There are two issues to consider if I stopped taking hormones. First, and most simply, the physical effects. Right now, I’m taking testosterone blockers (to help negate the testosterone my body is producing) and estrogen (to help push my body toward the hormonal norm for women). As such, blood tests taken on me right now would show a hormonally normal and balanced woman: lots of estrogen, a little testosterone. The effects of that have been physical and emotional: I grew boobs, lost some muscle mass, my body hair thinned out a bit, and I’ve become more emotional.?????

Were I to stop taking those pills, my hormone balance would slowly start shifting toward typical male: mostly testosterone, some estrogen. My breasts would ‘deflate’ a little – though not a ton – and I’d regain some of that muscle mass I lost. Likewise, my body hair would become a bit more aggressive, and my emotions would swing back from easily expressed to slightly more difficult to access. These are all pretty objective measures, and something I’m comfortable stating with some certainty.

From a mental health perspective, though, it’s much harder to determine exactly what would happen. My living and presenting as Rebecca, as who I know myself to be, has been a huge boon to how I feel about myself. I realize that identity isn’t 100% related to my physical body, but certainly some of it is. As such, were I to stop taking hormones, I’m confident my mental health status would begin to plummet back towards feelings of depression and suicide. Whether I would give into them would probably depend on the situation: if I felt there was a good chance of being rescued from the island, I’d try to stick it out. If I believed I could never go back on hormones, there’s a good chance I would take my own life.

In this way, I like the analogy of being on hormones like being on insulin for diabetics. There’s less of an obvious correlation between taking the pills and being healthy, yes, but there is a direct connection between my being on hormones and having good – and not suicidal – mental health.

Here, by virtue of having a completed script from the get-go, there’s been a chance to really explore each section of the show and figure out how it fits within the larger show as a whole. Likewise, I’ve been able to (slash been forced to) examine how I have or haven’t changed my attitudes around transitioning since writing this show last year. (As I discussed in this post about self-loathing and forgiveness.)

More broadly, this incarnation of Trans Form has been a much more collaborative process, with designers, a direction, and a production team. The upside of that is I’ve been able to focus more on the actual job of acting. The downside, there have been some decisions made that I’m not sure I totally understand. Nothing bad – I think the show is going to be great – I’m just not used to not having the final say on every little thing.

In any event, Trans Form opens tomorrow and runs Thursdays through Sundays until December 5. Tickets and more info are available at New Suit Theatre Company.

My conversations would usually start when I was feeling particularly stupid, or sad, or masculine. She’d start, this Rebecca that I imagined myself as in some alternate universe, speaking to me across the barrier which separated our realities: “You’re never going to be happy if you keep on like this.”

“Rebecca” would often continue to berate me and, when I didn’t talk to my parents (or talk to my therapist, find a doctor, find hormones, or whatever standards I/she set for myself) she’d turn the talk to suicide:

“Then why don’t you just kill yourself?” This line was always particularly seductive. Why not kill myself? Clearly, nothing was ever going to change. Friends would be happy, family would be happy, I wouldn’t. Maybe for brief moments, sunlight shining through the clouds, but never for long.

“Go away.”

“Just do it. Kill yourself, and it’ll be over. You’re never going to be me.”

A version of one of these conversations is in the script for Trans Form, and today at rehearsal Kristen (my director) and I worked on it. It was hard to do. Really hard.

In one sense, it’s kind of ridiculous to play my pre-transition self on stage, being reprimanded and driven toward suicide by my fantasy image of myself. Because, obviously, I did eventually begin transitioning; I didn’t kill myself. Likewise, for better or worse, I’ve mostly lost that ‘inner Rebecca’ voice. My drive is now coming from somewhere a bit less corrupted, not quite as dark and easily swayed toward self-injury.

But, while working with Kristen today, all those old memories and insecurities came flooding back: I’ll never be pretty enough to ‘really’ be a woman, never be feminine enough, never be hairless enough, never have a high enough voice, small enough hands. That, if only I’d listened to “Rebecca” earlier – began transitioning, gotten on hormones – I wouldn’t feel like so much of my time and energy is spent undoing the work of puberty, genetics, and years of socializing and presenting myself as male.

Anger also came flooding to the surface, anger I thought I’d moved past. Now that I am able to inhabit that Rebecca I imagined myself as ten years ago, I do want to berate the weak, spineless boy I was. To tell him to suck it up and get off his ass. To punish him for leaving me with a body that’s tall, hairy, big-boned, deep-voiced. It was really easy to slip into a scary place of self-hatred, directed both at the on-stage fifteen-year-old me, and at who I am now, who I let myself become.

Writing all this out, I realize that I’m neither the weak fifteen year old boy I worry I was, nor the ‘Queen Bee’ bitch of a Rebecca I hear myself as on stage. I’m simply me, and try to remember that my strengths outnumber my weaknesses, my beauty is greater than my feelings of insecurity, and my presence on stage proves my evil, fantasy Rebecca wrong: I am strong enough to do this.

Which is why I perform on stage. That’s what theatre is all about: sharing our stories and showing our strength and common experiences. Trans Form is a difficult show for me, as it brings up all my own worries and fears about my identity. But it’s also incredibly gratifying to perform, as it lets me reject those parts of myself which are negative or drag me down, and come out stronger on the other side. I hope you’ll join me.

Trans Form debuts on November 6 in Chicago, and runs through December 5. Tickets and more information are available here.

I’d love to hear people’s thoughts about the piece. And I’d really be interested to hear how or if the editing flows at all. I have all three shows filmed, from three different vantage points, and tried to put them together in a way that helped give a feel for the movement/staging. However, I really don’t have any training on that regard – I have the technical know-how, but not any aesthetic knowledge. So if something feels particularly jumpy, please let me know so I can try and fix it.

