In Conversation With Elio Colavito

Soon to be Dr. Elio Colavito (they/them) arrives at my four floor walk-up in the middle of a blizzard. Under their jacket they don black trousers and a white ribbed tank top, that seems to embody the aesthetic of somebody raised in an Italian Catholic family in the burbs to a T. Like a younger, queer, Tony Soprano if you will. Hailing from Mississauga, Colavito now resides in Toronto’s east end, co-parenting 2 cats (Punky Doodle and Peach, respectively) while working towards their PhD in history with a collaborative specialization in sexual diversity studies, all at the tender age of 24. Working in oral history, they spend the majority of their days reading books, thinking about books, while finding time to catch up on the latest Drag Race episodes, their favorite alum of which, Violet Chachki, is included in the collection of tattoos that cover their arms. 

From your first interaction with Colavito, your impression will most likely be that this is not only a person competent in the plethora of knowledge and ideas that they hold, but also confident in the skin they’re in. Though we occupied varying degrees on the spectrum of gender and sexuality, we both shared a keen interest in the subjects and had set aside the afternoon to exchange thoughts and experiences. Before we delved into the meat of the topics I had carefully outlined in my overly detailed agenda for the day, I was curious to get more of a sense for what contributed to the evolution of the person reclined on my living room couch, my homemade baba ganoush between us.

Chloe: So growing up, what kind of social groups did you find yourself gravitating towards?

Elio: You know I very well could have been one of those little girls that you know, um...I––ok I hung out with a lot of guys. Male-male friendships tend to be focused around shared activities and gal-on-gal friendships tend to be focused around talking and sharing. I was never much of a sharer, per se. I really liked sports, so I just hung out with a lot of dudes. My relationship with other girls was often very like “what do you wanna do? You wanna play with the barbies? Let’s barbie it up.” I just didn’t really know what to do. I didn’t hate all of the girlie things, which I think probably made gender confusing. I loved Hilary Duff!

Chloe: So did I!

Elio: I loved Britney Spears. I was weirdly boy crazy, but I think I was just confusing my desire to be one with liking them. I played competitive soccer my entire life, so a lot of the girls that I was friends with were quite “masculine” in their own ways, regardless of what their genders and sexualities were. Again shared activity, soccer being something we all did 5, 6 nights a week--it’s pretty fucking easy to bond. I only really had a hard time socializing when I got to a certain point in university where I didn’t really know where I fit anymore. I went to undergrad in the states, in Michigan, so it was a much more conservative crowd than I’d been exposed to here. That was when I had to start really thinking critically about my social groups, who I was, and why I wasn’t fitting in places. All of the gender questions just really hit me in the face.

Chloe: What was your exposure to the queer community growing up?

Elio: I wish there really was one. I grew up in the suburbs, so you can imagine how cookie-cutter it tends to be. I didn’t grow up knowing queer people, I don’t think I ever saw a queer adult until I was already in university. I went to Catholic school so there was a significant part of the sexual education curriculum that was like “homosexuality is a sin, so is masturbation, also pedophilia; those three things are basically the same.” I feel like my education was TV and Tumblr - fairly common for queers our age. 

Chloe: Who did you find yourself looking up to or idolizing, whether that be classmates, family, or celebrities? Who did you find yourself aspiring to be?

Elio: That’s interesting, because I don’t think I looked up to Hilary Duff or Britney Spears. Nothing about them was like, “I wanna be you.” I was like “I wanna sleep with you” but I was never going to be one of them, and I knew that. I did have a very strong One Direction phase, like posters all over the wall--

Chloe: Who was your favourite?

Elio: Niall, just cause he was nice and safe. 

Chloe: Mine was Zayn, cause he’s an asshole.

Elio: That makes sense. I see that for you. But, I wasn’t interested in them, I was just like “being you would be super sick.” The way they sang about women was the way I thought about women. I didn’t want to be the subject of the song, I wanted to be the singer. At the height of the 1D frenzy, I don’t think I was out at school. I might not even have really been out to myself. These things were happening at the same time; I was understanding my queerness and loving 1D obsessively.

Chloe: Did your relationship with your gender come to a head at the same time as your sexuality, or were those two separate journeys?

Elio: I mean, they’re definitely linked. I realized pretty early on that playing with gender wasn’t very safe. I knew that I liked masculinity, and then I liked girls and was like “butch lesbians exist, so that’s what I am. Cool.” But in conversation with partners and close friends, since I was sixteen I’ve always kind of said, “I don’t really think I’m a woman...” Really flip-floppy, feeling it out - cause I knew I didn’t want to be a man. That just never felt right. But then, with the proliferation of that non-binary identity that’s kind of happened in the last ten years or so, I thought, “okay, maybe this is what fits.” It’s more of a political orientation, I think, than anything.

Chloe: As a non-binary individual, how has your physical transition, including top surgery and testosterone intake, altered the way you see yourself? Has it altered the way you feel you are seen by others?

