By Hal Dietrich
For such a little guy, I talk a lot about fighting.
From what I’ve learned watching movies, this is pretty common. Little guys, real scrawny assholes, tend to peacock around talking about how they’ll kick anyone’s ass – and then they get their asses handed to them. I know all this, I do, but I still enjoy speaking in hypotheticals that will never happen: I’ll fight God in a White Castle parking lot, see if I don’t. If God isn’t available, then Ron DeSantis is the next best thing. The thing is, you can’t talk the talk if you don’t walk the walk. It was really only a matter of time before I learned how to box.
I see poetry in well-choreographed cinematic violence. I’m talking film-bro cinema, the kinds of movies whose posters get taped up in places of honor in college boys’ dorm rooms. In those movies, fight scenes are scenes of enlightenment. I currently have a framed poster of Keanu Reeves as Neo in The Matrix in my living room. It hangs in a place of honor, right above my bookshelf. He stands at a tilt in his floor-length black coat and trademark sunglasses: an essential part of perfecting cyberpunk cool. To his left is Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), to his right is Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), both similarly clad in all black, with shades of their own to complete the look. As the main character, Keanu takes up the most space, as he should. Some people have paintings of Jesus on their walls. I have a poster of Neo. It’s pretty much the same thing if you think hard enough about it, except this messianic figure is trans-coded.
The Wachowski Sisters are the most famous transgender directors I’m aware of, and they see The Matrix as a trans allegory, which Keanu himself approves of, icon that he is. When it came out in 1999, about a month and a half before I was born, it was a “fight the bureaucracy” movie, a Hero’s Journey where the hero wasn’t some teenage farm boy or wizard, but a seemingly average corporate drone destined for greatness. There are enough religious and existentialist allusions to elevate it above your average action movie; I first saw it in a high school philosophy class. This is a movie about free will, about identity, about disobeying authoritarian systems. It’s about the power that the mind has over the body. It’s about realizing that the person you see in the mirror isn’t who you really are. Put simply, The Matrix is about knowing thyself.
The first few parts of a Hero’s Journey involve the hero feeling out of place in his world. In The Matrix, Neo hungers for knowledge about the world he inhabits, which is what draws him to Morpheus, his mentor who is knowledgeable in the ways of the Matrix. They are both plagued by a certain feeling: “That feeling that something was wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.” Neo does not fit in his corner of the world as he knows it. This can be taken as anti-capitalist commentary: he is not cut out to be an office worker or perpetuate a system of hyper-productivity. But it can also be taken as something more personal. When Neo takes the red pill, he is re-entering the world, but on his own terms. The world will not be kind to him. The world will actively hunt him and his friends. Still, we’re meant to see this scene as a step in the right direction towards liberation. It’s a rebirth. It’s a coming out.
***
I didn’t come out as a trans man until after my undergrad years, and working towards a place of acceptance has been a journey. Maybe not a Hero’s Journey, but close enough. Coming out is like crossing a threshold, committing to a deeper understanding of myself. Once that essential step has been taken in a Hero’s Journey, the hero makes new friends who get him. In The Matrix, Neo befriends Morpheus’ crew, who all bear the queerest chosen names ever: Trinity, Tank, Dozer, Mouse, Apoc, and Switch (who was meant to be a trans woman, but the world wasn’t ready for that in 1999). Enter the found family, enter the gender-affirming haircuts and thrift store trips, enter the questions designed to make me feel more like myself: “What’s your (new, chosen) name? What are your pronouns? What nicknames can I use for you?” Enter the ability to just be without having to prove myself to anyone.
That’s easier said than done. I can discuss queer masculinity in theory, but it’s much harder to put it into practice. Just because I’m trans doesn’t mean I’ve unlearned everything about the gender binary and all of its expectations. Aggression is something associated with masculinity, for better or worse, and I do have an interest in certain types of violence. Sometimes I’m ashamed of it. There’s so much of it in the world – guns, nationalism, transphobia – and I don’t want to contribute to any of it. Other times, I want to throw fascists off of a cliff and watch them splat. It’s easier to feel righteous anger than it is to find myself afraid as transphobic violence becomes normalized.
For what it’s worth, I know that I can perform masculinity in a positive way, and I have mentors of my own – friends, family members, and now an online boxing coach(!) – who are helping show me how I can queer traditionally masculine activities – namely, throwing a punch.
