Translator: Leonardo Silva Reviewer: anthony assal
The best advice I ever received
was in a hotel elevator, going down,
in a cassino, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Vegas! Yeah!
(Cheers)
It was my very first night out all dressed up, and I was very nervous.
I was particularly nervous because I know Vegas,
and I knew what I was getting myself into.
I knew that, when those doors opened up,
I was going to step out into this explosion of lights, and sound,
and music, and people,
people from all different walks of life, people from all across the country;
people from all across the social and political spectrum,
from very open and accepting to very conservative.
And there was one more thing: because it was Vegas,
I knew that a certain percentage of these people -
not all of them, but a certain percentage -
would be - there's a phrase - alright: drunk off their ass! (Laughter)
That's what I was going to be walking out into;
a sea of people, drunk off their ass.
Did I say I was nervous? I was absolutely petrified.
But I was trying to be cool, because I was with a friend,
and I was trying to look or appear confident.
The elevator hit the first floor,
and did you ever notice when an elevator hits its floor?
There's always this little hesitation before the doors open up.
It's just a split second. It's just a moment.
But it was in that moment
that my friend gave me the best advice I've ever received.
Now, my mind was already gone.
I was already thinking of the madness that I was going to be walking out into.
So, my friend reached over, and she squeezed my arm,
and she just said two words. That was it. Just two words.
She whispered in my ear, and she said,
"Own it." And that was it.
And I can tell you right now,
I don't even remember my walk through the cassino that night.
I know I made it to the front door without incident, but it's all a blur,
I don't remember any of the details, but I'll never forget that advice.
No matter who you are, no matter where you are,
no matter what you're trying to accomplish,
own it.
It sounds so simple, but I can tell you: it's the hardest thing in the world.
The hardest thing in the world to be is yourself.
The hardest thing in the world, by far, to be is you.
Consider my friends and myself, over here,
in our little corner of the trans universe,
over here with the cross-dressers and the part-time girls,
trying to look pretty, trying to look passable,
but it's hard,
because we're too tall, we're too thick, we're too wide,
our voices are too deep, our chins are too long,
our foreheads are too pronounced,
and our Adam's apples are way too apparent.
It's hard because no one really knows what causes this,
so there's no scientific evidence that I can point to
when I'm trying to explain to my friends or my family,
you know, why I feel this way, when so many others in the world do not.
It's hard because there's so much opposition.
If you look any trans-related news article on the Internet,
and I should say I should be happy
that we even have trans-related article in the Internet -
that's a big step forward -
but if you look at any of those articles and you scroll down to the comments,
the hate and the ignorance will just about leap off the screen.
And it's not just them, it's not just -
I mean, if only it was just the nameless, faceless,
uninformed loudmouths of the Internet -
I mean, we all have to put up with them, right?
If only it was just them, but it's not. We get opposition from all over.
There's even a lot of differences of opinion within our community.
There's a lot of people who would see me up here,
and they would say straight out, "CiCi is not trans.
She doesn't live full-time, she's not on hormones,
she hasn't had top surgery, she hasn't had bottom surgery.
And we're not entirely certain, but we're fairly sure
that that is not her real hair."
(Laughter)
The hardest thing in the world to be is yourself, but you already know this
because this doesn't just apply to people on the trans community.
This applies to all of us. You already know about this in your own life.
There are so many people in your life,
people who are actually close to you, who are trying to block your way,
who are trying to get in the way of you expressing your true individuality.
Sometimes, as I said, some of these people are very close to you,
your friends, your family, parents, teachers, professors,
the friends you've had since second grade.
And you want to please them,
but at the same time, you want to be yourself.
And some of these people have no qualms about telling you
exactly how you should run your life,
what books you should read, what movies you should see,
what bands you should like, what bands you should not like.
They'll tell you what your major should be, where you should work,
or how you should live, or who you should love.
And sometimes, quite often,
the hardest person that you have to deal with is yourself.
So, how do you do it?
How do you go about being true to yourself?
And how do you silence all of these voices in your head?
And where do you go find the strength
to chart your own course and go against the best wishes of so many people
who mean so much to you?
Well, I can't really tell you where you should go.
I have a feeling most of you are on a different path than me.