Elio: Oh my god, yeah. I’ve been on hormones for over a year, and I got top surgery in August [2021]. Up until seven months ago, for the most part, I was still getting a mix of she/her, he/him, sir/ma’am - it was a very mixed bag. Once I emerged in my post-top surgery body, it was suddenly  he/him/sir/boy/boss/dude/man. So now I live in the world as a man, which is weird because that’s not really what’s happening inside me, but what’s happening to other people outside of me. They’re seeing me as a dude - you know how if a woman gets on a bus, she has the opportunity to sit next to you or “someone safer”? For whatever reason, she’s probably always going to choose the “safer person”. Prior to hormones, I was one of the safe people you would avoid other men with by sitting next to. Now I just look like a (rather short) but heavily tattooed man. This weird thing started happening when I would go out with my girlfriend in public and elderly women in particular would lean over and be like “You better treat her right” and scold me. I found that very bizarre. In a way, through hormones and stuff I’m the immediate villain now, which is weird to behold when you’re not used to it. When you’re socialized that way your whole life, it’s just what it is. Most men don’t even notice or care, but I am a person that notices and cares, so I have trouble with that. Like, how do I flag myself as non-threatening, as a safe person with compassion and good ideas in my brain about my position in the world, y’know?

Chloe: I’m realizing more and more that just because some might identify as “cis” and “hetero” doesn’t mean we’re exempt from this conversation.

Elio: One of my favourite questions to ask cis people is “how do you affirm your gender?” Because you do everyday, but most cis people don’t think about the things that they do as “affirming their gender”, they just think that that’s what they do.

Chloe: Could you give me an example? Like for you personally, how do you affirm your gender every day?

Elio: I affirm my gender by… I affirm my gender with tank tops. In a post-top surgery world, having the chest that I want. I’m really happy to just have it see the world, and to be seen in ways that I was not comfortable being seen before. It’s also just a very trans-masc aesthetic. I wish I was unique, but I’m not. So tank tops are affirming to me. Sometimes I paint my nails, and body hair is affirming for me. I guess now that I look masculine these types of things are normal to most people who don’t know that I’m trans, but we all do things to help us feel like men, or women, or non-binary, or whatever we imagine ourselves as.

Chloe: I guess it’s just so ingrained into the norms of society, most people don’t even think that they’re making an active decision in their gender presentation. I get rid of most of my body hair, and I dress pretty feminine ––the stereotypical things that are expected of me, to a degree. Do you feel post-transition that your self image has changed? Do you feel more attractive? Or more confident? Has your own mental state shifted as you’ve gone through that?

Elio: I think a lot of the time trans people will make the blanket statement: “I feel better, I feel fantastic, I find myself more attractive!” I would say in some ways it’s actually been the opposite for me. Just complicated, ‘cause you know when I was pre-hormones, I did pretty well for myself in the field of dating and sex, and was often complimented on my appearance. I had a lot of anxiety about that changing when I transitioned, thinking “What if I’m an ugly guy? That’d suck ‘cause I’m doing fine right now!” But now I’m a 5’3 guy, so it doesn’t actually work the same.

Chloe: But you’re not a guy!

Elio: But you know what I’m saying? Visually, I just look like a really tiny guy, and it’s kind of weird. I’m also just basing this off of knowing a lot of cishet women who talk about how weird it is when women date men who are shorter than them. Publicly that’s what it looks like is happening anytime I date anyone, because like I said: I’m 5’3! It doesn’t really bother me now. It used to bother me a lot more before I started hormones. I care a lot about fashion and aesthetics, so dressing myself has been better since I’ve transitioned cause I can actually achieve the silhouette I’ve always wanted. I get dressed to go places and can feel good, which was not my experience prior to hormones. But I do wonder, “What if I’m uglier now than I was before?” It’s always kind of there with me. And now I have a lot of acne, which sucks. I’m going through puberty again. 

Chloe: Right. My skin has always broken out really badly even though I’ve always taken really great care of it. When I was 18 I went to a dermatologist and we did a whole blood test, and the test came back and she was like, “Oh this makes total sense, you have three times the testosterone of the average woman your age.” And I was like three?! times?! Honestly I had some dysphoria after, like, did I seem like a man? I started thinking about things; I’ve always had a low voice, I have great leadership skills––

Elio: I love how you assume that only men can lead.

Chloe: I was running the world! I was so afraid that guys were going to interpret me as very masculine, thinking, are guys not gonna like me because of this?

Elio: I don’t think so... The beautiful thing is, gender is totally made up. So your biology has nothing to do with how you want to identify.

Chloe: It’s true, I know. I guess...

Elio: The longer I’m on hormones, the more “like a man” I’m going to look. But I could have a full beard one day and I’d still be non-binary, you know? We’re so bioessentialist in the way that we think about what gender is and means, so you can take your three times the normal amount of––

Chloe: That’s a lot! Like that’s a lot!

Elio: ––And you’d still be a woman.

Chloe: Now that you present more outwardly masculine than you had prior, how do you relate to your own femininity? Has that shifted?

