It was strange to be thought of as feminine, when I grew up around flamboyant bakla and told myself I wasn’t like them. But in America, the fact that I didn’t puff up my chest or speak in the lowest voice possible, that my gait wasn’t halting and my hips swayed a little when I walked, this all meant I was femme, or a femmy twink, as one of the students in Professor Miller’s class called me when we were discussing different labels for queer people.

I learned that a twink was a slim young man, typically hairless and blond, who attracted older men and were usually bottoms, men who preferred to be penetrated, which I figured I was too. There were also gay men who liked Asian guys, called rice queens, though many more men were into twinks, as long as they—we—were masculine enough.

Even though I’d been happy to learn an American accent from TV, I somehow couldn’t bring myself to speak with my low register or make myself as broad as possible when I walked, though I did try to check the expressiveness of my hands and the sway of my hips, like Tom Lee from Tea and Sympathy, a play we read in class where a guy suspected of being queer had to be taught to walk like a man. I also started going to the gym several times a week, hoping that with the combination of a good body and a Harvard education, somebody nice would want me someday, and I wouldn’t have to feel so alone.

“Ready to dance?” Kit asked, when “Express Yourself” came on.

I followed him to the dance floor, where a dormant part of my brain activated and I began to just move, momentarily forgetting the people around me, purely focused on the music and the beat. I started taking dance lessons while I was a child star in the Philippines so I could perform in variety shows, a hobby I kept up over the years, even though I wasn’t used to dancing outside of class.

“If people still think you’re white after they’ve seen you dance then they’re just dumb,” Kit shouted in my ear.

In that moment, I didn’t care if my moves exposed me as a minority. I danced through a couple more songs, focused only on the music and the lights, while people poured in and the floor got crowded. I was aware that men were bumping into my body, but it took me a while to register that someone was intentionally sliding his back up and down against mine.