nickname(s) / goes by: Harley, 'art' signed with the H handshape (name sign), Li (Chinese name their grandma calls them)
pronouns & gender: they/he, transmasc nonbinary
sexuality: pansexual
birth date: may 27, 2000.
birth place: alexandria, va
arrival to merrock: 2003, at the age of three
housing: downtown in a one bedroom apartment
occupation: art instructor, freelance illustrator, web cartoonist
work place: the color wine, work-from-home
family: parents, older brother, maamaa
relationship status: single
personality
Harley knows who they are, and they're not afraid to let their newfound confidence and happiness shine through. Sunny and friendly, they're the kind of person who will drop everything to help out someone they care about. Sometimes their positivity can be a little forced, though, as they try not to think about the sadder parts of their life. Usually functioning more on caffeine than sleep, Harley is a nocturnal workaholic. But they would argue that it's not work if you're doing what you love.
Harley was born in Alexandria, Virginia, just outside of Washington DC. His parents had been struggling to give birth for years, and adopted their oldest child. Shortly after the adoption was finalized, they were pleasantly surprised to find out that they were going to have a biological child as well. Despite a difficult and complicated pregnancy, Harley was born as a seemingly healthy baby girl. They were only three when the family relocated to Merrock, ME. Their only early memories of Alexandria are a few brief glimpses of the family’s apartment. Growing up, Merrock was the only place they had ever called ‘home’.
Harley’s first hearing test was when they were five years old. It was a routine test that every kid in his class received, along with a vision screening. Harley’s eye test came back without any cause for concern, but they soon found out that they had failed their hearing test. This surprised not only Harley, but their parents as well. A follow up test with a licensed audiologist confirmed the original findings, and gave a clearer idea of what frequencies were affected. Mild hearing loss in the upper registers. At first, there was nothing to be concerned about. They could understand spoken language perfectly fine, with no major difference from their peers with perfect hearing, so the only thing that was done was a follow up appointment in a few months to monitor and make sure their hearing wasn’t deteriorating. A few months later, in the same audiologist office, their parents found out that the most recent test had come back showing greater hearing loss. Nobody knew what would happen in the future, but all signs pointed to them becoming completely deaf before reaching adulthood.
Their home was a bilingual environment, with both English and French commonly spoken with sprinklings of Cantonese as well. Throwing in a fourth language would only confuse everyone, the audiologist told them. With Harley not being born deaf, he had a similar grasp of oral language to his hearing peers, and the audiologist also worried that he’d be less motivated to speak and would lose the clarity of his spoken words if he had the option to sign. His family was pushed towards hearing aids and lipreading. Once hearing aids were no longer enough, they could start looking at cochlear implants.
Although Harley doesn’t dwell on it or talk about it much, this was a very difficult and scary time. They were losing one of their senses, and nobody could stop it or make it easier. They threw themself into gymnastics, which they had been involved with since moving to Merrock. They loved challenging themself to be the best they could be. However, being in such a female dominated sport also highlighted a feeling that something was different about them. They brushed those feelings off, figuring they were just more of a tomboy than other girls in the sport and that their feelings of disconnect from their body were because of how they felt about their hearing loss.
The other thing they focused on was their art. Their first canvases were crayons and the white walls of their Alexandria apartment. They heard the words ‘security deposit’ in worried, frustrated tones many times before they ever understood what the phrase meant. Fortunately for their parents, they quickly moved onto graphite pencils and sketchbooks, and later canvas and paint. Once their hearing began to deteriorate, art became a very comfortable escape; it was a world where hearing meant nothing and they could draw the many feelings they didn’t have the words to talk about.
Before finishing middle school, Harley was profoundly deaf. Hearing aids had long stopped being a tool to help them understand spoken language, and their lipreading skills had not developed as strongly as their audiologist and parents had hoped for. With some accommodations, they managed in school and gymnastics. Their friends tried to be inclusive, utilizing notebooks and group text chats, but there was only so much they could realistically do and Harley often felt like they were trapped in a bubble watching the world around them. They became a quiet observer, hiding behind a sketchpad or a comic book as often as they could.
