Often when I'm performing, I recognize that I'm the
first person who people have ever seen
which I'm, like, goals. Like, why would I wanna look like anyone else, first of all?
"To the two men who yelled, 'That’s man a in a dress,'
I wanted to turn around, point back, shout,
'Hey, everyone, that’s an insecure man. That’s an insecure man. That’s an insecure man.'"
A lot of people are really confused when I say I'm gender non-conforming,
because they'll be like, 'You have to choose one.'
And I want my art to be a way for people
to actually feel like they have a
a worth beyond their ability,
a worth beyond what they're doing.
People have been so taught to internalize
the idea that masculinity
and femininity are separate,
You can get mad at everyone else for silencing your voice,
I grew up in one of the most conservative areas
in the world. I internalized that.
I was deeply judgmental,
and homophobic, and transphobic.
And that's the gift of queer and trans people.
We have the ability to look at our lives
and say, who I am is not what I really should be.
I would take my mom's clothes
and I would dance to Bollywood songs for the
local Indian community in my small town in Texas.
And I was just so free, running around, screaming, performing.
I loved people cheering me on.
But I remember the first time I experienced shame
was in first grade.
I performed at my school's talent show,
and I did one of my dance routines to my largely
white, Christian Texan classmates
And I remember experiencing that sense of, like,
how could this thing that gives me so much joy
be the basis of something that you would ridicule me for.
So what I do in my shows is I create a different world.
I say, here in this space
to the fullest extent. Here in this space
we encourage people to be creative.
And we're not gonna say that this is what masculinity
or femininity looks like. We're gonna ask people,
Because I think, at every single level,
That when we actually celebrate ourselves, when we actually love ourselves,
we get punished for it.
I think that one of the saddest parts about being trans
is you begin to experience violence first from the people
who say that they love you.
I have a line in one of my poems where I say,
That from a young age, I had my parents saying, 'I love you,
but why are you so feminine?'
'I love you, but—'
And that love was always contingent on me being
straight and me being cis,
and I will spend the rest of my life grieving that.
And so when I meet young queer
and trans youth, I often look at them
and I just want to say, I understand what you're going
through, and I don't require you to be strong, or proud, or resilient.
I require you to be honest.
For a long time, I underestimated the
power of representation because I was saying, I have dreams beyond just being on
the screen, you know? Like, 'I wanna be an artist.'
And then I started to think about it,
And I was like, whoa.
If I had had access to people who looked like me
growing up...
The suicide rates for trans
and non-binary youth, especially trans
and non-binary youth of color, are astronomical.
And the reason they're so high is because
And what media representation does
is—it's actually a visual argument to the world.
we're going and navigating through things that are simultaneously
extremely similar to you and extremely different for you,
I don't get dressed to look like anything
other than looking like myself.
So at the end of the day I just say,
So are you.