and i wonder, do you feel the same as me
last night i had a long and complicated dream, which isn’t so surprising… the surprising part is that i then remembered this dream when i woke up. this isn’t so much the “look at what a wacky dream i had” narrative as it is a “what does this mean about waking life?”
because in this dream i was having an argument with someone who was in to me, liked me a lot, wanted to be my friend, but flatly refused to accept that i was part of the trans community.
… and this is something that i’ve been worrying about a lot lately, as i explore what it means to be largely femme-identified in a female body. in my burlesque class i’ve been trying to choose between two pieces – one that’s pretty much just high femme, and one that’s obviously a genderqueer commentary. my analysis of these two pieces is that the genderqueer one would be easier and probably more interesting, and that the femme one would be more challenging, but also potentially boring.
i’m in burlesque 101 to challenge myself (i’m in this world to challenge myself?), but also to increase my strength as a performer. i was thinking seriously about starting hormones a few months ago, when i realized that the only thing holding me back was fear of societal repercussion (the alternate word that i was going to put there was “asshattery”)… i think that somehow i’ve come to believe that if i’m not challenged, if i’m comfortable, things aren’t worth my time.
this is everywhere in my life – work, relationships, gender – and it has such an amazing contradiction with my agoraphobia, i can’t even begin to fathom. i wonder if it comes from judging myself harshly for letting the agoraphobia win and not facing the challenges? and i wonder how the hell i might try to beat it.
this isn’t at all where i thought this entry was going to go. it was initially just going to be a reassertion of my place in the trans/gender/queer community, my role as a “militant genderqueer” … but then i wonder, if i feel the need to constantly remind everybody that i belong… am i feeling like i belong? obviously not. i have no way of knowing what everybody else is feeling, but i keep distancing myself from transmasculine spaces in particular because of my femme presentation – but other than being the most femme gay guy you might ever meet, i’m also pretty darn gay and man.
i don’t know, sweethearts. i have no idea.
