This post was inpsired pretty heavily by my friend’s post, here.
Recently, everybody’s been asking me if I’m involved in some sort of “community”. As if that will keep me safe. As if that will make me feel less burdened. As if that will solve all my problems. And when they ask I know they mean queer community. I know they mean trans community. I know they mean youth community. So I answer, “yes, I’ve been involved in the theatre community for quite some time now.” Because what else am I supposed to say when I know what answer they’re looking for but can’t give it to them? I give them the answer that I know best. And in all honesty, my answer isn’t wrong. It isn’t wrong just because everybody thinks that the queer community, or the trans community, or the youth community, or the queer youth community, or the trans youth community, or the queer-trans-youth community will help me the most. It isn’t wrong just because of all the communities I’ve been a part of (the afore-mentioned, specifically), the theatre community has helped me the most. I’m tired of being embarrassed for what I think has helped me and what I think will continue to help me through my process of transition.
The truth is, nothing fits me like theatre does. Theatre fits me like a big, brown, cozy, woolen sweater. It fits me no matter how much weight I lose or gain. It fits regardless of how much my identity may shift or stay the same. It fits me whether I am queer or straight or a non-believer in sexual orientation, and queer again. It fits me whether I’m the “right kind of trannyboy” or not. It fits me whether I wear black jeans, or blue jeans, or courderoy. And it doesn’t matter how high or low my pants ride, whether I take my hat off when I enter a room or whether I leave it on. Theatre will always fit me like that big, brown, cozy sweater.
The queer community always feels like a stiff new shirt; starched, ironed and waiting for me to fit into it. It feels like a shirt intended to shape me, not for me to shape it. Unlike the sweater, which becomes something different whenever I wear it, dependant on me to make it what it is, the stiff new shirt doesn’t need me to make it look good good. It operates on the basis that I need it for me to look good, and if I’m gonna wear it, I better fit into its boxy shape. The shirt is made to design me, for me to fit it, but never, ever, for it to fit me, for me to design it. People assume that the queer community will help me deal with things, deal with myself, because there are people like me there. No. There is no one like me. I am different than everyone else because everyone is different from everyone else. May we share the same feelings about the world? Is it possible we’ve experienced the same oppressions? Yes, absolutely. But because we are different people we approach it in different ways, from different angles. Besides all of this, I insist that I don’t really even identify as queer anymore. And to this, they laugh.
And usually say, “ah, but you are.“
Similar feelings burn in me for the trans community. I’m not even sure if there is an existant “trans community” in Toronto. There are a lot of trans individuals. There are a lot of groups of trans friends. There are a lot of trans cliques, but I don’t think I agree with the idea that Toronto has a “trans community“, we just have trans people. I was going to say that all my best tranny friends I met in the trans community, in an earlier draft of this post. Then I realized that’s not true. Most of my best tranny friends I met on the street doing drugs. Some “trans community” we have.
In the end, I’m not entirely sure what’s wrong with my favourite community, the community I rely on the most, being Toronto’s theatre community. It’s my big, brown, cozy sweater, and though when I haven’t washed it enough it looks hideous, it never goes out of fashion. And it always fits.