3/17/19
After my performance in Austin two trans femmes escorted me to my car & wouldn’t leave me alone on the street to make sure I was safe and followed up to make sure I got home okay. After my show in Toronto a group of folks walked with me and @artstarkiley to our next destination to make sure that we got there without being harassed. I was so touched & grateful, truly. I’m so used to having to safety plan by myself, and having other people care for me in this way moved me so much. This is what I want and need — queer interdependence. This idea that queer people have to be “strong” & “liberated” is a straight projection on us so they can be “lazy” and “complicit” in our struggle & not have to actually do anything to make our lives less awful. Transmisogyny means that queer & trans life only matters for its visuality, for its entertainment value, for its ability to overcome. We internalize this & treat each other as disposable. But we have to imagine and practice something else for each other: kindness, mutual aid, interdependence. So often when people ask me if I need anything I say no because I’ve become so accustomed to self-reliance & having to rough it out myself. But when people offer what they can provide — something tangible — it makes it so much easier for me to accept. I felt safe those two nights because of the love of queer strangers (potential friends). Safety is something I rarely feel and I do not take it lightly. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for protecting me, for caring about my life beyond the stage or the screen. Vulnerability comes from “vulna” which means wound. In other words: vulnerability is our willingness to be wounded. Are we willing to be wounded for each other? That’s what love means to me. Means I will inconvenience myself for you, I will put my body on the line, I will walk next to you, I will lose power by being with you...because there are things that are more important than power, aren’t there? This is the world I yearn for: one in which intimacy is desired more than power, one in which we are never lonely because there is always someone there. Always someone there.
