Who You Are is YOURS to Define...
Nice Girls wear dresses
Bad Girls where dresses
Church Girls wear dresses
It Girls wear dresses
Smart Girls wear dresses
Girly Girls wear dresses
Quiet Girls wear dresses
Siren girls wear dresses
Some legs showin
All feet steppin
Many girls wear dresses
But BOYS can wear dresses too
-Royalty C
Thailand was an experience like no other I'd had at the time. I was from a place where life was lived according to rules full of societal norms I had never agreed to. "Women cook in the kitchen and raise babies", "Men don't cry, stop being a punk", "Girls wear pink, boys wear blue", "You can't play with trucks, you're a girl!", "Don't let my 2 year old son walk around in your heels, you're gonna make him gay!", "boys will be boys", "She had sex, she's a hoe", "I'm not doing that, that's gay" "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!, Oh, two women? Well that's great, but two niggas? EWWW" ; and so on the story goes, forced labels, forced rules, forced descriptions with shame attached.
I was so tired of feeling shame for NOT being ashamed of who I was and my ability to allow others to be who they are without judgement. I couldn't understand how the way someone looked, the things they liked, who they slept with or what they wore and called themselves could determine their value and humanity. Why did everyone care so much? Were these things what made one a sane, rational, good human being? Did the fact that a young boy who always felt more comfortable in his internal female identity wanting to live fully in his personal truth, outside and proud make him a deviant? A murderer? A psychopath? Did his very PERSONAL truth eliminate his ability to be a kind and empathetic human being that loves and contributes to society? I know very strongly not. The idea that someone's internal truth, physical appearance, sexual preference, ethnicity or otherwise should determine how they are treated, or their safety on this planet is simply ridiculous. Religious based bias and framework is not reasonable or warranted as a foundation for ill-treatment of others either. "God said", is over used, overplayed, and so contextually entrenched in cognitive dissonance that it isn't even funny. "God said" love, respect and remain free of judgement, but people somehow forget all of that in the face of their OWN desire to feel righteous and superior based on the "sin", because the arguments of deviance have no real merit or basis, as they do not naturally occur when the love that "God" talked about is truly in the heart of the viewer.
The moment I touched down in Thailand, something in my spirit shifted, I felt -- different. Like immediately. A strange peace came over me (a shame that after years of trauma and survival, peace was the strange thing), a natural loosening of my shoulders, a deepening of my breath, and internal giddiness that seemed to signal a great discovery ahead. And no, I'm not a yoga/meditation girlie, so I wasn't there specifically for the typical American "spiritual awakening" journey that is funded by guys with top buns and namaste tattoos. I was there to explore what "black" looked like in Thailand. What would I learn about my identity based on the cultural connection between myself and this asian culture that was as dark and darker than me? Well, I learned that my identity is tied to me, not to blood, social definitions, family, expectations or rules that other people have created, and it didn't come in the way that I thought. It wasn't my through my ethnicity that I healed my traumas surrounding identity, but through sexuality and sexual identity preferences.
As I write this piece, I do so not as an expert on Thai politics and statistical hate crime statistics, but as a private citizen that had very real experiences in the place; that does not mean that my view is exhaustive or a complete picture of their full truth, but even an incomplete picture from your perspective can add the pieces missing to make your own picture complete. Thailand has a very large population of transgender women and gay men, and often interaction is concentrated in red light districts like Bangla Road, where I was in Phucket. Bangla Road was overwhelming! People every where, the tourists mostly men and the workers mostly women, shouting from bar to bar, loud music, and people grabbing you to invite to their establishment where a variety of women dance on tables. For a moment I just stood still to try and get my mind under control because it was bouncing everywhere, trying to take in the overload of stimulation it was receiving and is always receiving when we are in a large crowd of people (me and Ms. Mind, baby we don't miss a THING, that hyper-vigilance is HYPER, lol.). Then, again, in the midst of the chaos, the peace came, my mind slowed down and my eyes were drawn above me to a window with a read light, where a woman danced on a pole, and her soul touched mine. It is known that many of the women on Bangla road are transgender, and it is much of the pull for many visitors looking to have a "wild time", which translates to being their real selves and fulfilling their true desires for once in their lives; and the gender identity debate and exploration is usually the most taboo of adventures among the repressed, escaping to Bangla Road to take comfort in people like the goddess that twirled above me, while never respecting the truth of her identification. Her movements were soft, delicate, and felt more smooth and seductive than anything I could achieve. She danced as if she was pouring every piece of pain, angst, joy and desire into this performance. It wasn't sexual, it was almost pleading, "See me, See ME", not just this shell, but ME, who I choose, who I am, what I truly feel, not the rules that told you that something was wrong with me, that I am wrong". It felt like she was truly pouring her heart out to us, and I'm not the only one who noticed, because on that chaotic road in Phucket, debauchery was silenced for a moment and we all stood in awe of how completely, utterly WOMAN, she was.
What struck me was that she was not apologizing for being herself, for being in that window, or for choosing to live fully as herself in that moment. Not the working girl on Bangla road, but maybe the ballet dancer, modern dancer that lives for the feel of the hardwood beneath her feet. Who's body, despite how she was born, was made to be a prima ballerina, and the heart that yearns to live out her wildest dreams, free from the hate of others. I later understood her confidence as I spent more time amongst the people of Thailand. They were some of the kindest people I had been around as a group (I had not yet reached Bali) and it was amazing to me. The customer service smiles weren't forced, everyday people interacted with each other with deep kindness and respect, even in conflict. Everyday, I was able to watch transgender women walk around, laugh, interact and live along side straight males and straight women as well as the religious, and they were just women going about their lives.
I understood the culture of identity to be more evolved here as I watched regular families interact with the lines of identity and gender. As I sat in the nail salon being serviced, a family walked in, mother , father and son. I assumed the mom was there to get her nails done and the father and son were tagging along as I had been conditioned, but alas, my mind was blown again. The mom entered and said "My son would like a manicure, he loves multiple colors, so we will pick a few". I looked at her and quickly masked my shock, but I immediately looked to the father to see if he was being held at gun point to be "progressive" and allow his son to wear nail polish. What I saw instead, healed me from all fears surrounding being myself 110% regardless of societal "norms". Not only was this father in agreement, he was joyful, playful and laughing along with his wife and son as they chose colors, and his son let the nail tech know what he wanted, confidently at what looked to be about 3 years old. I was so captivated by their family interaction that I began to take candid photos (see video of stills below).
I told the family afterward how amazing they were and shared with them the photos, which they loved. Watching an Asian father encourage his son to define his own identity, when much like Black and many other fathers, he was raised very stringently under what the rules for manhood and fatherhood were, was so amazing that I had to share how impressed I was.
The same is true for us all. Identity is only wrong when it isn't looked at through the lens of love. Real love. Not love defined by a book, an entity or ceremony, but love that allows, that makes room, that un-learns and re-learns for the sake of growth. Love that allows a person to choose their truth, no matter their physical birth condition, because identity is based in the soul, not the physical appearance, which is why a physical body can be altered and altered by anyone, but the soul comes full in tact, and one can only discover, and express it honestly. I learned that day, to live and be who I really am, to love myself and what I wanted truly, to not despise my truth because it separated me from the love of the masses, to value and celebrate it because the separation from massive conditional love would lead me to the unfolding of real, true love, because only those who truly loved the real me I present would stick. And that's just fine with me.
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