Elio: I feel so much more comfortable embracing my femininity than I did before. I only really started painting my nails when I came out as non-binary, and I often shop in the women’s section now, which I never did before. Prior to transitioning, I was just so put off by the idea of being associated with femininity in any way, ‘cause I’ve always enjoyed femininity, but I just drew very strict boundaries around where I could play around with it. Now I don’t really have any. I’m just gonna do what feels good. 

Chloe: Do you think that femininity and masculinity are set binaries of set characteristics, or can our own definitions expand to suit us?

Elio: Oh yeah, I don’t think they’re rigid. It means what it means to you. A lot of trans masculine people contour their cheekbones and stuff to make it look like they have more angular faces--that’s pretty fucking masculine in my brain, but wearing makeup up “oh it’s supposed to be feminine!” I also find that people tend to find me more masculine than I actually imagine myself. It just means different things, to different people, at different times. 

Chloe: Relating to that, if each gender can be whatever we want, dressing however we want, engaging in whatever activities we want--if being a woman, for example, knows no bounds, then how come we have multiple genders? If each gender can be whatever we want, why do we need these classifications? Is this just historically embedded?

Elio: I think it’s historically embedded: socially, man and woman have different connotations. You can have a gender in your brain all you want, and it can mean whatever it means to you. But what the outside world sees as “man” and “woman” still impacts how you view yourself. Non-binary isn’t a third gender, it’s like a non-gender...sort of. It’s just saying “I don’t really see myself as a man, and I don’t really see myself as a woman, so I’m somewhere in between, or on the outside.” All non-binary people conceptualize that differently. It all comes down to if you see yourself as someone who can reconcile the things that you do and feel within traditional manhood or traditional womanhood. I was a person who didn’t feel like I could, so I chose non-binary. There are tons of women who identify as women, who to the untrained eye do nothing “womanly”, and the same goes for men. It just all comes down to personal comfort. And I think for me, really embracing a non-binary identity was because I did understand myself as trans, I knew I needed my physical vessel to change, and that if the physical vessel was changing I should probably find a different label for myself to help the people around me understand what I’m doing and what my life means, I suppose.

Chloe: I’m definitely someone who likes my boxes, always have. I’ve always felt quite comfortable in the “straight woman” category I was placed in as a child and found security in them. I think a lot of people become very comfortable in these spaces that have been used to categorize or even oppress us, and then when people question that or try to broaden the possibility of what we could be, or how we could present ourselves, or identify, it can come off as very threatening or scary. When you have this identity that’s been handed to you at birth and then as you get older you’re like “well maybe this actually doesn’t fit me as well as I thought it did,” it can leave you feeling a little lost or confused. But obviously it’s important to step into that uncomfortable space.

Elio: Yeah, I think it’s just all about finding what works for you. For some people, that’s expanding the box. For some people, it’s just getting out of it, moving to a new box, or making your own box. But the boxes don’t have to be bad, you know? You can fit more than one thing in your box and it’s still the same box.

Chloe: That’s true...

Elio: You can be a woman and like doing masculine things, you’re still a woman if that’s what you wanna be. I don’t think you have to think so hard about what it all means if you bring new things into your box---think of it like a toolbox. You’re just buying new tools. It’s still a toolbox, you just have a lot of fucking cool tools now. You could really fix some shit. But if you just stick with the starter DeWalt set from Home Depot, the one that’s like seventy bucks, you’re not gonna get very far with that. So the more things you bring to your toolbox, the more equipped you are for the world.

Chloe: Love that.

Elio: But it can still be a pink lady toolbox. With all the pink tools inside. If that’s your thing, go off.

Chloe: As somebody who gets paid to learn/think/speak about gender all day, everyday, do these topics ever get tiresome for you?

Elio: That’s probably the hardest question you’ve asked all day. There is an emotional labour and exhaustion that goes into thinking about identity, especially when it’s so central to my life. It’s a lot. But do I get tired of talking about it? No. I think there’s a lot of interesting stuff to learn and everybody’s experiences are so different. Perspective is nice. I like to see how the other half lives, y’know?

Chloe: Are there ever days where you wish you could wake up and not think about gender and just be “yourself”? Or do you think, because we don’t live in a vacuum but a society that revolves around gender and other set binaries, that gender and our exchange with it serves as a tool to be the most authentic versions of ourselves?

Elio: Do I ever wish that I could wake up and not think about it? Sure, ‘cause there are lots of people who have that privilege. But I think that gender is a really cool tool, and to not think about it is to ignore a really important part of the world that governs the way that everybody walks around. So yeah, thinking of gender more critically will help us get to a better world where everybody would probably feel a lot safer. 

Chloe: There’s a lot of responsibility to have a gender. No matter what it is there’s kind of an expectation, or weight on your shoulders.

Elio: Yeah, I think in any dynamic there’s always a responsibility or some kind of deliberation, and you have to conduct yourself in some kind of way to make the space around you equitable. If we don’t think about gender, or race, or class, or whatever, you’re just gonna make other people feel unsafe or feel like shit without even realizing it. If there’s anything we know, it’s that some people have a much harder time finding safe space than other people. As somebody who looks like a white dude in the world, I feel I have a pretty big responsibility to make sure that I’m giving space to people who otherwise may not have it.