My new tattoo an homage to balance...
And I’m BACK in New York City! Amazing what a month away sequestered in a small town focusing on your art will do, how it will change you. This retreat more than any other in my past has drawn conflicting elements together that I truly thought were forever at odds. I spent countless hours doing research alongside my mother, mapping out the acts I will develop for the next 3 years. I have never worked in this way before, but for some reason rather than feel stifling it felt freeing to know what I would be sharing with the world. I felt ready to accept a direction, because it felt organic to accept it. Which is something I’ve never felt before. I have always been an extreme personality…. yes its true. I’m either fully immersed in something or I symbolically kill it because I can’t stand it. I’m either completely in love with something or someone, or I can’t remember it or them because I’ve blocked it out. Slash and burn. All or nothing. Commit or die. That has always been what has driven me as human being. But rather than make life simple as you think it might, it has always caused me a great deal of panic and pain. When you don’t know yourself because you have not been allowed to, how really can you commit to anything? How can you make an informed choice without the essence of self knowledge? That has always been my conundrum… But ever since I came out of the closet 2 years ago those black and white feelings have begun to transform into something much more forgiving. My heart and mind have become accommodating to my soul. I no longer look in the mirror and see only half of what I should be, and an ugly shapeless half at that. My identity as a “Polyamourous Omnisexual Gender Fluid Queer” is there staring back at me now, a strongly male feeling androgynous being in the body of woman. “It” is inside me, not he or she… but the freedom to move back and forth at will, sometimes within seconds.
Sitting alone at night in my bedroom growing up I used to wonder if I should get a sex change, because as I used to tell my Mother ” I feel like I’m a man inside”… I had ferreted out articles and Date Line specials on the subject as young as 9 and I was scared: did I really want to say good bye to the trappings of the female sex? I thought even then boobs and vagina’s were fun! Women were pretty! I wanted to be pretty even though I felt like a boy. I thought “if I have a sex change and become a man I will be frumpy, I won’t have boobs when I grow up to wear in dresses, they will lock me up for becoming a man and then dressing like a girl.” I hated growing up, because no one could ever see the real me, boys thought I was a girl, and girls thought I was a flat out freak. All I ever wanted to do was put on on a red dress and be Jessica Rabbit and then take off and be acknowledged for my masculinity. But growing up where and how I did, you had to choose- boys had to biological boys, girls the same, and sexy girls were whores. In my mind I kept thinking what is the use of having a vagina if you can’t be a campy over the top sexy girl?! That’s like giving someone a slice of the most delicious cake in the world and then telling them “don’t eat it, and whatever you do DON’T SHARE IT!”
And thus began my epic conflict of extremes. I put myself through my own version of finishing school where I studied the female icons I thought performed glamour the best. I belted my waist at night starting in the 5th grade. I taught myself how to run in high heels up and down our steep driveway. I was born with a deep voice, and I deliberately trained it higher to more effectively be perceived as girly. Because I thought “I was born in a girls body, and I’m going to be the best damn girl ever”. Feminizing myself became my obsession- and then one fateful day I stayed home sick from school and flipped on the Donahue Show. There they were the most beautiful women I’d ever seen, like old time movie stars. They were conscious of every move, their gestures delicate, their backs straight, their long legs encased in sheer hosiery, their feet tucked into gloriously tall heels. They had on the kind of make up that makes most women think “well, she’s that kind of… you know what”. They had long provocative bouncy hair, or tall ornate up do’s like you just don’t see anymore, they were unafraid to be painted and sexualized. They flirted with Donahue himself, breathy answers and coy glances, it was was performed seduction by a group of professionals. Then our housekeeper knocked on my door to check on me and and I asked “have you ever seen such beautiful ladies?!” and she watched for less than a minute and said “those are not ladies those are men dressed as ladies, annnd I don’t think you should watch that.” Just like that my whole world was turned upside down. They were better at being ladies than any ladies I’d ever seen. And I knew then that whatever I decided to do with my body, I would be one of those ladies… So I trained harder. I obsessed more. Then I became a 6th grader.
When I started junior high everything changed. I earned a nickname for no reason other than I started parting my chest length blond hair on the side rather than down the center. It fell coquettishly over my eye… and I therefore became a “slut”. I was the only slut at that point, though there would soon be many others for similarly minor offenses. That was when I started to get angry, I put on all that fake girly stuff because I liked it but also because nothing has ever made me more happy than to see a beautiful woman. I wanted to put that on like a costume a share it with the rest of the world, to bring joy like a goddess. If I was going to be abused for it then what did I have? I had nothing. I had unresolved conflict. I had self loathing. I was empty.
