- I'm grateful to be myself.
I'm glad to be myself.
I think I had to learn how to love myself,
but happy to be here.
(soft instrumental music)
What's up?
My name is Chella Man.
My pronouns are he/him.
I'm 23 years old,
and I identify, curious, stubborn, and also Deaf,
trans-masculine, gender queer, Jewish, and Chinese.
Being deaf made me really wanna figure out,
how can I express myself without sound?
Going to school so many hours, you know, public school,
you just sit there with a pencil and a paper
for hours on end.
And sometimes, schooling wasn't accessible to me.
I couldn't understand the teacher,
I couldn't hear the teacher,
I didn't know sign language fluently.
But I had a piece of paper and a pencil.
That's the place I felt most free.
And I would just draw, and draw, and draw, and draw.
(soft instrumental music)
For me, art was a way of survival.
Growing up, I did not have the terminology
to articulate exactly what was happening in my brain,
losing my hearing,
and really understanding my gender identity,
understanding my race,
understanding where I existed
between so many different binaries.
(skateboard whirring)
(footsteps tapping)
I navigate many different spaces with my identities,
by first and foremost,
accepting that perhaps there will
never be one single space that I belong in.
But that's okay,
because I'm able to find connection
in many different ways and in many different places.
I've always known deep down that gender was fluid,
because I existed.
I knew that I did not fit into any binary,
but I could not explain that,
and I was never given the permission.
That was a huge factor, permission.
And I realized I don't need permission from other people,
that all I needed was from myself.
But realizing that was when I was about 16.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Recently, I joined a transgender boxing collective.
It has been incredibly healing,
because I typically believed boxing,
the environment of boxing,
to be very stereotypically masculine.
But not just that, like very toxically masculine.
And this group has been so healing for me,
because it's a place where I can move
in ways that my body is not used to moving.
And it's a place that I can feel safe to do so.
It can be tiring to live in a world
that is continuously gendering things,
as masculine, feminine, boy, and girl.
And there are ways beyond this to cope with things.
And that is honestly first and foremost, my chosen family.
You know, choosing the people that I'm around,
and being able to create spaces.
Although the world
may not entirely be like this space where I feel safe,
where I don't have to continuously monitor
my own movements or what I'm doing,
because of the way that other people may perceive me.
The phrase, "It gets better."
Honestly, it takes me back to middle school.
Growing up in central Pennsylvania,
this organization was actually
one of the first queer things that I ever saw.
And it was on social media,
and it was this beautiful video
full of queer people talking about how it gets better.
And I just remember being so excited,
'cause I was like,
"Whoa, people are happy, and that's possible."
So it was this beautiful moment of representation for me.
But at the same time, my biggest thought was,
why can't it be good now?
Why does it have to get better?
Why can't I be happy now?
It's important to have hope.
It's important to believe that things do get better,
but I think it's also very important
to treasure the present moment, and analyze,
and figure out a pathway towards,
how can things actually be good now?
My name is Chella Man,
and I am continuously changing.
(soft instrumental music)