When I first moved to Los Angeles two years ago, my first acting instructor pulled me to the side after class one day and said “my assignment for you is to examine why you hate yourself so much”. Her words felt incredibly insulting at the time but they stuck with me. Gender is a performance. Indisputable fact. And it’s becoming more and more clear to me how trite and sophomoric these performances have become. All these men and women out here arguing back and forth defending arbitrary codes of conduct for the ways they can navigate and take up space in their bodies based on what sex organs they were born with. Putting on these personalities every single time they walk out of the door. Denying themselves their inner truths. Ending the performance each night exhausted and confused. Aren’t you bored? Don’t you want to be free? My assignment for you is to examine why you hate yourself so much. To start making the choice to live on your own terms. To take up space how YOU like it. Live in your truth. We aren’t avenging the suffering of our ancestors by fighting over validity within a white supremacist capitalist gendered caste system. That’s still, in fact, slavery. Your Black body as a commodity. I am so much more than this outer vestige I inhabit. I’m ready for a new challenge. One where queerness in both how I love and how I show up in the world expand the realms of possibilities for me. Where I start demanding truth and authenticity of myself. Basking in the joys of what little life I have left on this Earth. Choosing me and taking up space on my terms. I’m not fully there yet but I’ve been hiking up the mountain and basking in the feeling of societal pressure falling off around me. Loving on the parts of me I’ve been told to despise. Taking deeper breaths to savor the precious oxygen and bring awareness to my body. Because it’s mine and mine alone. Sidebar: I miss my Medusa 😩