11.16.24
For the last week and a half, my speed has been FAST. There is a future I can see dimly which frightens me: one where sweeping declaratives made by people with man-given power ruin, wreck, and raze.
In peering thru this dim peephole, I and many others have increased our speed and urgency to begin patching holes and reinforcing corners. Our clever eyes are seeing the ways these powerful men might try to egg our houses, and we’re taking actions to protect ourselves.
The patches and goops and glues we have available are, unfortunately, the tools of these powerful men: legal name change, legal marriage status, matching and consistent legal documentation, gender markers. I and many others have rushed this week to paint it all over with a smooth beige, so that when the men come to egg our houses, they might pass us by because if our houses are smooth and if our houses are beige we mightn’t flag any of their ire.
In my body and my presentation, my house will never really be smooth or beige: my ass is fat, my nose is button, my hands are small. Clocky boy summer. Clocky boy eternal. In my body and presentation, there isn’t any patching or reinforcing left to do. But I have two bodies: one that exists for me and my loves, and one that exists in the tools of the powerful men.
There’s a discomfort I hear from my peers about using the patches and goops and glues that the powerful men give us: that it feels like bowing to them, or giving them something. I am of the mind that it erases us from them. The powerful men use cold tools like databases and papers to make decisions. If a disguise prevents them from harming me, the disguise becomes holy. If the body I have, which lives in their cold database, says “M” “M” “M” “M” all the way down, then maybe they will pass by my door. And the body I have, which lives in their database, will be holy too, and I will honor him.