Welcome to Body Week 2022. This year, Them’s annual exploration of queer and trans embodiment comes at a time of crisis, as state-led attempts to restrict our bodily autonomy seem to multiply by the day. And yet, in every nook and cranny of this country, we persist. In the stories that form this special series, we sought to document not only the look of this persistence, but also its sensation: How does it feel to be LGBTQ+ and have a body today? Read more from the series here.
So-called “Short King Spring” has come and gone, and here I am, a 4'11" transmasculine top, still looking for my crown.
From where I stand, reports of the "shortissance" have been greatly exaggerated. Everyone seems to want a "short king" until we dip below 5'6" and aren't a white twinky bottom. They pine after people like me in public, or at least pretend to. But when I say I’m a top, many stare in disbelief. They say, "Excuse me?" They laugh. The raised eyebrows tell a familiar story: There’s no way someone my size could be enough for a partner, no way I could use my body to dominate another, no way they'd find pleasure in my power.
Of course, they are mistaken.
For a long time, I assumed the position of bottom because it’s what people expected of me. Even after coming out as trans, it took another five year years to enter my top era, which began officially with a first-time hook-up with someone who’d eventually become my boyfriend. For whatever reason, I felt switchy that night. After what felt like the most connected sex I’d had in my life, I noticed they had barely asked what I needed. Through a contented haze, I realized I didn’t need anything at all.
I haven’t come up for air since, relishing the groans I incite, the heavy breathing, the moments of bodies gone rigid with ecstasy. Taking the reins, I love playfighting for control, hard bruising bites, cradling my lovers in a blissful afterglow while listening to their breath.
As a short top too often discounted, you could label my marginalization "heightism," but there's a better term for the force animating my experience: white supremacy. I will never fit the model of masculinity constructed and imposed by mainstream American culture — one that exalts Eurocentric beauty standards of whiteness, thinness, and, of course, being tall. Neither will the cis Quechua men in my family, who've endured similar forms of coerced emasculation since coming to the U.S. Sometimes I wonder: If even my cis tíos, who drive trucks, turn dry earth into lush gardens, and tame literal wild stallions, can't be “man enough” to be regarded as such, how can I?
I often feel that the world expects transmasculine people to be extra-hard, almost as if an apology for not being cis; that if we can’t be “real men,” we better make sure we’re as conventionally masc as possible. These expectations are what made it so hard to come to terms with my own transmasculinity — and even harder to accept my being a top. I’m a brown, twinky, gay boy kind of transmasc — more Fez from That 70s Show than Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Earlier in my transition, partners would put me in one of two categories: hypermasculine top or femme bottom, leaving no space for my brand of trans faggotry — no space to be desired during sex unless I was playing a role that simply wasn’t for me. There were times when I even grew resentful of taller transmasc friends. In my mind, they could be soft and masc and a top in ways I couldn’t.
But I eventually learned height-based sexual expectations don’t just hurt short transmasc tops. Being tall in a world that hypermasculinizes height can dehumanize anyone. Early this year, I asked a lover if they were a top or a bottom. After a long, pensive pause, they replied, “No one’s ever asked me that. Everyone always assumes I’m a top because I’m tall.”
We laughed about it and kissed, commiserating over our opposite but parallel struggles with sexual heightism. A moment later, we locked eyes as their face became more serious. “Thank you,” they whispered.
The associations tall as in top, dom, giver and short as in bottom, sub, receiver not only wrongfully put people in boxes; they hold us back from having our best and gayest sex. Short tops and tall bottoms threaten to rip tired sexual scripts apart. We say anyone can play any role in our soft beds. Our sex can be creative, daring, unbound by expectation. We can make space for our partners to be tender, to welcome themselves into self-truths they never knew they could want, let alone ask for. In our touch, there’s not just care, but possibility.
There’s a special kind of magic in a short guy who just wants to get their tall boyfriend off. There’s a certain whimsy in being eye (and mouth) level with their nipples, of my hands already falling close to where they want me to tease. And when it’s all done, I love cradling their head like I’m their little, cozy pillow or laying on top of their heaving chest like a weighted blanket.
In my bedroom, no one can tell me there’s nearly a foot of space between the top of my partner’s head and my own when we stand. As soon as I feel their lips press against mine and taste their skin, the inches between us melt away. I let myself sink into the euphoria of their gentle sighs, and for a moment, our height difference is just a distant equation, as unintelligible to me as quantum physics. In this space, where they can be soft and I can be hard, we usher in new worlds of desire, play, beauty, and affirmation. Our sex is so deeply trans, circumventing everything cis people tell us we need to be.
To all my short transmasc tops — the short boyfriends with tall girlfriends, the service twinks, the big spoons that look like a backpack cuddling their partner — I see you, king. Claim your crown.
“T4T” is where trans folks can speak with each other directly, from the heart, without having to make ourselves legible to cis society. Here, we will tell stories that center our joy and our pleasure, our rage and our resilience, our quirks, our dreams, our love. Here, no experience or idea is too niche or too wacky — we care about what you care about. Read more from the series here.
Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for Them's weekly newsletter here.