“Jhayne! Hey Jhayne!” yelled a voice—sounding very much like my friend Brian—through the aisles at Target.
Busy scrutinizing the Christmas decorations, I stopped in my tracks, put down the frosted balls I had been considering and walked to the end of the aisle. Several rows up in the men’s department, he stood proudly holding up a shirt.
“What do you think?” he asked in the same perky tone.
Here I should note my nickname for him—which he hates—is Sparkie. I should also note, that he does not have one for me. Thus, his nick-name-calling clashed with both the situation and our friendship. Once I’d made my way over to him, and we’d conferred over the shirt in question, I had to ask.” Did you just yell Jhayne across the store?”
“Yes.”
“Why? You never call me that!”
“I knew it would get your attention,” he said matter-of-factly and went off in search of underwear.
He had a point. And as I made my way back to the Christmas ornaments, I got to thinking about my gay-girl name in relationship to, well, my relationships—with my friends, with my community.
Please let me introduce myself. My name is Jhayne. It is pronounced in the all-American, traditional way. Like the Jane that one associates with a hunky Tarzan or the childish reader that’s accompanied by an eager, playful Dick. I wasn’t born with the moniker, but merely acquired it somewhere in my early 20s, along with a college education. In addition to my name, I was given a coming-out party, an introduction into a world that has proven to be both basic in its needs and complex in its desires: the colorful world of gay men.
By now, you’re probably wondering, what’s the big deal with the name thing? Why all the blahblahing about something so simple? Well, there are usually mysteries behind every man and occasionally top-secret tags that accompany his title. My name is Jhayne and, well … I have a dick! My dick, I should note, has hardly been kept a secret. Jhayne, my (gay-girl) name however, has. Sort of.
So you’ve probably jumped to the usual conclusion: I’m a transsexual who’s going to ramble on about how I’m saving for my operation. Well, think again. See, I love my dick. And aside from the occasional bout of bad judgment, it has proven to be the perfect companion over the years. You could almost say we are bosom buddies. But I don’t want to confuse things any further. My point is this: Having and embracing a name for my female side has allowed for the gay to freely grow. But long before I even knew I would acquire my gay guy/ girl name, other things had already begun to develop.
When I was 10 years old, a scandalous book hit the hallways of my elementary school. It was the first time I can recall a division between the girls and boys over sex. The book was Judy Blume’s, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Each time the book would appear, a huddled gaggle of whispering girls would form. This only fueled my desire to read it. Each time I went to the library, I tried to muster up the courage to check the book out, but I couldn’t face the librarian. The book was for girls!
Eventually I discovered where it was shelved, and would secretly read from it when no one was looking. What I learned was that Margaret (the protagonist) thought something was wrong with her as each of her girlfriends began to change (begin menstruating). It felt odd to be a boy and have such an understanding of Margaret’s feelings. An unpredictable glitch, yet I couldn’t understand why. My own thoughts and feelings had begun to develop—uncommon feelings that made me different from my friends.
But instinctively I knew those feelings had to remain a secret—like my covert meetings at the library with Margaret.
When I try and remember how I acquired my “name,” it’s been so long I can’t recall a specific situation. But like listening to a favorite song, whenever I hear it called, I remember vividly the summer of my/her coming out.
While I was away on vacation one holiday, I acquired two new friends. Enter “Georgette” and “Sally
Kato.” That following summer they invited me to share their house in Fire Island. Enter my new nickname, Jhayne.
As the summer season morphed into full swing, party invitations appeared in our mailbox each week like clockwork. Every bash was themed—most requiring various forms of drag. As the weeks ensued, each time my new name was broadcast about the beach, the girl began to creep into my guy.
And while I was busy being social with all the boys that summer (in my role of debutante ingénue), I had many epiphanies: I learned not to take life so seriously, that gay could mean happy, and that I looked best in oversized shoulder-duster earrings to “balance out my Arian nose. ”I also learned to become comfortable with my sexuality, that any form of a high-heel would prove fatal in the crevices of the boardwalk, and I learned a new definition for family—a family whose antics that summer became legendary for both their effortless, albeit glamorous style and their over-indulgent affection for liquor. I became Jhayne Von Mantrapp of the Von Mantrapp family of East Aurora and the West Side Highway.
Like everything, eventually the summer came to a close. But the aftermath would prove to be timeless: My covert moniker has continued to stick to me like a flirty memento—always reminding me of the importance of both friendship and community.
Do I want to be a girl? No. I love my dick! But admittedly, I love my Jhayne, too. It provides an extra element of liberation to my gay manliness. So the question is this: What’s in a name anyway? Does it define you? Maybe. Does it give you your identity? It could. Does it offer connection to others? Sometimes. But, I suppose it’s all in how you view it, what value you assign to it and what you believe makes you, well, you. Sometimes it’s liberating to be accepted in a straight world. And sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s freeing to be gay and be driven by your dick. And sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s comforting to believe in God. And sometimes it’s not. Gay, God, Jhayne, Dick, male, female, freedom, liberation, family, even marriage; they’re all just names—part of our life sentence. And, like Margaret, might occasionally be stunted by a period.
Period.
You’re it.
Until next month anyway,
Jhayne.
For additional archives of
previously published columns visit www.frontiersweb.com and www.outlooks.ca