On Being a Nonbinary Cutie in a (Binary) Performing World (Patreon)

Being someone who makes their bread and butter as a performer (of varying stripes) and identifies as nonbinary has been an interesting crossroads to navigate.

I've had requests from a few other gender-something humans to write about what my experiences as a performer have been like, relating to gender identity things.  I'll drill down into specifics in the writings to come after this (corporate circus; film and television; art grants; etc) but I'm starting with a broad overview today.

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'Trans/nonbinary' is a murky enough starting point all on its own.

It's a descriptor I've settled on for lack of anything else feeling particularly accurate. Genderfluid occasionally enters my vocabulary but for the most part I drift back to nonbinary.

It works, for now.

Everyone has a different opinion on how that label is defined. Folks have different expectations on how that identity 'can' or 'should' be expressed, or expectations on how that identity 'shows up'. There's certainly plenty of very strong opinions on whether it's an identity that lives under the transgender umbrella at all.

If you're figuring out trans things for yourself, most of the information immediately available to you is the medical details of what hormone replacement treatment entails, or what sorts of surgeries might be available to you, or – before all that – what make up tricks you can use, or what clothing you can wear that might bring your current appearance to be more in line with how you feel.

But pretty much all of that information – up until quite recently – has been delivered to the ends of: how can I make myself look as feminine as possible? or, how can I make myself look as masculine as possible?

It gets messy when you feel like you're happiest somewhere in between.

It gets particularly messy when aspects of your expression align with what society associates with your birth-assigned gender.

It's taken time, but I've figured out that it's ok for me to love high femme expression and makeup at times, and that doesn't change that I'm still trans/nonbinary.   

It doesn't matter that that's what shows up on my social media more than the days that I want to wear mens' clothes, no makeup, and pass as a boy.

I had a first top surgery, two years ago ('first' because I was conservative with my choices out of caution for not screwing things up in terms of being able to train and perform contortion).

I've chosen and used a more neutral name than my birth name for several years now. I gently correct people who use my old name (except my parents, but that's another story).

I've asked humans who I'm close to, or who are new in my life, to use neutral pronouns (they/them/theirs) for a couple years now.

I've found ways to begin transitioning in a way that feels safe and right for me.

I've found a way to feel comfortable with the idea that I'm not necessarily feeling a strong need to "arrive" anywhere. I've doubled down on the feeling that the state of transition itself is what feels more comfortable to me than the idea of landing in any one fixed place.

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The last five years of my life has been an exercise in passing for choice, for money.  

My job – in all the capacities my contracts for commercial performing manifest – requires the broad, overarching ability to act.   

To make you believe that I'm someone (or something) I'm not.

To transport you somewhere else, for even brief periods of time.    

To make you believe in whatever stories and characters I want to spin into creation.    

To bring you joy.  

To make you cry.  

To have you pause.   

I am – to be cheeky – whoever you pay me to be.    

16 year old punk rock Ess would likely be rather disappointed with Present Ess's complicity in late-stage capitalism ... but here we are.   

It's a passing that I'm acutely aware of, in part because I know that it means that most of the people who view me from a distance see me as female.  

At best, some days I might seen as androgynous – but even this descriptor fits quite tidily into an acceptable category of thin, white, femme-ness.  

The kind we prefer our fashion models to embody.  

Something not too disruptive.  

Something not too challenging to the 'norm'.

A palatable kind of androgyny.   

It's a passing that I've worried over, felt bitter about, felt unsure about, over the course of my career as a (commercial) performer:  Am I sending mixed messages?   Is it bad for my mental health to do this?   Is it foolish not to, when this is how I pay my rent right now?

I 'pass' as female for most of my corporate circus work.

My circus coworkers use my chosen name, and neutral pronouns.

They help me glue my wigs on for sparkly corporate events.

I help them with makeup.

They correct other/new humans who use 'she/her' pronouns when referring to me.

The inevitable slip-ups / linguistically habitual 'she/her/ happen; I get it, and it doesn't make me spiral.

We go out onto the stage or the floor as the beautiful, glittery, high-femme superpowered creatures that we are and when we go back to the green room there is never a single moment of doubt or confusion for any of those people in there with me that that is the face we all  put on to get paid.

