Identity
jillbertini told me yesterday to watch this video of Lana Wachowski delivering a speech to the HRC (Human Rights Campaign). When I found out it was 30 minutes long, I was like, nah, I don't have time. She assured me it was worth it and boy was it ever. It is not your typical maudlin confessional outing.
Here are some of my favorite takeaways: (script here)
So I’m at my hairdresser's. [laughter] He’s gay, go figure. I say yeah, the HRC wants to give me an award. Award for what? I say, "I guess for kind of being myself." He’s like playing with my hair and looking at me and he’s like, “Yeah, I guess you make a pretty good you.” And I was like, yeah, “Yeah, well there wasn’t a lot of competition.” And ‘cause hes a catty bitch he said, “Yeah, it’s a good thing -- just imagine if you had lost.”
We became acutely aware of the preciousness of anonymity -- understanding it as a form of virginity, something you only lose once. Anonymity allows you access to civic space, to a form of participation in public life, to an egalitarian invisibility that neither of us wanted to give up.
...it will also be the first time that I speak publicly since my transition. Parenthetically this is a word that has very complicated subject for me because of its complicity in a binary gender narrative that I am not particularly comfortable with...
...I am completely horrified by the “talk show,” the interrogation and confession format, the weeping, the tears of the host [applause] whose sympathy underscores the inherent tragedy of my life as a transgender person. And this moment fulfilling the cathartic arc of rejection to acceptance without ever interrogating the pathology of a society that refuses to acknowledge the spectrum of gender in the exact same blind way they have refused to see a spectrum of race or sexuality....
(Character in movie) She says, “If I had remained invisible, the truth would have remained hidden and I couldn’t allow that.”
I’m not trying to disobey, I’m just trying to fit in.
He(r dad) said, “Look, if my kid wants to sit down and talk to me I’m a lucky man. What matters is that you’re alive, you seem happy, and that I can put my arms around you and give you a kiss.” [applause] Having good parents is just like the lottery. You’re just like, “Oh my god, I won the lottery! What the -- I didn’t do anything!”
I couldn’t find anyone like me in the world and it felt like my dreams were foreclosed simply because my gender was less typical than others.
I am not trans. I find narratives from trans people incredibly compelling, however. Maybe because I have spent my whole life trying to figure out where I fit in. I feel like I am just now beginning to discover who I really am. I just need to remember that I need to be me. I can only be me and no one else can be me better than I can. That is something to strive for, not run away from. It's useless trying to be someone else.
I am looking forward to some time alone today. I have plans to write and sew and then there will be Halloween stuff.
This entry was originally posted at http://jelazakazone.dreamwidth.org/615562.html. Feel free to comment here or there.