“I want people to understand that doing the right thing often does more harm than good. The standard of normal that we aim for is imaginary. People don’t fail to meet the definition of normal gender, but the definitions fail to meet the people. Being born without a vagina was not my problem. Having to get one was the real problem. My “sexual dysfunction” posed less of a threat to my health than the parts of the Syndrome that disabled me. So why is a vagina all I was given to cope with a much greater loss?”

- Tobias K. Davis

Last night, I attended a cold reading of The Naked I, a play in two acts written by Tobias K. Davis as an alternative to the Vagina Monologues, which assumes the stable identity of being female. In Naked, Tobias takes the idea of sex and gender beyond the binary, exploring the voices of transgenders, transexuals, cisgenders, and other gender-variant identities.

* * * * * *

I stumbled into the meeting, panting from a sprint. I thought I was late. I walked in the lounge expecting to see familiar faces but I found out I almost didn’t know anyone who was there. A cap hit me on the waist and fell to the floor. I bent down to pick it up and looked for the owner.

“Hey,” said someone. I saw a guy. A girl. Neither. Either. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Ummm…” I tentatively gave him my name. “I’m Justin.” His handshake was more ‘man’ than mine.

Introductions soon began. We went around the circle. “I’m Mickey. And I prefer the pronouns he/him/his.”

“Jenny. Ze or male pronouns…”

“Eliza. Female pronouns, she, her, hers.”

As the night went on, we read monologues and short plays from Davis’ work. The reading slowly went into discussing the relevance of the characters to our personal lives. I wasn’t straight. But I think I wasn’t a tranny, too. So I kept quiet and listened.

“I’ve had enough of people calling me ’she’, so I decided if I took T (testosterone), people would start calling me ‘he’.”

“I’ve always been happy about my body, you know, never regretted anything. I mean, yeah, there are some things I’d like to change, but I don’t know, like, I don’t want to change something I’ll regret. It’s just easier to be either man or woman. Right now, I’m both.”

“Today, looking back, I wouldn’t have taken T. I mean, I don’t regret it - but you should dictate what you want to be to the world and not let the world dictate what you are. Now, I walk into a male bathroom and no one bats an eye - it’s something I enjoy - but you know, sometimes, it’s better to be happy with who you are.”

“I wish everyone was like children. They’re so receptive. The 30 year old woman I used the date, well, she’s a single mom, and her 6 year old would always ask me why everyone calls me ’she’ when I’m a boy. Like I mean, I’ve been screwing with her mom. And she knows it but everyone else doesn’t.”

“When I had a boyfriend, he would tell me all about the male bathroom etiquette.”

He kept looking my way while he was explaining the male bathroom etiquette. I finally spoke. “Really? I never knew there was such a thing. No wonder when I said Hi to the guy standing next to me, he gave me a dirty look.”

Last night, I visited St. Luke’s and St. Margaret’s church for the memorial service of Rita Hester, a transgendered member of the community, who was killed 10 years ago. After listening to several speakers who represent various intersections and sections of the community, we walked in the -5 degrees Celsius night carrying candles. We arrived at a plaza, grouped into a circle and started reading the names of those who died this year due to hate crimes.

This year, we remembered (re-member - put them together again in our memories, our visions, and our hopes) Kellie Telesford of Thornton Heath, UK, Brian McGlothin of Cincinnati, Gabriela Alejandra Albornoz of Santiago, Chile, Patrick Murphy of Albuquerque, Stacy Brown of Baltimore, Adolphus Simmons of Charleston, Fedra of Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, Ashley Sweeney of Detroit, Sanesha Stewart of the Bronx, Lawrence King of Oxnard, CA, Simmie Williams Jr. of Fort Lauderdale, Luna of Lisbon, Portugal, Lloyd Nixon of West Palm Beach, Felicia Melton-Smyth of Porta Vallarta, Mexico, Silvana Berisha of Hamburg, Germany, Ebony Whitaker of Memphis, Rosa Pazos of Sevilla, Spain, Juan Carlos Aucalle Coronel of Lombardi, Italy, Angie Zapata of Greeley, CO, Jaylynn L. Namauu of Makiki Honolulu, HI, Samantha Rangel Brandau of Milan, Italy, Nakhia Williams of Louisville, Ruby Molina of Sacramento, Aimee Wilcoxson of Aurora, CO, Duanna Johnson of Memphis, Dilek Ince of Ankara, Turkey, Teish Cannon of Syracuse, Ali of Iraq, and all the other trans women and men around the world who lost their lives to transphobia this year, whose faces we never saw and names we never heard, because they were living on the margins of societies who did not respect nor want them.

(Note: The list of names were taken from Melissa McEwan’s blog, Teaspoon by Teaspoon. She was present last night at the vigil with this to say: “Social justice work is like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon. But with enough teaspoons and enough time, we will empty it. Each of you have a teaspoon with you. Each of you, by coming here tonight, has chosen to empty that ocean of anger and hate one teaspoon at a time.”)