overreaction

Heading from from the party. Something happened as I entered that is probably just in my stupid and overreacting head, but since two hours later I still cannot think of much else, there is no point in staying. At home I have chemicals and safe but sharp things and the setup to exercise until I am too tired to think. I had planned to do the same by dancing but staying feels like a stone in my shoe and I need to get these words out of my head. This is me being miserable while others experience much worse, and more obvious, things. I feel shame to be this broken down about it, weak. I want to cry.

There was a shorter line if you prepaid. When it was my turn, the woman processing it asked me if I know what sort of event this was. I remember this kind of question from when I went with a partner to a gay club in London, with us being read then as a straight couple. It is how one asks someone who is a guest, not core audience, if they know not to dominate the space and crowd out that core audience. The kind of thing one asks of allies. “It’s a queer party.” I answer. She shakes her head. “No, it’s a lesbian party. I ask because it has a specific theme, it’s primarily for women who are lesbian. We need to make sure those we let in understand and respect that theme.”

I am confused, surprised, and answer “Yes. I am a woman, a transgender woman.” I don’t remember what she answers, polite but stonefaced. She lets me in. I have clearly fulfilled now that minimum requirement of knowing it is a lesbian party – the first labelled such I ever attend, in fact, and the main reason I wanted to, also. But she asked me this the way I did not notice her asking the others before me. Clearly she was not convinced doing so was unnecessary in my case. I suppose that could have been policing my sexuality, but I am a woman alone, not accompanied by men. She has no reason to think I am straight or bi, in this context.

This leaves only one option, I think as I go inside   mind reeling, heart cold. She does not see me as an obvious lesbian because she does not see me as a real woman. And this is someone who represents the organizers, and thus ultimately the guests. From just looking at me, she sees someone who to her is not a woman, though I can still go in as an ally. For the two hours I am there I will wonder with each person, are they uncomfortable with me being there, do I scare them or disrupt their safe space? How many of them are politely tolerating someone they still instinctively see as opposite to themselves? Am I doing harm by being there?

Several of my friends are there. They talk to me. I briefly try to explain but I am too shook, I cannot get it across. I try to smile. I see myself in mirrors and loathe masculine features of my face, the belly protruding further than my breasts. I try to dance, feeling like nothing around me is real, or rather, that neither my person nor my surroundings are anything I relate to. There are no narratives then and there I feel I am allowed to be part of. Part of me recognizes I might misinterpret, overreact. That part suggests I dance until I feel better, that I ride the dysphoria out, that it will fade.

I like the music, the movements. I like people around me, but I don’t think much of them. Sometimes when like this I am envious of others but not now. Now all my thoughts are on my own body, disgusted and saddened by it. In parallell with the dance-and-ride-it-out coping mechanism, another races, the part of me that responds to grief by trying to coldly problem solve. The problem here is that I am not cis passing. If I were, I would not cause reactions like that and so feel like this. What can I do? Lose more mass, muscle and fat alike. If there was 25% less of me, at least I would seem petite and then I would pass to more people. Also the features of my face. Having more surgery thus. Some risks with that, but main issue being it costs 30k-50k. In my cold void of self-loathing I feverishly wonder what labour I could sell to earn that, how many years it will take me. I’ve been down this road of thoughts before. I have no immediate solution. I can dance, at least, that burns calories. 

I stay ninety minutes on the dance floor, forcing each minute. It feels like boring, lonely work. I try to make my heart come alive. For those seconds when I imagine Inanna behind me, holding me, her weapons radiating from both our shoulders, I feel warm, but each time grows cold again. They play “Silent Shout” and for those minutes too I am alive. Otherwise, all around me is just matter without meaning, as is my body. I know eventually the dysphoria will quiet down again. Tomorrow, hopefully. Idly I wonder if drugs could help, and I look around for my friend who might have some. I don’t find them, and anyway I suspect it might just make it worse, anyway. Finally I leave, two hours after arriving, at least two hours earlier than planned. My interest in hooking up with anyone died already as I entered, so really there is nothing left except a sad cardio session and I can do that better at home. Not even craving pain right now, it’s like I can’t imagine anything feeling happy or meaningful. Writing this en route, on tram and walking. I’ll do as I planned, exercise until I am too tired to think. 

I know I am extremely privileged and lucky. I know all the kind advice my loved ones would give: “It was probably not meant like that at all.” Maybe not, who knows? But this is the only way I can react. I’ve tried to react differently for three hours now and I fail. Which is really just another flaw of mine, I suppose. Well, I continue forward, one way or another. I just need to find ways to make things happen so that I am not misread like that. Bitterly wishing I had what others were born with does not help. Working to get what I want, no matter what the cost, sacrificing whatever is needed, that will help. I continue.