An Interview with Immersive Tech Marketer, Nathan Bowser.
Nathan and I met through the tech industry while working in different augmented reality applications. They have since been an awesome community member and supporter of Cheechable. Somewhere in that timeline Nathan was coming forward with Enby/NB/Nonbinary explorations and conversations. These explorations were being shared on common social platforms. Their presence and transition inspired me to reach out about their background and experiences leading up to this point of sharing. It was nice to see, from the beginning, somebody demonstrating personal experiments in gender norms with makeup and clothing while representing that journey and thought process real time. I wanted to connect more deeply to see what their journey to discovering being non-binary was like.
CHEECH: What is your personal story arc with emerging from the binary status quo and being out as NonBinary?
NB: I was thinking through your questions, and it was super interesting having to say something clearly or try to share it with somebody else; sometimes you become a little clearer on things yourself. I went out on a big walk this morning and I had a couple of these moments where I had either had this, big wow, was I doing that for that long, or where things sort of felt lighter. So, thank you for this interesting exercise.
I have this big Galaxy right now and want to put things into little shortlists and the things don’t seem necessarily connected at all but have had a profound impact on my life. In the last two years ADHD, Augmented Reality, and TikTok with the combination of my personal relationships completely challenged and transformed a lot of my identity; how I’m approaching going out into the world; and performing gender in the world. It all started from having horrible sleep and anxiety, trying to figure that out lead me to an ADHD diagnosis at 41. Very quickly a lot of things that I had been holding shame about or was convinced I was always just doing wrong were released. I started to understand a lot of the ways that I was not the same, or outside of the box in the context of my ADHD. The two things that were super powerful were; I learned this physical reaction that my body has when I know the truth, through therapy and doing work with it and listening. The other thing is, it’s hard for me to sit still and to sit down and do meditative or intentional practice, but if I go on a walk or create motion with cycling, you know something long and sustained, it’s the closest way I can get to flow, sort it, clear my brain a little bit, and have focus and think.
I was listening to a lot of podcasts about ADHD. Every time they said something that was true, that I related to, or I had this memory of feeling a similar way in my past, and at the same time opening up to these new ideas, I would have this physical, often goosebumps and shivers, all over; from my chest radiating out. Sometimes there would be tears, it was just this very physical, strong identifier. I’ve learned to recognize that this was a sign that whatever I was engaging with was true or that there was something for me.
I grew up in Southern Oregon and weed has always been a part of the culture and my world. I realized with this ADHD diagnosis was I was doing a lot of self-medicating and self-regulating with weed and coffee and other stimulus to direct my chemical balance before I even knew what was doing. That was the cheapest and most accessible medicine that I could afford for the longest time before I got professional tech jobs and good insurance. Often, for me, the best thing in the world, to flow, the best way to calm, is to eat an edible and get on a bike and ride for hours. That feeling of motion and moving forward has a separation from the ego; that active voice ADHD people talk about having; an internal monologue or five. I don’t know that I have five, but I always have at least one kind of turning. Being able to separate a little bit, to focus on one thing, to be moving forward is the closest thing to mindful practice or self-work that I can do on a regular basis.
We used to joke in my family, before my diagnosis, that I had to figure out what the rules were so that I could almost break them; just get right up next to them and figure out the furthest I could push them without getting people mad. That was my role, pushing boundaries and exploring. Growing up and living most of my life as a white, cis-het, dude, I basically came out as the son of lesbians when I was in middle school, in the 90s, in Southern Oregon. This was literally at the height of measure 8 ugliness was when I went to middle school. When I was in elementary school, my mom came out to herself, to me, and her community. I had two moms from the time I was in first grade, but it literally was scandal growing up. When measure 8 happened, there was this scary parallel of culture wars trying to legislate whether certain people are valid or can be supported by the state. My parents all worked for the schools, and they were facing whether they could have a job or talk about their life truthfully. We’re having those same sorts of questions now for a lot of people and so I had to come out, the only way to deal with it was to fight it.
