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oi. Please leave comments--this will be an important feature in the downcoming zine I think.
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I know that deep down--okay, not deep down, just beneath the dead skin cells scraped by a not-bitten nail--you think that I’m this way because I’m playing a part in some scripted way. And yeah, it’s a part you wouldn’t have picked for me to play, but nu, you can let that go. Or at least swallow it and hope it doesn’t lodge in your throat like that clump of mucus I had to coach you to hock and spit out. But deep down, I can almost hear you insist, I am not this person I’m presenting myself to be. I am eternally and immutably girl, feminina, and you will pick out my wedding dress and maybe I’ll be barefoot as a nod to my ‘independent spirit’ and crush violets and wet grass under my step as I walk towards my waiting husband. Maybe I’ll even get to pick him out myself, this fulfillment of my destiny. (I know that hearing this is making you cry. You should know that makes me wanna cry.) And after we smash the glass --note the noticeable absence of shards ground into my feet--we’ll all sit at long wooden tables and eat pasta and drink lots of red wine which will of course not spill on my white dress.
But you’ve swallowed that, supposedly, and it’s stillborn + turning over with the dark moon and now you’re dealing with this seemingly unabidingly strung-together set of desires/movements/clothes/interpretations of my gendered body. When you say, “but you’re a woman” like it’s an indubitable proof I should somehow be able to refute, I cringe. I’m not equipped to point out the problems with that statement without saying something I don’t mean. I can’t say, “yes, but...” and I can’t say, “well, no, cos...” When you say, “why do you want to look like a man?” my throat closes up. I don’t want to be a man, and I also don’t want to have the word “woman” waved in my face as my real/live/core gender. How can I even start to explain to you how it fucks me up to think that sexed terms of masc/femininity are expressions of some True Essence, some substance that must be hardening to amber inside my ribcage?
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note: obviously ce n'est pas fini...yet. oh, franglais.
* * *
I know that deep down--okay, not deep down, just beneath the dead skin cells scraped by a not-bitten nail--you think that I’m this way because I’m playing a part in some scripted way. And yeah, it’s a part you wouldn’t have picked for me to play, but nu, you can let that go. Or at least swallow it and hope it doesn’t lodge in your throat like that clump of mucus I had to coach you to hock and spit out. But deep down, I can almost hear you insist, I am not this person I’m presenting myself to be. I am eternally and immutably girl, feminina, and you will pick out my wedding dress and maybe I’ll be barefoot as a nod to my ‘independent spirit’ and crush violets and wet grass under my step as I walk towards my waiting husband. Maybe I’ll even get to pick him out myself, this fulfillment of my destiny. (I know that hearing this is making you cry. You should know that makes me wanna cry.) And after we smash the glass --note the noticeable absence of shards ground into my feet--we’ll all sit at long wooden tables and eat pasta and drink lots of red wine which will of course not spill on my white dress.
But you’ve swallowed that, supposedly, and it’s stillborn + turning over with the dark moon and now you’re dealing with this seemingly unabidingly strung-together set of desires/movements/clothes/interpretations of my gendered body. When you say, “but you’re a woman” like it’s an indubitable proof I should somehow be able to refute, I cringe. I’m not equipped to point out the problems with that statement without saying something I don’t mean. I can’t say, “yes, but...” and I can’t say, “well, no, cos...” When you say, “why do you want to look like a man?” my throat closes up. I don’t want to be a man, and I also don’t want to have the word “woman” waved in my face as my real/live/core gender. How can I even start to explain to you how it fucks me up to think that sexed terms of masc/femininity are expressions of some True Essence, some substance that must be hardening to amber inside my ribcage?
* * *
note: obviously ce n'est pas fini...yet. oh, franglais.
