{"id":77,"date":"2018-04-17T23:34:48","date_gmt":"2018-04-17T23:34:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.illinoisstate.edu\/euphemism\/13-2\/?page_id=77"},"modified":"2018-09-15T20:48:43","modified_gmt":"2018-09-15T20:48:43","slug":"the-creation-of-max","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/13-2\/the-creation-of-max\/","title":{"rendered":"The Creation of Max"},"content":{"rendered":"
Max Mostek (Bio<\/a>)<\/h5>\n

A name is simply a way to differentiate yourself from others.\u00a0 The concept of a name is completely meaningless and should hold little to no impact on the individual themselves.\u00a0 Ask any expecting parent and we realize this is not the consensus.\u00a0Your name is the first of many influences that aid in the development of your identity.\u00a0 The weight behind it can determine your sense of self, belonging, and how you present yourself to the world.\u00a0 My name is Max Mostek.\u00a0 This is a core element to my identity and the way it is constructed.\u00a0 My name is a crucial aspect of who I am and who I wish to be.\u00a0 My name is Max and that simple, essential, and life altering fact took me nearly twenty years to discover.<\/p>\n

My birth name is Margaret Mary Mostek.\u00a0 It was a mouthful for any small child and a nightmare to learn to write.\u00a0At the age of five, I told my mother that I only wanted to be called Maggie because eight letters in one name was too much to handle.\u00a0 My mother would describe me as a princess.\u00a0 I was obsessed with rainbow gowns and \u201cclappy\u201d shoes, which were basically high heels for toddlers.\u00a0 I took pride in knowing how to accessorize. \u00a0It was mandatory that my necklace matched my earrings, which needed to match my purse, and so on.\u00a0 I was a feminine child who enjoyed playing dress up. \u00a0However, that was all it was to me.\u00a0 I was simply putting on a costume.<\/p>\n

The costumes that I put on throughout my childhood would vary as I started to learn more about myself, but the one costume that I could never fit into was that of a girl.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t understand why I wasn\u2019t allowed to play football with the boys during recess or why I had to sit with my legs crossed, taking up as little space as possible.\u00a0There were certain unspoken rules that I felt pressured into following. \u00a0The worst was using these rules to dress myself and not understanding why my friends didn\u2019t comprehend the distress and panic I felt every morning.<\/p>\n

The first indication that I felt differently than the girls I knew was the fact that I hated my hair.\u00a0 They all seemed to be in competition with one another as to who had the longest hair.\u00a0I never wanted to be in that competition but had no say in the matter because my mother loved my hair.\u00a0 It was thick with a slight curl and reached my tailbone by the age of twelve.\u00a0 The only documented remains of my long hair in all its glory are awkward pictures of me at middle school dances and the mandatory yearbook photos.\u00a0 Every other instance it was tightly pulled back and away from my face.\u00a0It took almost a full year of begging and pleading with my mother to let me cut it off.\u00a0 When she finally agreed, I chopped off ten inches and donated it to Locks of Love.\u00a0 My hair was still well past my shoulders, but I had never felt more liberated.<\/p>\n

By the time that I was in seventh grade, I had already realized that I was queer.\u00a0 Of course, I still went through what every young person goes through with constant questioning and doubt.\u00a0 I knew I had plenty of time to label my sexuality, but I could no longer deny my attraction to girls.\u00a0 Throughout seventh and eighth grade, I was harassed by both friends and strangers after coming out as bisexual.\u00a0 I was told that I was disgusting, that my family should disown me, and to kill myself before someone else did it for me.\u00a0 At thirteen years old, I had rocks thrown at me out of a car window for simply holding a friend\u2019s hand as I walked her home.\u00a0 For two years after coming out, I lived in a world of hatred and self-loathing.\u00a0 Which eventually lead to severe depression and the need to self-harm.\u00a0 Things didn\u2019t start to look up until I reached high school.\u00a0Whether it was because my school was incredibly diverse, or because it was in downtown Chicago, I was accepted for who I was.\u00a0 No one cared that I was queer if I was a good person.\u00a0 I still hated myself.<\/p>\n

When I was fifteen years old I learned what transgender meant.\u00a0 My best friend at the time was discovering for himself that he was transgender (female to male), and I was helping him with his transition.\u00a0 I still believed that you could only be one gender.\u00a0 You could be either a girl or a boy.\u00a0 I was taught that this is the only way and that this was all I could expect out of life.\u00a0 This is the year that I finally cut off all my hair.\u00a0 This was the year that I began to wear button downs and ties.\u00a0 For a long time, I thought that I was meant be transgender.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t feel like a girl, but I knew that I didn\u2019t want to be a boy either.\u00a0 I was lost and confused and had no one to help me find any answers because I had yet to realize the questions I was asking.<\/p>\n