***
After Neo’s rebirth, Morpheus teaches him about the rules of the Matrix – and then how to bend or break them. These lessons are shown mainly through fight scenes; one of Morpheus’ crewmates uploads a variety of fighting styles into Neo’s mind, from jiu jitsu to aikido to Wing Chun, otherwise known as “Chinese boxing.” With this newfound martial arts knowledge in place, Neo has to learn how to fight within the realm of the Matrix, where he is only as strong as his mind allows him to be. These fighting lessons are to help Neo eventually fight the “agents”: sentient, humanoid computer programs who serve the Matrix. But, on a deeper, more existential level, this is Neo adjusting to a body which is now fully, truly his. Fighting allows Neo to understand how his body and his mind work together and how powerful that relationship can be. It’s an essential part of his new life, now that he’s been freed from the Matrix and its conformity.
I love movies; I use them to understand myself and where I’m going, gender-wise. That said, I realized earlier this fall that I was starting to become a little unsatisfied just watching fight scenes. I don’t have the makings of an action hero at all, but learning how to box would allow me to tap into masculine parts of myself that I wanted to welcome – not to mention, it would allow me to work out some excess energy. Boxing would be my thing, in my apartment.
A few years ago, my mom got a device called a Tonal, which is a smart gym machine. It comes with a big screen that gets mounted up on the wall – we have ours in the basement – alongside some home gym equipment meant for upper body exercises. To me, it seemed like a device that would have Ray Bradbury rolling in his grave. I stare at screens for a majority of the day; going outside for physical activity gives me distance from electronics. In this case, however, screen time would help. I would be able to watch a knowledgeable coach demonstrate the punches and pivots via the Tonal phone app, and then I would try to mirror them.
I started out learning from Coach Kendall “Woody” Wood, mostly because my mom had done several workouts with her and enjoyed them. I found her perky to the point where I was starting to feel unsettled by her constant, near superhuman levels of pep. I was also curious about what would happen if I learned from a guy. I was expecting to be intimidated, to feel weak, to enter an environment where – like everywhere else – I would have to work hard to earn my masculinity. I am not stereotypically masculine in the sense that I don’t consider myself much of an athlete. In truth, my fine motor skills kind of suck. My arms and legs don’t always work together as a cohesive unit. When I started my first boxing lesson with Coach Woody, I closed all the blinds in my apartment in case somebody saw me flailing around. Lots of narratives about masculinity emphasize the values of being brave under pressure, but I needed to feel as comfortable and safe as I could before learning a new, challenging skill.
I ended up choosing a workout from Coach Pablo, who began our parasocial relationship by referring to me as part of his “familia.” I didn’t know him at all, so why would I be part of his family? This all felt very fake to me, a scripted welcome meant to put me at ease. Pablo could be as performatively friendly as he needed to be for this job, but I would be taking my action hero training with all the seriousness it deserved. How very trans man of me, am I right? I’m five-three and have no muscles to speak of. I have a lot to prove, or I thought I did. I may have forgotten how low the stakes were. I was only doing it because I wanted to learn a new skill which would allow me to become more myself.
Pablo first taught me, as someone right-handed, how to stand in an orthodox stance. Both of my fists needed to be up to protect my face – the “moneymaker,” as Pablo calls it. My left foot went forward, my left hand became my jab hand. My right foot was behind my left; as the dominant, favored part of my body, I could gain more strength in my right fist by transferring power through my legs and hips, assuming I pivoted my lower body properly. First, I needed to master the basics and make sure I could throw a punch. I made the rookie mistake of assuming I’d know what to do because of all the movies I had seen, but I had much to learn.
***
One of the more memorable scenes during Neo’s training in The Matrix is when Morpheus encourages him to jump off a tall building. If Neo is able to unlearn the conventions of the real world – gravity dictates that he’ll hit the ground hard if he jumps off said tall building – then he’ll get one step closer to bending the programmed rules of the Matrix. It’s a leap of faith, rooted in the powers of the mind. Neo has to believe that he can jump high enough and far enough to land on the roof of a different tall building across from him and Morpheus.
Meanwhile, in the real world, Morpheus’ crew is watching this test on the computer, wondering if Neo is going to be able to pass. Some are idealistic: if Neo is the prophesied “One,” destined to save humanity, then theoretically he should be able to make the jump. Others are more cynical: it doesn’t matter who Neo is, because everyone eats shit the first time. The cynics win the bet; Neo jumps, flails around, and falls. When he makes contact with the asphalt ground below, it stretches out and he slams into it, almost like a kid falling onto a trampoline. The road sends Neo back up, he crashes back down, and this time the asphalt is hard. Ouch.
That’s one of the relatable things about the Hero’s Journey. The hero may end up as some sort of uber-masculine savior, but for a while, he’s just like us. He gets bloodied and bruised. He gets tired. He suffers from self-doubt, but he keeps going, because that’s what heroes do.