Despite being this cis-het dude living this bad experience for most of my life, I also came out at 13 as being part of a queer family. That was enough to be othering and to have threats against me, or people would be afraid of me, and kind of concerned for my girlfriend. It was a very bizarre place, but our family and our home became the center of resistance to the measure, movement, and all the anti-gay, hate stuff that was going on in all of Douglas County. I learned that you can’t have this understanding if you hide from who you are; you must live out to be safe and to be able to do what you want.
CHEECH: How did augmented reality play a role in how you express yourself?
NB: I’ve been working with AR and VR since 2015 as a marketing and a creative person. When I first started, I thought, oh wow this is exciting! In AR and VR one of my jobs is just to go out and explore all these experiences, listen to people talk about different possibilities, and dive in where there were all these amazing ideas. I remember distinctly a conversation at the Oregon Reality Lab where people were talking about presence and what it’s like to take up space in a virtual world. The speaker said nobody ever complained that they’re not pixel perfect representations of themselves; nobody wants to be their perfect 3D self in AR and VR. Let me be a monster, a dog, a bunny, or anything that allows us to do what we want to, not just recreate what already exists. If the world is endless and flexible, this is a new place where we can design, and that stuck with me. That became this strong way that I looked at the power of AR and VR, you could try on other things. One of the coolest and most powerful things XR for business does, is that anything dangerous or hard to do in person, you can simulate.
At the time, I worked with a very vocal and out trans man. He shared that his transition had been such a positive and healthy thing for him; that he was just so excited to share his new life. I found myself being this great supporter, and this big fan of his story. We had all these great conversations and there were several times where he talked about body dysmorphia and just sort of not feeling present, that you’re not in the right body. He described these things like, if you ever see somebody who’s always tugging on their shirt, you know kind of hiding their chest, that’s a trans tell. It’s also for chubby kids because that was my experience! I defended it; I was always a little chubby. I was never at peace in my body and took forever to accept it; I can’t do anything about this to change. So, whatever, right? There were all these little seeds that kept popping up. This person is specifically talking about their trans experience, and their body dysmorphia. All these cues, and I’m having this strong affinity to the story, their journey, and the same experiences; but still convinced that I’m just different and pretty boring.
My job at the time was to teach people about what augmented reality was and to always be exploring and investigating it. I did lots of workshops. For one of them, I was talking about all these different applications and getting clips and snapshots for the slide deck that we were building. I went to Sephora’s online store and its cross platform; you can do it on the web and in the app. You can put on makeup and trial all these different looks. I grabbed the screenshot of myself and put it in the in the training deck. It’s supposed to be funny, and show that Nathan’s brave and will push boundaries, now go explore it. Don’t worry, you can do it too! But man… that image stuck with me and was just another one of those things where when I looked at it, I kind of noticed something. All of this is happening, and I have a camera roll full of all these makeup, alien, and pixel filters before I understood how it was kind of helping me question gender. That exploration plus trying to understand what a digital identity is, and how to take up space when anything is possible. When there is an example of something, or a seed of an idea, you can crack it open just a little bit. There’s a whole lot that spiders out in sparks of inspiration.
One day I’m on a stoned walk around the neighborhood listening to podcasts and flipping through TikTok. I get to this account that I love and have been following for a little bit called Monica the Teacher. There is a mom and her kids telling their story and using it to teach about neurodiversity, autism spectrum, and about gender and sexual identity in this very safe kind of mom and kids’ space. One of these videos they’re doing this great modeling where the kid says, “hey mom, I want to start using nonbinary pronouns.” and mom says, “oh that’s interesting tell me more.” They model this productive, open, and safe conversation. For the next two days that’s the only thing that’s cycling around in my brain is, “mom, I want to start using nonbinary pronouns.” and I just chalked it up to ADHD branching out to grab a sound bite on repeat. I’m just cycling on this sound and this phrase, out on one of these walks, and I have that physical reaction that all the therapy and ADHD work had taught me. This is something you need to pay attention to. This is truth. When I repeated this phrase again, and said “do I want to start using nonbinary pronouns?” It’s sparked again. I felt it, just now, it’s a shooting intense thing to have this signal; so powerful, true. I have learned to trust this feeling, and it has been right! ADHD work and the getting to understand how my brain can take a lot of the blame, frustration, and self-critique out of the conversation. To have it be about how my brain works, or how I encounter the world, was the first and biggest thing that unlocked all the rest out on this walk. Now I’m going to have to deal with this and it was so true.
