Last weekend, we went to a party: Nodi, James and I.
The apartment was small and the guests loud.
Philosophers, mostly, boasting over wine in plastic cups
about the woman they had corrected in Starbucks
for talking down to her child or the professor that
they didn’t know but their friends knew
who dated a girl the same age as his students.
I am not a philosopher. I don’t deal, as they do,
with the pure conceptual. James knows this, Nodi too.
We sat on the floor beside the couch, someone
asleep already behind us. I want your opinion, James said,
on this idea I have. We must have sat there for an hour,
at least, talking gender and social constructivism,
and how you know, when you know,
that you are Trans, if gender is only a construct.
How do you know what you want to perform? Shouldn’t it
be simple? You perform until you transition,
then you perform something else. When has it been like that
for anyone? How could you guarantee that for everyone?
Look, I couldn’t explain, if I tried,
how it felt on that floor. How Nodi explained herself,
added to her thoughts, amended them, thorough in her caring.
Or the slow measured set of James’s jaw, how he chose
each new word precisely and assembled them with his hands,
into what he wanted to say.
I am tired of talking about gender with cis people.
I am tired of performing explanation
or gender or polite Transgendered explanation.
We were performing for each other. Of course
we were performing for each other. Everything
is performance. Philosophers performing
moral outrage. Acquaintances feigning polite interest.
How is Trans performance different among a Trans audience?
How do you decide when to perform, when not to perform?
We were sitting on the floor
and my joints hurt. I did not think about shirt collars
and slouches, bra straps and wrinkles in the right places.
I am just talking.
In a moment, I will move.