Cochlear implants were strongly suggested by Harley’s audiologist, but his parents left the choice up to him. Harley was twelve now, and they felt he was old enough to have the final say in these decisions. But without knowing ASL or anyone else who was deaf, the choice was obvious. Harley underwent cochlear implant surgery on his right side, soon followed by his left side. The adjustment was difficult. As isolating as the silence had been, he was used to it. He was hearing sounds he had completely forgotten about and found listening all the time to be overstimulating. But his audiologist pushed for him to wear the cochlear implants every waking moment, and it’s what his parents expected from him as well. Still, he didn’t regret his choice. For the first time in years, he could have conversations with his friends and listen to his teachers. His confidence grew, and as he learned to hear the world through his artificial ears, he became much more outgoing.
In eighth grade, some of their friends convinced them to try out for cheerleading. Harley’s gymnastics background helped them pass auditions with flying colors. The girls on the squad were very quick to give Harley a makeover. They had always preferred basketball shorts and baggy tshirts. Their mom refused to let them cut their long, curly hair so they instead pulled it back in a pony or messy bun to not have to deal with it. But this was apparently “not how a cheerleader should present herself”. Eager to not be the weird deaf tomboy cheerleader who stuck out like a sore thumb, Harley accepted the help finding a new look. Skinny jeans, mini skirts and feminine tops that revealed curves they never wanted soon replaced most of their ‘boy’ clothes. They also started wearing their hair down most days to hide their cochlear implants. If people didn’t see the devices, they often forgot he was deaf. With his new aesthetic, he finally looked like a ‘normal’ girl.
Objectively, Harley knew they were considered attractive. But when they looked at themself in the mirror, they felt no connection to the feminine reflection staring back at them. It was easy to explain this feeling away - their body had betrayed them and becoming deaf had been traumatic, so of course it was hard to feel connected to it now. But that explanation didn’t quite sit right and it didn’t do anything to lessen the numbness Harley felt deep down every time they had to put on the stereotypical teenage girl persona, or get into a cheer uniform or gymnastics leotard. And it didn’t explain the jealousy Harley felt every time they were intimate with a boyfriend.
Harley attended college in New York City, with a degree in illustration. They picked New York because several major book publishers were headquartered there. Their childhood dream had been to become a comic book artist, with their backup being to do illustrations for childrens’ books, and a degree in illustration set them up for both. The biggest drawback was that they had no family in New York, leaving them on their own for the first time. But they quickly realized this had some major benefits. Nobody cared what Harley looked like; even participating in The New School’s cheerleading squad, there were no unofficial dress code requirements. Their mom wasn’t there to stop them from cutting their hair short, and nobody shared any criticisms when they once again replaced dresses and heels for patterned button ups and sneakers. For the first time that Harley could remember, they felt okay in their own skin. Some days they even felt good. Yet every time they had to put on that cheer skirt, all of those positive feelings would practically leak out of their body and it would take several days to feel okay again. Harley finally opened up to a teammate about it one night before a game, and that friend said something that changed Harley’s world. Do you think you might be trans?
At first, Harley laughed off this idea. He was certainly aware trans people existed, but it was always an abstract idea. Other people were transgender. They had been a stereotypical teenage girl and they had performed that character well. But that was just it…’she’ was a character, and to some degree they realized they always saw ‘her’ more as an alter ego than who they really were. If they were Superman, ‘she’ was Clark Kent helping them blend into the society around them…just with lipstick instead of glasses. As Harley came out and started to transition, they realized that this was what their body was supposed to feel like and that the person in the mirror finally felt like it was really them. They leaned hard into this new identity, going exclusively by he/him pronouns, and seeing themself as a binary trans man.
Shortly into his sophomore year, Harley’s maamaa (grandma) in Alexandria had to get emergency surgery. Harley ended up withdrawing early into the semester and taking a gap year so he could focus on helping his maamaa out. Her house was only twenty minutes away from Gallaudet. What Harley didn’t realize at the time was that the largest population of Deaf Americans was right there in nearby Washington DC. It only took a few weeks before the first time he saw people signing back and forth. As much as he wanted to go up and talk to them, he didn’t really know what to say. One of them saw him staring and noticed his cochlear implants. They exchanged numbers, and next thing Harley knew he was being dragged to his first Deaf event.