I have learned since then; my experience is very different than many trans folk. A lot of people find that truth and then they take a long time to try to understand and unpack it to figure it out. I was like, “Yep this is the truth. Let’s go.” I think I told my wife that day. I left for a walk and came home with this truth. She has been amazing through that early uncertainty and fear about, what does this mean, or what does this change? It is very interesting when you tell somebody that your gender is different than what they expect or what they’ve known it to be. There’s this assumption that everything is different and is changing. My experience is that I finally understand this thing that I’ve been dealing with, struggling with, protecting, and fighting all these different ways I understand me. There’s no change. It all makes sense. For me, I have less shame. I’m more at home in my body, and I’ve been able to forgive myself for years of shame, and what I now know is internalized transphobia; hating all these parts of my body, the way that I feel in the world, or judging certain things overly harshly; things that I now identify with.
CHEECH: Has this experience contributed to your sense of resilience?
NB: One of the things that ADHD does is puts a failure in between you and the world, and not necessarily seeing all the things that you’re up against, knowing that you have a struggle, or that your cards are different than other peoples’; lacking the ability to have that perspective. I used to chalk it up to just needing a good example or growing up in a small town where there were just so few examples of different ideas that demonstrated other lifestyles. I never had to consider gender or any of those questions. Even though they were being brought up, I was never scared or concerned about them. Looking back, I played the role of the most enthusiastic supporter. So, there’s kind of a, huh, why were you always so excited? I fell in love with TikTok because they’re all these ADHD educators. Watching them, I would have these a-ha moments. I was also just loving all these memes where you come out and share your new name and pronouns and those things. Which would get me choked up and I would have these joyful tears and think, oh wow, this is a topic that just brings me a lot of joy. I never even considered that it was because I had a personal connection. You know where TikTok plays the joke is that the algorithm shows you who you are, what you are interested in, and what you’re seeking in the world, whether you know it or not. I started seeing all of these coming out videos and trans influencers who had smart, interesting things to say. It started to open me up to these ideas and become familiar with the conversation about gender, but for a long time it was all separate little, small truths or small interests.
Resilience came with learning to trust myself and to understand my brain while learning to identify and let go of internalized transphobia. When you can let go or at least call yourself out on unnecessary self-hate it’s a lot a lot easier to get through it.
CHEECH: In hindsight, what have been your major insights from this process?
NB: That was just the discovery, 18 months ago. I’ve spent the last 14 months out in my community. I figured it out, and I wanted to give myself at least a month or two to figure out how I wanted to come out. I realized is as soon as I told people and they had questions, I had no idea how I wanted to answer, or the questions would be things I didn’t know the answer to. It made me feel like maybe I wasn’t right, or it wasn’t true. There’s a lot of early questioning of your validity; are you trans enough? Do I identify as nonbinary, but not as trans or gender fluid? I was eventually able to figure out that I was nonbinary and identify as genderfluid. Everyday it’s about what feels right. Where is my body in this? Do clothes even work? These are all big concerns and daily questions, and that feels pretty fluid. I don’t know what it is, but I as a large hairy bald person, who spent most of their life as a cis-het white dude, it was such a blessing that the cultural conversation has grown. There are so many folks out in the world who are out as trans and bringing that representation to the forefront, but most of them are way younger than me. It’s great that Demi Lovato and Miley Cyrus identify as genderfluid or genderqueer, but they don’t look like me. I’m not a waif, fem, pixie cut person. So early on there was all this questioning of validity; do I look right, do I not look right, can I do this, am I allowed to wear that?