I 'pass' as female for almost all of the stunt work I am offered (the rare exceptions being those contracts where they specifically need someone gender neutral, though I can count those on one hand still).

I don't ask my coworkers in the film industry to use neutral pronouns, but I do tell them gently and amiably that I use 'Ess' now, if they haven't seen me in a while and use my old name.

I used to be scared to even do that.

The stunt riggers that I work with are more open-minded and welcoming than many of the stunt performers that I work with.

I've found myself drifting further away from this kind of performing work.

It never feels safe (and not in the obvious sense of the word, since we're talking about stunts lol).

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It does not escape my attention that my 'decision' to engage in this work of passing is made possible by a massive amount of privilege (and safety) granted to me by virtue of the fact that I am white, that I am relatively slender (circus muscle changes that a bit, but bear with me), and that I'm AFAB (assigned female at birth).

All of these things add up to a particular kind of trans/nonbinary expression that society, for the most part, finds completely unremarkable. Perceived androgyny (instead of a broadening understanding of gender expression) is a privilege in that it allows me to navigate a world that has a heavy cis-normative bias not only with relative safety, but with success.

Black bodies and brown bodies are not afforded this kind of privilege.

Bodies that present as too 'in the middle' are not afforded this kind of privilege.

Bodies that are AMAB (assigned male at birth) and have found their way into whatever degree of trans-feminine expression they like are not afforded this kind of privilege.

Even to say that these bodies are not 'afforded privilege' is a sugarcoating of the fact that these types of nonbinary bodies are targets for violence.

I slip under the radar.

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In the end, this passing is something that I wield and exercise as the power it is.   

It's a kind of passing that I've settled with (for now).  

I know who I am. I know what I am.  

It continues to change.

I've found ways to become comfortable with slipping in and out of one expression and into another. I've found calmness wrapped up in an understanding that what people think I am rarely has any bearing on what I know I am.

If you want to make it as a performer, not much else gets to come first if you want to pay rent.  If you're already making it as a performer, you've probably already made plenty of concessions about how you'd choose to express yourself given your own preferences, vs what you bring to the table for work on a given day or contract.  Gender identity is one of those things, for me.

My priority for the last 5 years has been to succeed as a performer.

I've placed it above most above things.

I've absolutely taken it heavily into consideration in terms of the ways I choose to express my gender, and will likely continue to do so until I'm done with commercial work.   

We all want to believe that we're selected for promotion, for success, for a contract, etc., by virtue of our skills, our technical ability, our merit.    

But life isn't a meritocracy.    

It's more like a lottery. And it's a lottery that's rigged in your favour if you're white and conventionally attractive. It's certainly not a lottery rigged in your favour if you're anything other than cisgendered, on top of that.     

It's our responsibility to effect change wherever we can.

There is 100% 'room' for queer and trans performers within a broader, 'commercial' scope of work, but it's not normalized yet. I'm not painfully waiting for these years of my life to be done so that I can then express myself differently. I'm not hiding who I am. But I do, very consciously, play a balancing game with all of the factors described above.

It's hard.

I still struggle with whether I'm going about things the 'right' way.

I know on a selfish level that I love performing, and that I love being good at it.

I know on an emotional and intellectual level that 'playing the game' doesn't necessarily effect change.

For the time that I've been participating in the realm of commercial performing, my pushback, my rebellion, my space to breathe, has been making art.

Art that doesn't have all the restrictions and parameters of the above.

Art that doesn't require me to plan our my moves like a chess game, lest I misstep and destroy a much-needed source of income.

Art that makes space to talk about and think about and feel the things that it doesn't feel like there is the freedom to feel in so many other spaces in life.

I make art.

There's space for this kind of art.

There's a need for this kind of art.

There's a market for this kind of art.

We're not stuck in a cis/heteronormative meat-grinder if we want to make art and make a living from it.

I try to be excellent at everything that I do.  

The irony does not escape me that my work sometimes requires me to be excellent at pretending to be many things that I am not.

Until next time -- 

Stay strange & wonderful

& healthy

xx.

s

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