Harley expected to find connection, like they had finally found their people, but they felt so out of their depth in this new environment. They didn’t sign, and even the beginner ASL students who came to the event to meet native signers understood the language better than he did. However, one of those students did put him in touch with a Deaf ASL professor who then set Harley up with free ASL classes. The better his signing got, the more he started to find his place in the Deaf community. Once his grandma was feeling better, Harley went back to college in New York and found himself splitting his time between the two major cities.
Once Harley graduated from college, he started looking for work in New York. The plan his parents drilled into both him and his brother had always been simple; graduate high school, get into a good college, graduate, get hired. But there were so many aspiring artists in New York and there were fewer publishing companies now than when Harley had set out on his college path. By day, Harley worked on his art and tried to make connections in the art world that would lead to the career he wanted. By night, he was a bartender - the same job he had done throughout college. As the months went on, Harley didn’t catch any breaks in art and worried he would never be anything but a bartender with an unused art degree. So he started applying for any art job he could find, in both New York and Washington, DC.
He found work as a tour guide at a museum in DC, and moved back to Alexandria and lived with his maamaa. While at that job, Harley learned that he loved the idea of being a curator, and started an online masters program in art history. He also had the room to experiment with gender, labels and pronouns and ultimately landed on being a nonbinary person who used both they/them and he/him, with a preference towards gender neutral language and pronouns. They also came to see the Deaf community and the Chinese-American community in DC as part of their identity as well.
A couple years later, their maamaa made the decision to retire and move to Merrock to be closer to the rest of the Hua family. Initially Harley didn’t plan on returning to Maine with her. They were very involved in both the Deaf and Chinese-American communities in the DC area, and knew moving back to Merrock would mean giving both of those things up. But they slowly realized their maamaa's move was their dad’s idea. Maamaa didn’t speak much English, and Harley knew better than anyone else in their family how isolating that could be for her. They decided to move back to their hometown to be closer to their maamaa and rebuild their relationship with their parents.
Now back in town, Harley still manages to stay busy. They split their time instructing classes at The Color Wine, working as a freelance illustrator, and they are starting their own webcomic about the intersectionality of trans, Deaf, Chinese and Jewish cultures. When they’re not overly involved in their art, they can often be found working out or reading a comic book.
Merrock would like to welcome Harley Hua, penned by Elle. Make sure your account is submitted in 48 hours, and take a look at our welcome brochure. Can't wait to see you on dash! xx
OOC INFO: Elle
face claim: Chella Man
full name: Harley Hua
nickname(s) / goes by: Harley, 'art' signed with the H handshape (name sign), Li (Chinese name their grandma calls them)
pronouns & gender: they/he, transmasc nonbinary
sexuality: pansexual
birth date: may 27, 2000.
birth place: alexandria, va
arrival to merrock: 2003, at the age of three
housing: downtown in a one bedroom apartment
occupation: art instructor, freelance illustrator, web cartoonist
arrival to merrock: Local, moved to New York for five years, then came back
housing: downtown apartment
occupation: artist
work place: instructor at The Color Wine and a tour guide at From Brush to Canvas
family: Mother and father (in town), brother (lives outside Merrock)
relationship status: single
PERSONALITY
After so many years of shame and confusion, Harley has a strong grasp of self for the first time in his life. This shows through in his confidence, his courage, and also his kindness towards other people. He is always there for his friends, or for a stranger in need. Harley is a playful workaholic; between his two jobs, consistent gym routine, his own art, and making time to enjoy hobbies and hang out with friends he is always on the go. He rarely gets eight hours of sleep, as evidenced by the insane amount of coffee he drinks daily. But he wouldn't change anything, because his life is interesting and fun and it's *his*.
Harley grew up in Merrock with his parents and his older brother. He was an active kid, involved with gymnastics and later cheerleading as well. He loved to swim and surf, and spent as much time as his parents would let him at the beach or the community pool.
