Found and feeling this:
“The hard part of realizing and accepting your own gender is trying to explain it to people who have never questioned theirs.”
I was trying to explain the punctuation mark called period ( . ) to a student of mine.
Use it when you are done. When you have completed your thoughts and you’re ready for another, I suggested. It is the end of one thing, which begins another.
So then of course, I think about body. Will I ever reach a time when I am ready for that period…a time when I can say: it is done. Complete. I understand it and now I am ready to begin something else.
We are more like exclamation marks amidst a crowd of questions. We must be loud and stern and sure. But what if we are not.
What if when you ask me what it means when I call myself queer, I answered:
I just need to give myself room to understand what all this means. Queer is my elipses.
I search out my body among others. I want to know that what I have exists elsewhere.
I sit beside a human with the backdrop of sunset and concrete fountain and notice hair on their legs so I let mine exhale in their direction.
I speak about breasts with another and want to understand what it means to want them there or not want them there but still have them touched.
When I am asked what it means to perform in drag. I say:
I cannot choose between masculine or feminine because neither feel enough. So, I create a hybrid of both and all and that is my performance.
All of this feels like weaponry. But it doesn’t need to be dangerous or threatening. It can be powerful and conversational. I want my body to be a dialogue that allows space for opinion and observation and reconfiguration. Stares can be heavy, causing discoloration to the skin. If you notice something like a scar or rip out of space, search out some words and ask me what it means to live like this. But then but then but then be prepared to answer it yourself.
Aimee Herman 