Dido Revisited

My entire academic career has been spent trying to imagine how feminists, queers, and trannies could embrace fluidity and diversity in a real way – a way that expanded our understanding of identity in a profound and transformational way, that did not simply assimilate differences of race, class, gender, ability, religions (and etc. etc. etc) into a preset category but rather adapted to those differences, shifting from within its liquid center. But to be perfectly honest, I never imagined so extensively as to actually conceive of a way that this would be possible. I’ve never reached the point at which I could believe. I’ve studied the shifts from second-wave to radical third-wave to post-colonial to gay to GBLT to queer to transsexual to transgender . . . and a feminists tossed out women of color and gays, and queers called gays sell-outs for marrying, and transexuals bitched that everyone else has always neglected their issues (all the while they were ignoring communities with much more gender diversity than theirs), I became unable to imagine that genuinely diverse communities could ever coexist and embrace their multiplicity, their variety.

Tonight my youthful exuberance for community was reinstilled at the L.A. Transgender Task Force’s “community dialogs variety show”, entitled “Fully Functional - Variety is a Transgender Disease”. The show, directed by Ryka Aoki de la Cruz, featured the “Fully Functional Players,” Charlene Mackenzie, Shauna Madrigal, Trystan Reese, Alexis Rivera, Skim, Lauren Steely, Jade Ross, Studs Clothing, DJ Trannity, Mr. Tuff N’ Stuff, with art by the renowned Trisha Van Cleef and others.

Besides making me feel hot and bothered, voyaristic, young, old, in love, close to tears, free, and elated, Fully Functional also fulfilled my wildest fantasies (minority identity fantasies). MTF transexuals of all races and ages, studs, femmes, genderqueers, heteros, butches, and entirely unidentifiable individuals all gathered in one room to exchange energy, music, poetry, comedy, dance, fashion, and love for four glorious hours. And on top of that, this diverse crowd made up our community. By the end of the night everyone seemed to know one another: we were all old friends – we had incredibly different lives and experiences, but we shared a deep connection that had been forged in another time and place, and it would remain despite our differences in the present.

It is difficult for me to recall exactly what happened in that space, but the feeling of hope is still with me. What is clear is that in that room no one was connected because we were all trans (or trans-loving), there was something much stronger than that among us. There was a desperation, a sense that many of us had been lost, searching for something; but there was a collective sigh as we realized, that we had finally come home.

http://www.myspace.com/skimmusic
http://www.myspace.com/tribeofthediasporas
http://www.myspace.com/studsclothing
http://www.myspace.com/jaderoxs

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