***
I don’t know what I was thinking during that first workout, but my punches were terrible. I understood holding my fists by my face for protection, but I punched without twisting my wrist as I jabbed. My knuckles were vertical instead of horizontal, which went against everything I had seen in the movies. I realized my mistakes shortly after the workout ended, but I didn’t feel like it had been a waste. On the contrary, I learned a lot. As much as I wanted to start throwing punches like a pro, I needed to slow down and practice even when I didn’t have videos up. After all, the training montage is part of any action hero’s process in becoming a badass.
In television and movies, boxing is a sport used to represent a primal, near-animalistic sort of masculinity focused on violently subduing an opponent by punching him into submission. One of the things I learned was that while the sport is violent, it also requires a great deal of intelligence and the ability to think fast. This isn’t something that comes naturally to me in an athletic context. I told a friend in my graduate program that I was learning to throw a punch, knowing that she’s been involved in MMA fighting for several years. She taught me an exercise that she learned in her gym. Even though we were both in non-athletic clothes, hanging out in the office I share with six other people, we assumed fighting stances – mine orthodox, hers southpaw – and tried to tap the other person’s shoulder or knee or anywhere else we could get to within reason. Meanwhile, other friends in our program – some office mates, others just wanting to take advantage of the spacious room – spectated.
The goal was to see how fast we could dodge each other. I got tapped a lot, but that was to be expected. I was brand new, and besides, it was only for fun. Even as I got my ass metaphorically beat – again, this was a low-stakes game – I had a big, stupid smile on my face. One of my office mates pointed this out: “Is Hal giggling?” she asked.
Yes, I was. There’s joy in play-fighting, which I hadn’t done since I was a kid wrestling in the backyard with my younger sister. There was something so boyish about the whole thing, something I wouldn’t have thought was available to me as a grown adult. I was having fun, which I couldn’t say about most of the other sports I engaged in when I was younger. It was enough motivation to keep practicing, just in case there’s a next match with my friend.
I worked on pivoting on my right foot and throwing punches while waiting for water for pasta to boil at dinnertime. As much as I hate looking at myself sometimes – gender dysphoria is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy – I looked at myself in my bathroom mirror to make sure I was keeping my fists up to protect my face. Nothing personal, just business… and maybe a little gender affirmation if I threw some good punches. I worked on making my uppercuts quick jabs, nothing dramatic. Pablo’s punching workouts started simple: left, right, left, right. Then they got more complicated: left hook, right punch, left hook. Then the two would be combined. Even during workouts aimed at beginners, Pablo still sometimes went too fast for me. I slowed down on my own time, knowing I’d only be able to pick up the pace with time and practice.
My favorite exercises were the ones which tested my balance. Pablo said that it was essential that boxers develop a strong sense of balance and a developed core, which is where our strength comes from. I had a bit of a foundation from running; cross country familiarized me with several core exercises. I was really good at “ice skaters,” which had me standing on one leg and jumping from side to side, switching legs as if I were speed skating. To my surprise, I also enjoyed “reverse lunges,” which were hell when I had to do them back in my adolescent years when I played after-school sports. Pablo added a little kick at the end, meaning I would assume a lunging position and then kick out with my back leg – and yeah, maybe I got a little theatrical with it, even if I couldn’t kick particularly high. I would feel a great sense of accomplishment when I woke up with sore arms and legs, not to mention a stiff core. It hurt, but it was a good kind of hurt. That meant I was putting in work that made me feel better in my body.
***
Every hero needs a mentor to help them on their journey: that much is obvious. The mentor has an air of mystery about them. They speak cryptically, giving the hero space to figure things out for himself. As Morpheus says to Neo, “I can only show you the door. You’re the one who has to walk through it.” He’s also very big into the “don’t think it, know it” spiel, which is appropriate in a world where the powers of the mind reign supreme and any sort of mental self-doubt could have serious consequences. Played by Laurence Fishburne, Morpheus commands respect easily; his crew look up to him and would die for him without a second thought. Most sci-fi mentors are like that: they’re bearing the weight of the cause they’ve decided to dedicate themselves to, and there’s not much room for anything other than stoicism.
What happens when the well-worn archetype of the mentor gets queered? If Neo’s journey of realizing his true self is viewed as a trans allegory, then it can be said that Morpheus is also trans-coded, as someone who has been “out” for long enough to assemble a crew and help them “come out” as well. So, what do we get when a queer mentor helps their queer student come into themself, physically, mentally, and spiritually? What happens when a training montage becomes something more than an expected show of action-hero masculinity? What happens when a sparring session becomes a way of reclaiming bodily agency in a distinctly trans sense?