Although Harley passed his hearing test as a baby, when he was in kindergarten he didn’t pass his screening at school. His parents took him to an audiologist and was diagnosed with mild hearing loss. A few months later, another test showed he was gradually losing his hearing. Technically it was Harley’s decision whether or not to get a cochlear implant. His parents never intentionally influenced him one way or another. But his doctors had advised his parents not to teach him sign language, insisting that without sign language he’d learn to read lips and would function much better around hearing people. The problem was that Harley never really picked up lip reading anyways, so his only option to communicate with people was to get the cochlear implant. At first he hated it. Everyone sounded like Donald Duck and inanimate objects all sounded so machine-like. He slowly got used to it and appreciated being able to hear his friends and family again, but he remembered what things were supposed to sound like so he never found himself satisfied with the quality of audio that came from his implant.
At the same time, puberty was not doing Harley a lot of favors. He never cared too much about his body growing up; he wore the most androgynous clothing his mom would let him and made a face but sucked it up whenever he had to wear a leotard for gymnastics. As he entered middle school and made the cheerleading squad, there was suddenly a lot more pressure to look more feminine and fit in. Baggy tshirts were replaced by form fitting clothes, and his basketball shorts were regulated to nighttime wear in favor of skinny jeans and short skirts. After spending all of elementary school barely being able to communicate with the people around him, he wanted so badly to just fit in and feel like everyone else around him. He’d look at his own reflection and see a stereotypical teenage girl and while he could appreciate that she was beautiful, it felt like he was looking at someone else and not himself. He knew deep down that he wasn’t ‘her’, but he didn’t know what that meant or how to fix it. After high school, Harley moved to New York to pursue a degree in illustration. His childhood dream had been to write a comic book, but drawing the pictures that would appear in childrens books was the next best thing and a more realistic way to make a living. His brother had also decided to go to new york for college, so they were soon living together again. He became involved in his school’s gender-sexuality alliance and soon learned about the transgender community. And suddenly a lot of things started to click. As he was figuring out his gender, his brother was extremely supportive. Once he had worked through everything and decided he wanted to transition and start going by Harley, his brother stood by him when he came out to their parents. But his parents’ reactions weren’t as warm. They still loved him - they made sure to tell him that - but they also insisted that this was just a phase. Considering they had been very accepting when he came out to them as bisexual (actually, pansexual, but he had told them he was ‘bi’ just because it was easier) a couple years before, this was not the reaction he had expected from them
During Harley’s freshman year of college, he met another deaf student who introduced him to the local Deaf community. He kept going to events and even dated one of the guys he saw at a lot of events, which required him to learn ASL.
His plan after he graduated was to stay in New York and find work as an illustrator. But this turned out to be harder than he realized. He struggled to find good paying jobs, which meant he had to keep working as a bartender and just do art on the side. At the same time, he and his boyfriend broke up and his brother took a job in Missouri. So Harley decided that maybe it would be a good idea for him to leave the city as well.
Luckily for Harley, he had a much easier time getting his foot in the door in his hometown's art world. With his degree, he was easily able to get a job at The Color Wine as well as a tour guide position at From Brush to Canvas. He has mixed feelings about being in Merrock again, around a lot of people who he's barely seen since he was a teenager. But mostly he's excited for it to feel like home again.
Harley (he/him, trans-masc nonbinary) was born on May 27, 1999 in Merrock, Maine, and is a local. They're working as an artist who works at The Color Wine & From Brush to Canvas, and lives downtown. -- (written by elle (she/her, est) & portrayed by chella man).
Hi, Elle, welcome to Merrock! We're so excited to see Harley here in town. Make sure to check out our welcome page, and submit your account within 48 hours, and your personality & background within one week. Thank you! xx
face claim: Chella Man
full name: Harley Hua
nickname(s) / goes by: Harley
pronouns & gender: trans-masc nonbinary
sexuality: pansexual
birth date: May 27, 1999
birth place: Merrock, ME
arrival to merrock: Local, moved to New York for five years, then came back
housing: downtown apartment
occupation: artist
work place: instructor at The Color Wine and a tour guide at From Brush to Canvas
family: Mother and father (in town), brother (lives outside Merrock)
work place: The Color Wine (teaches evening classes), From Brush to Canvas (tour guide)
family: Parents in Boston, brother who I may put in a wanted connection for!
relationship status: single
PERSONALITY
Harley is a warm and friendly person, sometimes to a fault. He often will try to put other people before himself, as if their needs are more important. But at the same time, he's the most confident he's ever been in his life and for the first time, is comfortable advocating for himself. Growing up, he tried so hard to blend in but now he's so proud of all the different cultures and languages that make up who he is. Still, he can be a little too critical of himself, especially when it comes to nutrition/fitness and his own art.
