I had another awful afternoon & evening at the gay men’s chorus’ rehearsal. Gone was all the euphoric gender-bending of the past few days; back was the internalized transphobia in all its visciousness.
Since the second week I have been going to rehearsals without wearing my two “statement wristbands” (the nonbinary-flag colors & trans-flag colors) and this has helped me feel less exposed. But today that wasn’t enough.
Before rehearsal, this afternoon the dance audition was held and I tried out for that. I love to dance. I really do. It’s one of the activities that gives me the most joy — an authentic, non-performative/non-competitive, youthful, childish joy full of liveliness and glee and sensuality. When I dance, it’s one of the few times that I can really let go and not think, and really go beyond all genders, also tapping into (my) femininity with joy and pride. I enjoy dancing and I’ve been told time and again that I am a good dancer (& that often I look like a gay boy dancing). So I was expecting the dance audition to, at least, be fun for me. Instead, it was torture and I eventually left early — I actually fled.
The dance audition was organized so that the dancers (ten of us showed up to try out) had to perform a choreography that was given to us then and there by a dance instructor. We had to learn it all together and then perform it to the instructor and chorus director in small groups.
The feeling of not belonging started gnawing at me almost from the very first moment: I was the only newbie auditioning for dance and everyone else knew each other, not only from the chorus but also the dance instructor. So I was the only newbie, the only one who didn’t know the rest of the folks there, and the only trans person. The other auditionees were all of the more flamboyant feminine cis gay type and as we danced, instead of being able to tap into my own natural femininity, I felt (& probably looked) like I had swallowed a broom. Movements that are usually natural and fun for me when I dance, movements that I’m usually good at with music, like hip-swaying and arm-waving, just felt impossible to me. And it got harder and harder as we proceeded. Instead of loosening up, I tightened up more and more, feeling the panic rise within me, that sense of not belonging, of being different, of not being capable to do this. Two-thirds into the group audition, during a short break before starting to perform the second piece that I just couldn’t get my body to do, I left. I just couldn’t do it anymore, I couldn’t force myself any more — I had tried but it just wasn’t enough, it wasn’t coming to me.
The transphobia is there, always laying ready in the shadows to pounce upon me and crush me. Or paralyze me. I felt like a deer in the headlights — and reacted like one, too: first I froze (i.e. was unable to dance), and then I eventually fled (literally leaving the building and coming back an hour later for the normal singing rehearsal).
The transphobia is there even if people are nice to me. During a little break we were given in the audition, some of the other guys who were closer to me introduced themselves to me and asked my name and included me in their conversation about the weekend (to which I was anyway unable to participate, my throat constricting and refusing to cooperate). They were nice, I could sense their genuine interest or willingness to include me. But during introductions, when I said my name, one of them asked me if I used “he” or “they” pronouns: a great question, a very appropriate question that should be the norm everywhere, a question that I usually wish people would ask everyone. And yet, there, it hurt me tremendously: I didn’t hear it as an appropriate question; I didn’t even register that he put the “he” pronoun first. What I registered was that he made the hypothesis that I might “be a ‘they’” and in my head that implied that he could tell that I am trans. And then the story in my head continued: if I’m trans, I don’t belong; they don’t like me because I’m trans; I’m unable to make friends here because I’m trans. And on and on and on…
Generally, in most environments and situations, I am open and explicit and proud of being trans, I don’t hide it, I often show it through the wristbands and even some T-shirts I wear. But here, I try to hide it at all costs. Here, in this gay men’s chorus, all I want is for people to think I’m cis or not know that I’m trans. Here, I’m constantly afraid that they might look at me, or hear me, and realize that I’m trans — and therefore not like me, not accept me completely. Here, I have a constant fear that the reason for my not making friends is that I’m trans. And that I’m too shy, that I’m unable to connect — like today, when a few of them tried to connect with me during the short break in the dance audition and I shut down, I couldn’t manage to really enter the conversation despite the interest they showed. I eventually fled. Will that forfeit my making any friends in this chorus for the rest of the season?
And especially: how can I endure the rest of the season this way, with this constant up-and-down of emotions, this constant fear inside me, this constant impostor syndrome and internalized transphobia gnawing at me, eating me up, shutting down my brain, freezing my body even to the point of constricting my throat so that on days like today I can hardly sing?
The Little Prince and the Fox 