All three shows were filmed, and I plan to have video up by the end of the year. (Fingers crossed.)

It’s kind of hard to tell who came. The vast majority of the pre-sale tickets were names I recognized, but I definitely saw people coming who I didn’t know. And, because it’s a small theatre – 69 people was very packed – I was able to peer out into the audience and see who was there.

There’s a bit of a performance high that I’m still on, because the show was well received. At the same time, since July of 2008, I’ve only had about two months (December of ’08 and January of ’09) where I wasn’t thinking about my next performance of this material. For the first time in a year and a half, practically, I’m not focusing on my next personal and revealing performance.

As I said before, I can now focus on being Rebecca, instead of performing Rebecca. (Ignoring, of course, the performative nature of gender and all that jazz. It’s a witty saying; bear with me.)

I have lots more thoughts coming out of the performance, including responding to this post over at Taking Up Space, and I’ll try to get to those soon.

Eloquent and animated, performer Rebecca Kling clearly enjoys discussing her work. “Trans Form combines spoken word and multimedia,” she says, sipping tea at Starbucks, “it’s the second show I’ve written outside of school.” Chatting about Trans Form’s inspiration, as well as theater as a vehicle for social change, Rebecca’s passion for theater grows increasingly evident; it’s creation surely integral to her sense of self.Windy City Times: What was the impetus for your new show?

Rebecca Kling: Trans Form came out of the work I did at the Charged Bodies Mentorship Program, which itself came out of a weeklong workshop at Links Hall where I sort of stumbled on the idea of transitioning as this mythic process of defying gods and defying fate and defying convention. When I was fortunate enough to get the Critical Fierceness Grant through Chances Dances in Chicago this past year to expand the piece, I realized I wanted to delve into the mundane or the personal or the everyday, keeping components of the piece I worked on last year, but also expanding upon it and trying to process where I’m coming from, where I’m going and what the hell I’m doing.

WCT: Describe your writing background.

RK: My writing background comes from performance art at Northwestern and from years of being a student and a teacher at the Piven Theatre workshop in Evanston. I also have a blog. After coming out to a friend, she said “you know, this is something you really need to be writing about, because fifty years from now, you’re gonna wanna be able to look back and see where you were coming from,” so that was my original impetus. I’m sort of embarrassed that I have a blog. I’m not yet able to claim…

WCT: Blog pride?

RK: Yeah, blog pride…

You can read the rest of it at the Windy City Times website, here.

Last year, trans performance artist Rebecca Kling told us it was a struggle figuring out how to present herself on stage. You wouldn’t think so if you caught her assured cameo at this summer’s Homo Show in Wicker Park. With the help of a Chances Dances Critical Fierceness Grant, Trans Form, her first full solo show, happens Friday 11–Sunday 13 at Links Hall. Using video, dance and candid confession, Kling explores her life as a transgender woman in Chicago. With her raw honesty and graceful body movements, we can only say of Kling, what a difference a year makes.

(And no, I’m not posting this at 3AM after getting home from tech. I don’t know what you’re talking about.)

From Newcity:

RECOMMENDED

Rebecca Kling’s solo performance employs storytelling, video and theatrical movement to relate her experiences as a transgender woman… Trans Form peels back the trans label and its mystique to probe the complications of human identity…. With good nature and gentle humor the five-minute monologue [about changing her name] not only riffs on the frustrations of living in a bureaucratic system, but also gives one pause to consider the blurred line between private life and public identity. It plays out like a Kafka short story that ends in triumph. (Sharon Hoyer)

From The Reader’s theatre blog:

A year ago, I wrote about transgender performance artist Rebecca Kling when she appeared in Charged Bodies, an evening of solo works at Links Hall. Kling presented an excerpt from Trans Form, then a work-in-progress. “I got involved with this project because I’d been looking for a way to access queer identity,” she said. “Transitioning [from male to female] is a very gradual process, [and] trying to process the gender transition through solo performance made a lot of sense to me.”

Kling will unveil the completed Trans Form December 11-13 at Links Hall. Meanwhile, she’s presenting a segment from the piece Saturday November 21, as part of Night of Fallen Stars—a program of music, dance, comedy, and poetry honoring Transgender Awareness Month.

From Think Pink Radio:

When Tim Miller’s Charged Bodies mentorship program at Links Hall fruited several powerful performances in 2008, I was once again enTHUSED about the work being created in Chicago. One of those mentees, Rebecca Kling, has expanded her 20 minute piece about her life as a trans woman into an hour-long theater event entitled Trans Form, December 11th-13th at Links Hall. A recipient of the Critical Fierceness Grant, I’m interested in what she’ll add to an already personal deep-share. The work in progress was filled with understandible anger – her descriptions of the invasive questions people try to pass as small talk were as telling as they were familiar. When strangers assume rights to your personal space and private life, it makes you wonder why our culture translates freedom of expression into an excuse for dehumanizing those who openly express themselves. The work in progress did contain a triumphant fierceness in its final moments, and I’m hoping this expanded version will rely less on the literal and play a little more with nuance.

Rooted in the work created during her participation in Links Hall’s 2008 Charged Bodies Mentorship Program, Rebecca Kling presents Trans Form, an evening of solo performance exploring her life as a transgender woman in chicago. This multimedia piece – composed of storytelling, video, movement, playful skips and jumps, enlightening self-discovery, accusatory glances, awkward pauses, and more – is perfect for anybody who thinks they have gender all figured out, and for the rest of us who don’t.

Tickets are $15, or $10 with the code ‘masked.’ Hope to see you there!