 I want to thank Radar Productions and the Hormel Center for having me for this month and for Mason and Juliana for bugging me to get me to write when I got busy and staying on top of me, staying on top, making sure that I stayed on top of writing. And so I have two to three pieces. I'm not sure which ones I'm going to read first, but two of them are based off of a book called Chapdoor, Trans-Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility. How many people have heard of it? Nine? Okay. I was actually very, so it's actually, I'm not sure if it's curated by or edited by a cultural icon that I love and respect, Raina Gossett and Eric Stanley and features trans people talking about culture from a different lens. So the first one is called, I named it Verdebray, and the quote that inspired me was black transgender lives matter and for black transgender women in particular, the struggle for life and all its capaciousness is a struggle against ongoing premature death. Che Gossett, blackness and the trouble of trans visibility which is in Chapdoor and it is the best of times, it is the worst of times, it is the age of wisdom, it is the age of foolishness, it is the epoch of belief, it is the epoch of incredulity, it is the season of light, it is the season of darkness, it is the spring of hope, it is the winter of despair. We have everything before us, we have nothing before us. In short the period was so far like the past period and some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received for good or for evil and the superlative degree of comparison only. 11 years ago I reached and went past my fourth wall. I was in the backseat of a 1999 Acura with a red cup of tequila and a bag of hot cheetos and lime with my three best friends drunk in the parking lot of Taco Bell near the clock in the small on 82nd Ave, catching the good vibes of Saturday night I had yearned for since I could ever remember. I could taste freedom, got my vans on but they look like sneakers, got my vans on but they look like sneakers. The Pax 1 underground hit based rattling the car from the back speakers was jarringly turned down. Jasmine in the driver's seat nearly muting the song by turning the audio knob shot me a look. Did you tell Marco about you yet? She asked her blackberry thrown in her left hand beeping a pale red light of AOL instant messenger text. I groaned and I sipped more tequila. Girl now I just met him. I stated Marco was a guy that went to Jefferson High School and was in the Columbia Villa Crips recently joining the gang that ran the neighborhood I was previously from. Jasmine in her ulterior motive had set me up on a date with him to see if he turned out to be really gay since her boyfriend also in the gang had informed her that most of the guys had their suspicions. You need to stop lying to these boys and tell them what you really is. She said with an eye roll swinging her braids as she repositioned herself country black in her seat her nails clicking on her cell phone keypad rapidly as she gave played by plays to her boyfriend. She turned the music back up slightly. I'm not lying sis. I said as I toyed with the peeling leather the armrest. There's just more to me than this TS thing you know. I just want him to know me and the real me. I think I like him. I said half embarrassed to say it out loud. Sanquita in the passenger seat crunching on hot cheetos says he really gay. So why do you think telling him go make a difference like for real everybody know about you it's no big deal. You put that pressure on yourself. And maybe she was right. Everyone did know and for nearly eight months I had been I have been wearing hand me downs Jasmine's hand me downs from forever 21. And at the time was going by Mimi homage to Mariah Carey. And to be honest no one knew what the word transgender meant. Everyone just thought I was really gay or that I took gay really far. I didn't care either way. The safest place it seemed was to be as visible as a peacock in the midst of everyone's uncertain everyone else's uncertainty. They figure if you're that bold to go against the grain you certainly can't be fucked with. And sure there were times that it sucked telling substitute teachers to call me by my chosen name the stairs as I entered senior inquiry where my morning greeting instead of hello the bus drivers who shook their head and muttered Lord Jesus as I boarded on the bus. And then many times I would run into congregation members from my parents church even though I had long since been kicked out and living on my own and they would ask do your parents know what you're up to. And of course there was the senior shit list for though I was graduating early I didn't actually anticipate making any list but the list was private and student led and student student determined anonymously making its way on the internet and being printed and distributed throughout the entire school. So I got three nominations most likely to get voted off American Idol due to the fact that I ruined the national anthem. Most likely to be on Jerry Jerry Springer understandably because that's the only time you probably ever saw trans people and finally most likely to get AIDS which haunts me even to this day. The biggest heartbreak of them all is when there was a handwritten petition signed by 273 students requesting the principal to disallow me from using the girls bathroom. That was crushing and that was heart breaking. Oddly in spite of I felt free. I felt like people were going to judge me regardless but that felt normal. I was in a fishbowl but that felt normal too and there were oddly enough weird perks to being famous on a high school campus and apparently according to my friends multiple campuses. Strangely I got invited to house parties before everyone else did. Excuse me I'm sorry. So that's the first piece. Thank you. And I have. Okay. Yeah that's it. Thank you.