I'm grateful to be free.

All I wanted was for someone to call me beautiful. All I wanted was attention to be foisted upon me by the male population for my body and appearance that wasn’t negative or abusive or obnoxious. I watched my thinner, more conventionally attractive girlfriends bask in the attentions paid to them and oh, did I burn with jealousy. How I wanted to be something that wasn’t “other”, something that bordered on human, with feelings and wants and desires. If I could only winnow this carcass down to an appropriate size, an appropriate shape, perhaps fix this prickly, mouthy personality of mine so as to be more appealing, more proper, I would be a good woman.

I wore my drag, I painted my face, I fixed my hair just so, and wished wished wished I might wake up pretty. That I would stop being “one of the boys” and become an object of desire for these baffling men who always seemed to find me so very fascinating and interesting and funny and smart, but never could manage to like me in “that way”, that oh so mysterious “way”.

Then I started reading things and I started thinking those deep thoughts that strike in the middle of the night like a fucking thunderbolt and realizing that my body was mine to present in any fashion I chose, with the only person required to be pleased by it being me (awkward sentence construction, ho!). No, I didn’t like the way my face looked with make-up, no I didn’t like the way I felt in sucky-in gear*, no I didn’t like using hairspray, and goddammit, I don’t care if you approve or disapprove of how I’m looking today, whoever you are.

I will never meet your standards for what you think is beautiful or breathtaking. And I am overjoyed.




*sucky-in gear: a very technical term for shapewear like Spanx and what have you.