Harley grew up in Boston, MA, with his parents and his older brother. He was an active kid, involved with gymnastics and later cheerleading as well. He loved to swim and spent as much time as his parents would let him at the beach or the community pool.
Although Harley passed his hearing test as a baby, when he was in kindergarten he didn’t pass his screening at school. His parents took him to an audiologist and was diagnosed with mild hearing loss. A few months later, another test showed he was gradually losing his hearing. Technically it was Harley’s decision whether or not to get a cochlear implant. His parents never intentionally influenced him one way or another. But his doctors had advised his parents not to teach him sign language, insisting that without sign language he’d learn to read lips and would function much better around other hearing people. The problem was that Harley never really picked up lip reading anyways, so his only option to communicate with people was to get the cochlear implant. At first he hated it. Everyone sounded like Donald Duck and inanimate objects all sounded like those bad industrial rock songs his brother liked. He slowly got used to it and appreciated being able to hear his friends and family again, but he remembered what things were supposed to sound like so he never found himself satisfied with the quality of audio that came from his implant.
At the same time, puberty was not doing harley a lot of favors. He never cared too much about his body growing up; he wore the most androgynous clothing his mom would let him and made a face but sucked it up whenever he had to wear a leotard for gymnastics or put on his cheerleading uniform. As he entered middle school and made the cheerleading squad, there was suddenly a lot more pressure to look more feminine and fit in. Baggy tshirts were replaced by form fitting clothes, and his basketball shorts were regulated to nighttime wear in favor of skinny jeans and short skirts. After spending all of elementary school barely being able to communicate with the people around him, he wanted so badly to just fit in and feel like a ‘normal’ kid. He’d look at his own reflection and see a stereotypical teenage girl and while he could appreciate that she was beautiful, it felt like he was looking at someone else and not himself. He knew deep down that he wasn’t ‘her’, but he didn’t know what that meant or how to fix it.
After high school, Harley moved to New York to pursue a degree in illustration. His childhood dream had been to write a comic book, but drawing the pictures that would appear in childrens books was the next best thing and a more realistic way to make a living. His brother had also decided to go to new york for college, so they were soon living together again. He became involved in his school’s gender-sexuality alliance and soon learned about the transgender community. And suddenly a lot of things started to click. As he was figuring out his gender, his brother was extremely supportive. Once he had worked through everything and decided he wanted to transition and start going by Harley, his brother stood by him when he came out to their parents. But his parents’ reactions weren’t as warm. They still loved him - they made sure to tell him that - but they also insisted that this was just a phase. Considering they had been very accepting when he came out to them as bisexual (actually, pansexual, but he had told them he was ‘bi’ just because it was easier) a couple years before, this was not the reaction he had expected from them.
During Harley’s freshman year of college, he met another deaf student who introduced him to the local Deaf community. He kept going to events and even dated one of the guys he saw at a lot of events, which required him to learn ASL.
His plan after he graduated was to stay in New York and find work as an illustrator. But this turned out to be harder than he realized. He struggled to find good paying jobs, which meant he had to keep working as a bartender and just do art on the side. At the same time, he and his boyfriend broke up and his brother took a job in Missouri. So Harley decided that maybe it would be a good idea for him to leave the city as well. He didn't want to move back to Boston, so he applied to art-based jobs all over the northern East Coast and heard back from Merrock's The Color Wine. He had never imagined himself becoming an art instructor at a sip-and-paint type studio, but he figured it was at least a good start to get some real, adult experience in the art world.
Not long after moving to the small town, the museum had an opening for a tour guide and with his art degree from New York, Harley was a standout candidate for the position. He's been working both jobs part time, plus spends a lot of his free time at The Body Shop.
