Howdy, Michael C. Bryan here and welcome to another episode of The Michael C. Bryan Hour- where nothing is taboo.  Disclaimer: things might get provocative. Discretion is advised.
The other day I attended a panel in Manhattan where the heads of the largest media corporations in the world talked about the future of digital media.   
Although the rhetoric was as circular as a political debate (well-intended but numbing babble about the same questions over and over) the bottom line was that the world is changing and we either blend or change with it, or we dig out feet into the ground and refuse to expand.  As my dead mother would have said, “No shit, Sherlock.”  Refusal to blend with now and the future has always been the issue for most people stuck in the past. I wanted something new and all I was hearing was the same old, same old.
I was a tad bored and tired (it was 8AM mind you) until one rather tall and good-looking executive (wearing very sexy, black motorcycle boots) said, “We’re no longer living in a binary world.  Everything now is non-binary.  We either embrace that truth and evolve, or we stay stagnant and totally lose touch with the world.”
I got an intellectual chubby when I heard that, and not only because the guy saying it had really big boots (*cough, cough*) but because prior I had interviewed my friend Drew who, up until only a few years ago, had the exterior of a biological female and is now externally (he’s always been internally) a male.  
I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of a non-binary life, meaning, a life which is a blending of more than one gender and one sexual identity. While those two things are very different (gender and sexual identity, like nature versus nurture and Madonna versus Beyoncé) there is something so very right about men becoming more whole by embracing their femininity and women embracing their masculinity.  
I write this knowing if there is one button that can be pressed with a lot of people, it’s by someone whose gender isn’t entirely clear.  It freaks people out.  It makes us question our own gender, what it means to be our own gender and what our sexual desires are.   We don’t like not being clear if someone is male or female.  When someone lives in that rare land of ambiguity it makes people uncomfortable because it causes them to feel unstable sexually.   Not for many of my friends, but I suspect even some of them don’t do well with it.  My favorite comment when I talk about my friends who happen to be transgender is “Oh, I’m okay with it” as if my friends needed them to be okay with their fluid gender identification.  Reminds me of the old saying, “Oh, some of my best friends are gay”, followed by the “I’m okay with it” as if it needed a stamp of approval.  Can only imagine some of the conversations David Bowie sat back and marveled at years ago.    
While I’ve never questioned my gender, I’ve had lots of great sex with drag queens and I’ve dressed in drag myself.  I can’t say I’ve have a fetish for heels and stockings, but I also can’t say I don’t.  Years ago when I was living in the east village in Manhattan I knew this guy I’ll call Carl.  He was from a prominent family, flamingly gay and had a fabulous, broken down apartment in the east village.  All of the apartments in the east village that are of the older variety seem two seconds away from bursting into flames.  His was no exception.  Huge and sprawling and dirty and cavernous.  It was dark and full of shadows and wonderful.
Carl was a slightly infamous drag queen in Manhattan.  Always with bushy eyebrows and a demure skirt and a sensible hat and very minimal makeup.  Whenever I was around him I felt like I was hanging out with Martha Stewart with a dick and a very deep voice.  We flirted and had a fun little romance.  During sex I used to ask him to keep on his heels and skirt and he didn’t like that much.  He wanted to be