate to the sex
you were assigned at Birth and when I
say sex assigned at birth think genitals
also gender identity you don’t have to
be LGBT it’s you can feel it odds with
your gender identity
now I don’t know why in the way but
there’s some theories of course nature
will tell you that an influx of male or
female hormones estrogen or testosterone
in utero can affect the way if someone’s
gender identity turns out sounds like a
way to blame moms he asked me now I was
assigned female at birth which came to
relief to my mother because she had just
had three sons in a row the last one
came in in almost eleven pounds how she
had a fourth child I’ll never know
joke was still um her but she had it on
now nature will tell you because I grew
up with those three boys I just picked
up the way they are well a lot of people
have brothers
I can see holes in both theories I also
don’t care most kids figure out their
gender around three or four now I have
both masculine and feminine attributes
will be masculine first I loved my
brothers and I looked up to them
especially the one closest to my age
Trevor we did everything together
we bathed together we played sports
together
basketball football full-contact
baseball WWF wrestling it’s called WWF
back in the day full-contact ha we
played video games when he’d let me and
we were just very aggressive and
competitive with each other just like
you think to steroids with the golden
boys but I was also very feminine I was
emotional I cried a lot I was very
sensitive
I loved my mommy and I love today
now you think I would being taken aback
by those about renounce its that I had
to wear but it turns out I like drag but
I was still at odds with my body and how
I felt inside as you can see I’m the
only ones hopless and listen gaggle of
kids and when I had to start wearing a
shirt I was really mad at my brothers
didn’t have to and as far as I could see
couldn’t be the trevor anymore probably
and basically I just didn’t consistently
did not fit in and I couldn’t stand for
my friend Brandon’s house that’s right I
couldn’t stay away from Brandon’s house
cuz he was a boy and I was a girl that
logic was afoul suits me and of course I
couldn’t join Boy Scouts which still
bothers me I had this many Girl Scouts
which involve cookies in sewing neither
of which I had any interest do you know
what happens next
yeah she gets real puberty everyone’s
face likes it with that so if you really
happen on his face with a very
biological reality when I got my period
I was so traumatized and in denial of
this I hid it from everyone I knew for a
year for a whole year not normal as it
turns out well I had to wear a training
bra I would feel physically ill my body
was changing and I couldn’t trust it
anymore but I grew up in the 90s
baggy pants flannels everything
horrendous hair I could at least hide my
changing body underneath some of these
big baggy clothes I still did boy things
I still did girl things but you know
what happens next high school sink or
swim time I tried to date boys long to
try to fit in because I’m also running
now I came out when I was 15 without
therapists without a support group
without the internet without LGBT
positive role models in my life and
without my consent because I was outed
publicly by adults in my high school and
the trauma that that cost cemented my
desire to be a mentor to be a teacher to
be a professor what it almost killed me
I did survive high school because I knew
something better was coming and I also
survived high school by a couple of good
friends of mine feet straight female
friends who said we’ll get you through
we’ll teach you how to do some makeup
we’ll fix your hair we’ll put you in
that weight down but if you’ve ever seen
someone’s human cells going farther to
the right from a male body but their arm
x3 okay
so I went to an all women’s college yeah
it was like I was a liberal bubble and I
finally could be who I was I started
exclusively dating or exclusively
wearing men’s clothing listening to
masculine albeit sensitive emo music
indefinitely in my own version of math
are toxic masculinity if we’re going to
be honest I was dating in an exclusive
butch femme binary clearly I was boy but
it was at wells College that a women’s
studies professor of course did a
spontaneous Q&A session with a
transgender guy whoa whoa this was the
first time in the flesh side exits from
the transgender person so who was this
unicorn in front of me how dare she
I was fascinated in and I was appalled
complete abject moment he was tall
slender a dragoness physique idiot big
beautiful feminine eyes only slightly
changing and medical transition but I
was only in my 20s early 20s to be fair
my frontal lobe patentees it was hard
enough to be a butch lesbian I couldn’t
be that great so I’d file that one away
for later and I just went full steam
ahead into the 20s out of that liberal
bubble of wells College I was still
trying to fit in them real bad I just
wanted to be liked for instance I
actually once while I was in my mid-20s
let my sister-in-law dress me up like it
how many was her wedding but come on I
was looking for proper acceptable which
lesbian archetype to reach so naturally
change from the hour it’s uncanny
was that tanishka then came grad school
haha grad school I was finally being
pushed into my queer scholarship further
and that was affecting how I felt about
my personal self like good academics
Duke I realized that lesbian wasn’t
gonna fit for me anymore because it
denotes female gender identity so I
started using the word queer queer was
kind of an umbrella term for me that
covered anything that was not normative
anything that was not normative not
straight and like only a grad student
can do I declared gender is over with
the black and white short film where I
actually took my brother’s body and
would put it over my own bodies create a
lot of visual confusion and then I met
after grad school and I remember when
she was living in Boston and I was
trying to convince her to move back to
Rochester to eat me I would write long
emails to her and sometimes if I felt
worried I would sign it max she never
questioned this
she’s never judged me she’s always
accepted who I was and that’s why we’ve
been together ten years now well when I
turned 30 I got that community that I
was looking for I became a slam poet and
I finally got to surround myself with
artists performers and people again
folks who were accepting me for who I
was in 2012 I did lamda which is a queer
only writers retreat in Los Angeles and
now I had friends who were just like me
performers who were just like me and I
went in his max and I never came back
and the two women that I’m flanking to
my right have a lot to do with that
they’re still good friends and then I
became a professor and this morning this
is where things come full circle for me
because I could finally be the mentor
and the teacher and the professor that I
didn’t have and honestly this Fox the
trans city’s Fox that I taught last
semester the first trend Studies class
at st. John Fisher College and it’s with
it’s with their open hearts that I
finally started living my authentic self
because I was only max the performer max
who will be maximum let me be Max and I
wasn’t joining the two they had to pull
less well how could I be what they
needed me to be if I wasn’t going to be
that authentic self or that so this year
is the first year I’ve been living by
Max full time maxim sara backer board
megan no longer shape so my intention is
to full I can’t go back and tell that
pitch is okay not only are you okay
Peter awesome via caterpillar freakin
butterfly weirdo go get it I can’t do
that but I can sit here on this weird
stage that I’ve been given and do
something I’ve looked for in other
people all my life the validation to
exist today I give myself the validation
to exist as I am and to we are
surrounded with a lot of anti-trans anti
queer hate speech rhetoric proposed
legislation educate yourselves we cannot
let this happen
we cannot if you’re an education or if
you’re a parent or whatever we have to
normalize honor and celebrate full
gender expression especially in hit and
especially within ourselves so if you
found yourself even just a little bit
relating to what I’m saying to you today
because you two have been forced into
congratulations you are humans too [Applause]
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