The reason I like the coed 7v7 soccer league that I play in is because I get to play the sport that I have always loved, it makes my body feel good to move and run and think all at the same time, I get to play with all kinds of people and bodies, and no one is really policing gender. No one is really policing gender until there are not enough girls that show up. The rule the league goes by is that there should be a max of 5 men on the field. Even though I am non binary and I “used to be a girl,” people read me as a boy when I show up to play. That is fine with me because no one is counting us off as men and women/boys and girls. I am safe under the radar and no one is picking apart my gender. But a few days ago we had 7 total people, and only one girl. My sister is usually the second girl, but she was out of town on a work trip. Her boyfriend, however, was set on all of us playing because he knows I am not a man and the rule only stated 5 men max can be on the field. He told me he was going to talk to the referee about it and that was cool with me. After he talked to the ref, he walked over to the other team and talked to them as well, presumably asking for their permission for me to play as a non-man and for their trust about there actually being a non binary person on our team. When he came back he told the team we could all play. Naturally, they asked how/why, since we have 6 guys and 1 girl, right? I was hoping he would say that maybe the other team was okay with just letting us all play just to have a fair game instead of playing a player down. Instead, he told them all that I was non binary. I just kinda stared off into space. Then I thought to myself… “I think maybe I was just outed?” Then the ref blew the whistle and we all ran onto the field. I was shaking and wondering if I was overreacting. I just felt very anxious and was hoping that my teammates weren’t still thinking about the conversation.

On the car ride home he apologized because I think he realized I was uncomfortable. I was glad he checked in and we got to talk about what he could have done differently.

Now to the point of this post. Once I dropped him off, I was sitting in my car and decided to put on 100 gecs. As soon as the song Dumbest Girl Alive started playing, followed by Money Machine, I immediately relaxed and felt so much better. The music got me back into my body. 100 gecs is not usually my go-to artist. The music is very electronic and experimental. It serves very specific purposes for me, the moment in the car being one of them. The group is made up of 2 people, and one is a trans woman. I like listening to her voice and the sounds of the songs. 100 gecs uses autotune and pitching on their voices, and a lot of electronic sounds. The techniques they use are often considered fake or unnatural in music, and the fact that this is the case makes it even better that they lean so hard into it. Their music embodies a lot of trans experiences. At that moment in the car, I was feeling really anxious and nervous and unintelligible to my sister’s boyfriend and my teammates, and playing the music immediately put me at ease. It was like I was in the room with Laura Les singing about how she “did science to [her] face.” Most 100 gecs songs are almost too much for me because of how experimental they are, but that honestly makes them even better. They are a big “fuck you” to what you would expect, just like being trans is.