(Laughter)
It's just a guess. (Laughter)
But I can tell you where I went.
I went to the one place on Earth
where all the mystical questions of the universe are answered.
Yeah, that's right. I went online.
(Laughter)
And that may sound like a joke, but consider this:
the progression of the trans community over the last 20 years or so,
our increase in invisibility, completely parallels the growth
and the widespread popularity of the Internet.
Now, I'm sure, for most of you,
you probably take the Internet for granted at this point.
It's a tool that you use every day.
But I want to take you back in time.
Just for a moment, I'd like you all to imagine
that you are a closeted trans person
living in the 60s, or the 70s, or the 80s.
You're deep in the closet,
and that closet is a very dark and very lonely place.
And then, all of a sudden, the Internet comes along,
and all of a sudden, you've got access to information,
and friendship, and companionship, and emotional support.
And probably for the first time ever - can you imagine?
At age 35, at age 45, at age 65,
for the first time, you are beginning to receive positive reinforcement
for the person that you are and the life that you want to live.
I can tell you, lives were literally transformed over night
because, for the first time, we didn't feel so alone,
and, for the first time, we didn't feel so ashamed.
You could go online any time of the day or night -
and we usually did both -
you could find friends, and you could join chats,
you could have conversations, you could share photos,
and could share ideas.
And you could buy clothes! That was very big in our community.
(Laughter) And we could gain confidence,
and that's what really moves a community like ours forward,
it's when you gain confidence because when you start to gain confidence,
that is when you start to own it.
You know, we went online and we found this sense of community
that we didn't have in our daily lives.
We found this emotional support that we needed,
that was so necessary to make the hardest thing in the world
just a little bit easier.
I often wonder what future generations will think
of my friends and myself, my peers.
Maybe they'll give us credit for standing up
to so many of these social conventions.
And maybe they'll commend us for kind of chipping away
at this outdated, antiquated, severely restricted gender binary
that's been screwing up people's lives pretty much since the beginning of time.
(Applause)
But I have a feeling that, no matter what we say or do,
there will always be a certain number of people out there,
a certain percentage,
who will ignore all of our accomplishments,
and continue to see us in the most superficial of ways,
and always consider us to be nothing more than a bunch of freaks.
And I suppose that if you want to call me a freak,
that's your prerogative.
I'm all about freedom of expression for myself,
so I have to allow it for you.
And also, I've been called worse.
But I have a problem when you start to insult my friends.
I have friends all across the trans spectrum,
and it would be pretty much impossible for me to convey to you
exactly the impact they've had on my life,
through their inspiration, through their compassion,
and through their courage.
We've been through a lot these past 15 years or so
that I've been a part of this community,
and, because I've come to know so many of them so well,
I've seen exactly what they've had to risk in their lives,
and I've seen exactly what they've had to sacrifice.
And I've also seen what they've accomplished,
from seemingly small but very important personal gains
to giant societal shifts like taking this entire trans community
from where it was 20, 25 years ago, in a state of near invisibility,
and moving it to where we are now
which I believe is at the launch of a whole new era,
where we're finally beginning to make our presence felt,
and we're finally beginning to share ourselves
openly and honestly with the rest of society.
And I think that anybody who can accomplish all that
is not a freak.
Anybody who can take a community like ours and move it forward,
against such long-held stereotypes,
against such long odds, against such staunch opposition,
anybody who can do that is not a freak.
Anybody who can do that is a freaking role model.
(Applause)
Someday, I promise you, in a not too distant future,
someone very close to you is going to come to you,
and they are going to let you know that they identify as trans.
It might be a neighbor, it might be a coworker.
(Cheers) (Applause)
My coworkers are here tonight.
(Laughter)
It might be a family member, it might be one of your children,
or it might be your partner, or your lover, or your spouse.
And when this happens,
no matter how loving and understanding you are,
you're going to have questions. There's no way around it.
And you are going to wonder, "What's this really all about?
What's really going on here?"
And you are going to ask yourself,
"What is this person really trying to do?"
And I hope that when you ask that question,
you will remember this chat, and you will remember
that what your friend or your loved one is trying to do
is no different than what you're trying to do,
no different than what we all are trying to do,
no more than and no less than the hardest thing in the world.
Thank you very much.
(Cheers) (Applause)