Comments (0) I just watched the season premier of 30 Rock, and it has a scene with Tracy Jordan wandering outside of NBC, trying to make friends with a “normal” person.
He wanders from person to person, being super-awkward, and finally goes up to a pedicab, saying, “Are you a pre-op trans-centaur?”
I don’t remember the last time a tv show has made me laugh outloud and, upon rewinding to make sure I got the joke, made me laugh out loud again.
I’ve been feeling queer this week. Unfortunately I don’t mean the good queer, of self-identification, pride, and a sense of community. I don’t mean queer. I’ve felt that way at times, and it’s definitely a feeling I want to foster and help grow. But right now, I’m feeling queer as in strange, odd, other. Like I don’t fit.
I think it’s something that’s been building all week. As I’m working on my show, I’ve been thinking a lot about my identity as trans, and the transition, and it’s reminded me how straight and heteronormative most of my friends are. Obviously that’s not a bad thing, but it’s made me feel a little alone being trans, let alone gay. We were watching How I Met Your Mother (a show that I’ve had issues with before) and they did yet another “man in drag as stand-in for ugly woman in a fantasy” sequence. The sequence wasn’t specifically about trans women, and there was no mention of “she’s a man” (as there has been more explicitly in the past), but it still made me upset. I’m not sure if I’m ready to give up on How I Met Your Mother, but I felt closer to calling it quits than I have before. (I know, I know, not watching a TV show isn’t exactly a huge deal, but it’s a show my roommate s and I watch together, and I’m the only one who has issues with it, so it’s feeding into my feeling queer.)
Then, on Wednesday, I went to a trans youth group in Chicago. I’ve been going off and on for over a year, and it’s – on the whole – been a positive experience. But I feel closer to the facilitators than I do to the other youth (the facilitators aren’t tons older than me). And I feel really bad saying this, but I sometimes think I’m the only youth coming to this group who has their shit together. That is, I know I’m super privileged – don’t have debt, have a full-time job, accepting friends and family and coworkers – and I’m definitely not faulting any of the other youth for having a harder situation than I do. But it also makes me feel like I don’t have much in common with them.
As I said, I’m also processing a lot as I try and get my show together. I’ve thought a lot about the idea of transitioning as being a teenager (self-discovery, figuring out identity and presentation, etc) and I don’t want to be a teenager anymore. I don’t have the time to be a teenager, and I feel stupid trying on new identities and modes of self-presentation to see what fits.
I also feel like all my posts this week have been whiny and obnoxious…
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