i am at open mics practicing jokes many times a week. some hosts of some mics tell us to steer clear of bigotry in our sets, some don’t. sometimes these directives are followed, sometimes they are not. stand up comedy can be as volatile, unpredictable, and crusty as any other form of human expression.
i tried a new open mic this week that had no anti-bigotry announcement. i was the only not-man there. i was on a tight schedule and wanted to get my practice in before performing later in the week.1 i told my little jokes about being trans, among other topics, and sat down.
the person who got up after me went on and on about having sex with a cross dresser. he spoke about how gross they are. he talked about being ashamed of the lengths he goes to to get laid. people laughed, more at him than with him, it seemed. they laughed a lot, covering their mouths. the person who got up after him riffed off his cross dresser joke. people laughed more. i got up and left.
i was struck by this man’s shame about both his desire and desirability. that part was difficult to witness and very relatable. i am asking, and feel like many of us are asking ourselves, who am i drawn to? am i wanted? very often. it’s funny and awkward. and instead of wading into any of that, he found a villain, a scary, pathetic, disgusting villain. i thought of this question: “What will you do with the misery you have chosen, will you eat misery?”2
i felt deeply angered by the choice. hot. it felt hypocritical, lazy, cruel and boring. on top of that, men or other people not processing their desire, shame and fear translates to trans people being terrorized and murdered, especially trans women, especially Black trans women. this refusal creates a cultural climate of hostility and contempt.
i almost felt humiliated as a ~trans~ person. then i remembered that at least we have the decency and dignity to ask (and sometimes answer) difficult questions. we ask whether we feel aligned with what we’re taught about gender, self expression, power, desire, not to mention what to fucking wear. we’re not so attached to the rules. the rules are kind of the worst.
i hope someone holds some kind of space for those fuckers to ask themselves some of those questions, that they might feel some dignity. and i won’t hold my breath.
in the mean time, i felt utterly invigorated reading Harmony Holiday’s words about her poetics, writing through and with self regard, with unabashed love:
“I’d rather say I am inside somebody who loves me and I can prove it by the way she speaks of me, to me, and through me, and by the rules she refuses to follow. In not so much a hierarchy as a system, the way we move through space and time, how we treat and see our bodies, how valuable we believe we are, how free, how eager to know ourselves and reflect that knowing as being, becomes the way we think and those thoughts become the way we live….”
the beauty of trans people is nearly laughable; the elegance and care.
i’ll keep saying it, keep living it. i’ll keep recognizing the misery and returning it to sender. laughing even if it’s after shouting.
i’ll keep noticing you, beautiful ones, and believing. there you are, through the window, in my reflection, all around me. looking good, looking better for the fun of it. insistent, alive, unshut, no doubt.
at an all trans show, amen ↩
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun. I think about this quote all the time. It reminds me of how dangerous unheld pain can be. Ironically, Adichie has been accused of being transphobic. I don’t know the whole story and so far cancelling people hasn’t eliminated or even diminished oppression or violence (that I know of), so I haven’t made the effort to get to the bottom of what happened. ↩
https://poetrysociety.org.uk/manifesto-harmony-holiday/ ↩