What I found, the more I pushed and the more I called it out, this was some more internalized transphobia. Why are there limits to how are you supposed to look in any kind of clothing? As I started to put on clothes that fit my body in ways that a body with a chest or a body with hips would, I started to push where I was comfortable, and question when I found more and more things that triggered that euphoric bell. I remember vividly putting on the first fitted garment, I was worried that fitted clothes would be diving too deep or be too much. The minute I put on a fitted dress that fit my chest the way a dress was supposed to, I could see myself. I could see and it didn’t feel bad. It’s not that my body was wrong, but that I was never putting it in clothes that fit it well or I was always trying to hide the fact that I kind of had a chest and was this softer kind of fem-ish body. When I started leaning into it, living it up, and pushing towards it is when I started with subtle eye makeup or now flamboyant eye makeup. Oh hell yes! That’s possibly one of the coolest experiences ever. I would say it’s not every day, but occasionally, it’s almost a meditative practice of putting on eyeliner, considering myself, and understanding. I teased that my new creative hobby is doing eyeliner. I painted for years and years, now that same kind of line work and color is applied to this tiny little canvas, listening, and getting rid of transphobia.
There are moments in my life where I’ve been encouraged to be more me, or to be more present or authentic. I always joked, “Oh no, the situation is encouraging me to be more Nathan; are they even prepared for what that is?” The more I started to live this truth and the more I started to wear makeup and more fem presenting clothes to push my own boundaries, I got more support. People started reaching out saying you’re making me want to try eyeliner, or I need to break out my heels. That showed me that being an example and living in my truth could make it a bit easier for anybody else or encourage them to be a little more fabulous, and to be bold with how they approach what they love; that’s just an amazing gift. I feel I came out at a time where a whole bunch of people did all the work defining what gender is and why it stinks. It gave me this language to use in the process, and my transition has been one out of joy and discovery. I don’t I think that is normal or common. I think a lot of people have a lot more hurt and pain, and don’t have the support of an educated community that I was able to come out to. If what I bring just by trying to find what’s right for me today, if that’s helpful for anybody else, that’s super huge!
I was posting about my experience because I was hoping to get feedback on it, but a thing that I did not expect, was that my relationships changed. I started having deeper, more authentic, open, multifaceted relationships everywhere. With my wife, we had to check in on our commitment, why we were with each other; whether is gender a driver or is that a surface level thing that we can learn about together. I started to have conversations and connections with the women in this group in ways that I never had before. I was invited into conversations and people started sharing with me differently. I did not expect it; I expected the opposite. I was thinking that stepping outside of where people are comfortable might be something that would ostracize, but what I found is even people that I saw last in high school or middle school have built new relationships with me; even commenting on the outfit of the day. It was super surprising. I love and cherish how much deeper my relationships are, and the freedom that has come out of this process. I had this all in my head and thinking I should write this down and share it; then I didn’t, and I went on a journey instead, so thank you.
CHEECH: Are there Enby community or supporting resources that you would share with folks who are entering this journey?
NB: Japanese genderqueer Manga is amazing and was one of the first resources that gave me language to talk about how I understood my gender. The ‘Gender Revealed’ podcast with Tuck Woodstock, who is a local gender detective and celebrity has a fantastic, and extensive podcast series where they interview trans people and talk about what their experience is. Having that language and people to model and talk about their experience is so amazing. Obviously, Monica the Teacher on TikTok. Right around the time I was starting to get interested in gender, Tsilley Pines posted about the Empress Of album called, ‘I Am Your Empress Of.’ The very first track is her mother is talking about how she represents all these different women and the different ideas of womanhood. There is representation for all these different powerful women. That sentiment, plus her particular kind of sassy take on femininity is this powerful not quite tomboy, but tomboy and tulle, is inspiring.