Cody Frederick (’22) on Gender Identity
According to Del Norte student Cody Frederick (’22), the exploration of their own gender identity has been “rocky”—if it weren’t for a friend’s parent who outed them as queer, they would still be closeted today.
“After that, I started exploring myself more freely, trying to figure out who I was,” Frederick says. In their freshman year at Del Norte, they came out as a transgender male. However, internalized homophobia and transphobia caused inner conflict.
“I was a lot more free, but I still felt like something wasn’t right,” Frederick states.
Over quarantine, Frederick explored their femininity. When TikTok and other social media trends popularized the notion of men expressing their feminine side—“The rise of the femboy,” Frederick says with a laugh—they recognized an opportunity.
“I was, like, ‘Oh, this is perfect, because I don’t have to come out again,’” Frederick says. Later, though, they changed their pronoun usage, upon realizing that they felt less gender dysphoria being perceived as a nonbinary person than as male.
Still, Frederick says that they want to physically transition. In fact, after two years of advocating for themselves, they are finally beginning testosterone hormone therapy in 2021.
In the past, Frederick says, people were more close-minded about gender identity, including other queer people. Frederick cites the infamous “I identify as an attack helicopter” joke, which ridicules those who identify as nonbinary. However, during quarantine, people have started to open their minds, recognizing that not everything has to adhere to “this specific, Western, [cisgender and heterosexual] perception of everything.”
Frederick isn’t alone in their newfound nonbinary identity. For many teenagers, the pandemic has provided time to explore their gender, and it seems that more people are coming out as queer than ever—whether by making a formal announcement, or simply adding a pronoun to their Instagram biography.
“Not everything has to be like the way that we were raised,” Frederick adds. “There’s always room for change and I feel like people are accepting that.”