I was nineteen years old when I first discovered what the term non-binary meant.\u00a0For those of you who do not know, a person who identifies as non-binary does not identify as a man or a woman.\u00a0They can feel like a combination of both genders or neither gender.\u00a0 My partner at the time identified as neither and used they\/them pronouns.\u00a0 When they first explained non-binary identities to me, I felt something shift inside of me.\u00a0 Throughout my entire life I had no idea that you could look at the gender binary and decide not to be a part of it.\u00a0 I still had it in my head that you had to be one or the other but hearing them describe it to me in their own way made something click.\u00a0 It took me awhile to understand, but I was curious about everything they had to tell me.<\/p>\n

When I first arrived at Illinois State University, I was still using she\/her pronouns.\u00a0I made friends, I went to class, I went out.\u00a0 The friends I made were extremely feminine.\u00a0 They put a lot of emphasis on dressing up and doing their makeup before we went out for the night.\u00a0 I tried to be like them.\u00a0 I tried to be feminine and girly, but it felt like the costumes I put on as a child.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t feel like myself.\u00a0 I began hating myself again.\u00a0 I hated my face and how it looked caked in makeup.\u00a0 I hated the heels my friends pressured me into wearing. \u00a0I hated the sparkly clothes my mother would buy me so that I could dress similarly to my friends. \u00a0I eventually stopped going out and ignored the people I once called my friends.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t their fault; they didn\u2019t know what was wrong with me and I didn\u2019t either.<\/p>\n

I moved into my first apartment after a year of being at ISU.\u00a0 I spent the summer here, alone, because I had a job in Bloomington and didn\u2019t want to commute from Chicago.\u00a0 I was dealing with an involuntary isolation.\u00a0 That summer changed a lot of things for me.\u00a0 I forgot how to communicate with other people, but I learned a great deal about myself.\u00a0 Being alone all summer forced me to look at the aspects of myself that I had been avoiding.\u00a0I spent a lot of time contemplating my own gender.\u00a0 There was no big moment for me.\u00a0 There was no lightbulb that went off in my head.\u00a0 I merely began by researching what it meant to be non-binary.<\/p>\n

There wasn\u2019t much for me to go from other than a few websites and blogs.\u00a0 I found some people online that identified as non-binary and I asked about a million questions.\u00a0 There is no single way to be non-binary, which is what I find most attractive and appealing.\u00a0 That summer I came out to a few close friends.\u00a0 I explained to them that I felt extremely uncomfortable in my own skin and cringed every time someone would call me a girl.\u00a0 I told them that I wanted them to use they\/them\/their pronouns when referring to me.\u00a0 I cried the first time someone referred to me using gender neutral pronouns.\u00a0 It was the first time in years that I felt comfortable in my own body.<\/p>\n

The ever-constant battle you face when identifying outside of the gender binary is that there are people out there who will do everything in their power to invalidate you as a person.\u00a0 You will be misgendered, deliberately or accidentally, every time you go out into the public.\u00a0 You will be told that you are attention seeking and that your gender identity is made up or imaginary.\u00a0 Strangers will ask you invasive questions about your genitals, sexuality, if you have a mental illness, etc.\u00a0 People will be cruel for the sake of being cruel.\u00a0 Some days I am unfazed by the hateful remarks.\u00a0 Some days I am frustrated by them.\u00a0 Other days I am angry over the way others treat me as a freak or a joke.\u00a0 However, there isn\u2019t anything that someone could tell me that will change my mind.\u00a0My name is Max Mostek.\u00a0 I am non-binary and use they\/them pronouns.\u00a0 I am happy with myself.\u00a0 I am happy within my identity. \u00a0I will not change for anyone.\u00a0 I have finally discovered who I was always meant to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Max Mostek (Bio) A name is simply a way to differentiate yourself from others.\u00a0 The concept of a name is completely meaningless and should hold little to no impact on the individual themselves.\u00a0 Ask any expecting parent and we realize this is not the consensus.\u00a0Your name is the first of many influences that aid in Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-full-width.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-77","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/13-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/77","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/13-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/13-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/13-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/13-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/13-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/77\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":730,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/13-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/77\/revisions\/730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/13-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}