That’s the idea my brain keeps returning to, like a boomerang. The rules of the Matrix have to be learned and understood before the entire system can be overthrown – dare I say queered? It’s also how I understand my own process of learning how to fight, even though I’m not doing anything as dramatic as preparing for an uprising (not yet, anyway.) I approached boxing as a gender-affirming activity, a sport that’s the poster child for traditional masculinity. Call it aggressive, call me aggressive for going all in, I’m sure it’s justified. But that’s not the whole story, is it? Tell me, what’s the point of doing something gender-affirming if I can’t put my own silly goofy trans guy spin on it?
***
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve cracked up laughing during Pablo workouts. The answer is too many. While I was doing my best to hold a side plank and not curl in on myself during one of my first workouts with him, he said, “Open up! Wow, I sound like your therapist.” Caught off-guard, I laughed so hard I almost fell over. Pablo became Pablo-you-motherfucker when he had me do particularly difficult work. When he had me do a core exercise that had me balancing on my lower back while keeping my legs raised and moving them in a backstroke-like kick, he asked, “Did a psychopath make this workout? No, I did.”
Then there were the times he made me laugh when I was trying to be serious and, well, masculine. Pablo compared gaining a sense of physical fluidity as a boxer to learning how to dance – “like a middle school dance,” he explained, which made me cringe. During a punching routine, he said, “I can’t quit, I’m doing this in honor of my father and his love. Just kidding.” This made me wheeze and drop my fists.
Pablo’s workouts, even the ones for beginners, even the ones that had me doubled over laughing, are hard. He promised that I’d be sweating by the end, and he kept his promise every time. I was expecting this; I knew I couldn’t grow as a kinda-sorta athlete unless I physically put the work in. What I wasn’t expecting was the sense of solidarity I got with an online coach who I only knew parasocially. From remarks like, “Ay, Dios Mio, my quads are burning!” during squats to simple remarks during tough exercises about how he was getting tired, too, the relationship we had felt that much more authentic.
So much of what I know about traditional masculinity is about not showing weakness. Needless to say, I was pretty surprised that I would see a boxing coach who was so open about his emotions to begin with. Jokes and banter are one thing, but seeing a professional trainer admit that he’s tired during a “beginner” workout was unexpected. If Pablo could say that he’s tired, then I felt like I had been given permission to admit the same. Pablo wasn’t just some guy who showed up on a screen, he was fully real, with all the same human weaknesses I had: we got tired. That’s what happens when you do push-ups and side planks and throw punches, one two one two. Being a boxing instructor is only one part of Pablo’s life. The other layers were discovered when I found his Instagram handle while trying to find more good workouts with him. Everything really clicked into place after that.
You can find him at “@theexercistsf,” which tells us three things. One, Pablo makes terrible puns; “exercist” is pronounced like “exorcist.” Two, he’s a horror fan, just like me – from Frankenstein to Hellraiser, horror has always been a place where queer people can explore and embrace their outsider-ness. Three, he’s from San Francisco, which is one of the most queer-friendly cities in the United States. These facts shouldn’t have been news to me; a few of his workouts loaded onto Tonal are family-friendly and Halloween-themed. Another one of his workouts was Pride-themed, which either meant he’s queer or a really strong ally. It turned out to be the former.
Scrolling through Pablo’s Instagram page gave me emotional whiplash. For every image of him lifting weights or working a punching bag, there’s two more of him in leather, posing with queer friends and performance artists. It’s clear that Pablo is a multifaceted, complex individual. Boxer. Therapist. Drag artist. Husband. Dog dad to a pitbull terrier named Debbie. Maybe it’s because I don’t really know him – the workouts on Tonal are pre-loaded, so it’s not like he’s interacting with me specifically – but Pablo broke my brain a little. How could someone who engages in such an aggressive, hypermasculine sport also paint his nails and refer to himself as “the prettiest horror girl on the block?” That was the first question I asked myself. Later, it evolved into: Who said that there was just one way to perform masculinity?
Several Pablo workouts later, I know this much: I’d much rather embrace gender playfulness than an ill-fitting stoicism that just doesn’t square with who I know I am. Queer masculinity is not meant to mimic what already exists, it’s about creating something new and liberating. I’m learning from the best. Pop culture and unexpectedly funny boxing workouts can only do so much, though. As Morpheus himself says, I have to be the one to walk through the door I’ve been shown. The next stage in my unapologetically trans Hero’s Journey awaits.