Now I didn’t know what to do or to be. I couldn’t be what I wanted. The harassment was unbarable and terrifying. So I decided to live as not what I wanted to put on as a gift to myself and the world but as what I am. A masculine male being. I chopped off my long beautiful white blond hair and began dressing as a man. I accepted my title as a freak. Because at least the bullies left the freaks alone. And I stayed that way for many years. Into high school, I continued dress, act, walk, and talk like a man. Unless I got the occasional itch to dress like whore. Then it was on with the dominatrix boots and the tall black gloves. But I never tried to be feminine again. If did decide to dress as a female I let my masculinity hang out, I didn’t try to make it easy for anyone… because I hated them anyway. Because the world is extreme too, black or white, up or down, gay or straight. No one would ever listen to me, every one has always told me I had to choose, or they have tried to steer me in whatever direction makes them most comfortable. My little finishing school experiment was very effective, I come off as feminine without effort and I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard “but your soooooo feminine” from people who just wanted me to be a girl or oppositely “your pretty macho” from (mostly) guys who have trouble accepting my female body. All of those comments hurt, each one like knife, cutting me up into easy to swallow pieces.
And so I did that too, I began to hate my body around 14. I cut myself, I burned myself, I starved myself, I beat my head against walls till I was dizzy so I could fall asleep at night, I stapled myself as a pass time, I put myself in horrifically dangerous situations for fun, and tried to commit suicide twice. I was a MESS. A hot mess to be sure. Now I’m glad I lived, 25 was a major mile stone for me- because at 15 I really didn’t think I’d live to see it. The only way I made through was because of acting. I had been a dancer my whole life, but I began acting in high school and that was my ticket to freedom. I could play men on stage, and when I cast myself I frequently did. I could play draggy campy vixens without consequence and I always did. Playing Cherry in Bus Stop was me at my happiest moment- playing a role made famous by Marylin Monroe a commonly accepted female drag artist herself. Me at 16 with my curvy body, my high heels, my tits all pushed up, my big painted on lips, my roll set hair… I was in heaven. But at the end of the night it always had to come off… and I was alone again with my anger and my conflict.
Flash forward to me coming out, my first step as real living person. Not 3/4 in the dark, not half dead to myself and the world… It was only the beginning. There was till the issue of polarities to figure out: did I want to transition? Did want to keep my vagina? Could I fathom myself as a drag artist? Did I have the guts? Was any of this really necessary? Was I crazy? What WAS I? Now that I was out and I had the freedom to choose what was my choice? This was the first time in my life I tried keep my extreme impulses at bay, I didn’t want to rush into anything. Now that the cat was out of the bag I wanted to enjoy exploring what was to be a major life choice. I lived as man, I took a male name… I met with FTM’s frequently… all while performing Burlesque. I did my face for the stage, but off stage I was Max. I met with Buck Angel in a LES Cigar Bar to talk to someone who had been my hero ever since I saw his photo in a doctors office when I was middle school. And it slowly started to dawn on me as much as liked the world affirming my masculinity and acknowledging that truth about me, I liked performing femininity better. I liked the put on, the ritual, the discipline of drag most of all. And so rather than schedule my mastectomy last year, I scheduled myself a breast augmentation. Because even though I don’t identify as female I’m proud of my body, I’m proud to present femininity to other females, I’m proud to tell a part of both our stories because putting drag on is a means to do such a thing with joy.
That was what I was missing: Joy. So much of my life had been about suffering whether it was loudly, angrily, or quietly. And while I was home this trip I sat alone in my bedroom at night as I did when I was young and I found kinship. I happened across an incredible documentary called “She’s a Boy i Knew” an extremely honest and deeply felt film about one persons journey to find themselves as female, a lovely woman named Gwen. So many questions she asked were ones I’d asked, so many fears were the same. But how she feels now, after making her choice gave me comfort- because I too feel that way. Because I am not alone, and I’m not crazy. At least about this one thing any way.
I had a good laugh too, when I visited my doctor for my yearly physical. The same doctor I’ve had for almost 12 years, and she said “you’ve evolved beyond gender, your glowing, and it all makes complete sense”. A nice thing to hear a doctor say, especially when you’ve been expecting an insanity diagnosis your whole life.
XO