Lex (they/them)
I think I always knew that my name wasn't my name.
There was always this like burning little thought in the back of my head – *whispers* your name is Lex. I’m like, who are you? Why are you so loud? I don't know who this is. And then when I started dancing and training with the company that I was with in Chicago, just our rehearsal director was like, what's up Lex? I was like, HI! That was cool! And she just did it on her own. And just, that was just her thing. And it just felt right.
My therapist was like, “what do you want to be called?” And I was like, what? She's like, “you know, you don't have to go by your government name here. This is your session. You get to decide. And I was like, OK. What do I do with this information? I was like, hey, can you call me Lex? They’re like, “sure, absolutely”.
With the kids that I teach, everyone has a different perception of who I am. Some people are like, you're a girl. You just. You just are. It's like, yeah, sure, whatever. And then there are other ones that are like, “I have no idea. You have to tell me,” and I'm like, I don’t have to tell you anything. And they're like, yeah, you do. It's like I, no, I really, really don’t. Like “you're either a boy or a girl”. I was like, that's not how that works at all.
The little ones, they don't care who you are. Most of the time, they can't remember your name. Whereas the ones that are getting older and getting closer to that, like middle school range, they're like, “alright, what's up? There’s something different about you. You know you don't behave like the rest of them.” And I just let them troubleshoot with each other, honestly. I give no answer. I'm like, I'm me, just like you're you. You know, “what does that mean? But you have to pick!” I’m like, “I don't.” Only one of them has been like, “oh, are you transgender?” I was just like, yeah. And he was like, “OK”, and he kept moving.
The kids have a lot to say about the groups that are sensationalized in media, until they meet someone who actually is that thing. And they're like, oh wait, this doesn't fit into any of the boxes that have been pre-described for me. It humanizes us in a way that I think is so incredibly necessary.
There's such a fight right now to hide all of those people who have been truth tellers, or marginalized groups that are just like, hey, we're over here, living a totally different experience.
How about come over here and see what it's about? You might find yourself, you know. All those outlets that I remember us having when we were younger, even just having teachers who were allowed to talk about their personal experiences and bring life to the education. I don't think it's happening with these kids anymore, so being able to be that living example for people is hard.
Transitioning only made me realize that people are cool as long as you stay in whatever box that they want to place you in. And when you start exercising your free will, that's when you really start to see people's true, true colors.
My dad works on using my chosen name and will do it. But when my mom is around, it goes completely out the door. It's funny. My cousin last Christmas was like, “I don't mean to be weird, and let me know if I'm like thinking too hard on this one, but, yo mama say your name a whole lot now, doesn’t she?” And I was like, she does! She uses, girl, she uses that dead name like it's designer.
My older brother is in his 40s, so like there's a pretty decent age gap between us, but we were still pretty close. I think the first time I came home for his baby shower post-op, and I think we were getting ready to go and have dinner together with the family, and I just happened to be wearing a dress that day. And he was like, “.....???” And I’m like, what, what is it now? And he was like, “You have on a dress?” I was like, yes. He’s like, “Didn’t you cut off your titties?” Yes, sir! The two things don't go together. He’s like, I don't understand you. I was like, sir, if you would put on a kilt one day, I promise you, you’ll feel like a soldier, like it'll be the greatest thing ever. But yeah, he's just like, “you really just be out here doing whatever you want.” Like, exactly, what else are we supposed to do? None of us make it out of here alive. Might as well have fun, right?
For my niece, this is like a world-opening thing. I think she's been – she follows me on TikTok and all that, so I know she sees a lot of my content, but like me being me and her living in Florida, I hope it makes her be like, “OK, no, all of these things that they're saying about these people are wrong.” And like to know that if she had questions about something like that, you have somebody that you can go ask about it instead of the Internet. Instead of, you know, the only person that you're being blasted with on television is Caitlyn Jenner, you know? And I always tell them, like, listen…we don't like Caitlyn, but I don’t misgender her, and I don't talk about anything that isn't public business. If it's under the clothes, it's off limits. However, I can talk about the fact that she's the biggest oxymoron walking alive as a trans person. And from what some of my favorite queer creators have said, she just wants to be the only trans person in the room. To like, sensationalize it in a way, while the rest of us are just trying to exist.
If you have ever been to a ballet, it is very different from what you would see in, like, I'll say, an African city.
An African dance setting is more communal. And the power that you put into it is mostly determined by the step you're doing, the intention of it because a lot of the dances that we are taught are ritualistic, ceremony, or like meet and greet type things where different people can come in, where ballet is absolutely not set up like that. It's prim, it's proper. The back is straight, the head is tilted so you can see all the elegance. And you're dainty.
I think the most out of body experience I ever had as a child, and realizing that I was a girl child, was the first time I had to wear a crop top as a dancer. And it is by no means close to what the kids are wearing today. And my stomach wasn't even showing that much, but that costume for me, with the hair and the glam and all of that, sent me immediately. I had an actual breakdown. My mom was like, “what is it?” I couldn't tell her what it was. It was like, I'm not in my body anymore. I am actually not here.
So that, on top of puberty, which all popped on very fast for me very early on, was traumatic. The dance training and figuring out how to be this “girl thing”, which I never was. 'Cause even as I became a better dancer and got into less European styles, or styles that haven’t been so heavily influenced by white European and white American cultures, once I got more into non-classical white tap, and I could like, sit in myself, and be like oh, I'm actually really athletic. Cool. Let's do that. And then it was like, “hang on, dude, you're dancing like a boy”. Well, shoot. What am I supposed to do now? And I did have some teachers that were great and would encourage it. I'd be like, can I go across the floor with the boys? And they’d be like, “fine, go with the boys”. And it was great. It felt so affirming, and I didn't have to be that girl. I could be my own version of whatever that was.
But then, stuff gets hairy when you want to be a professional. As queer as the arts is, you still gotta play that straight game, something serious. Most of the greats from the early eras of dance were queer and had queer experiences, and because of, you know, the AIDS epidemic we lost a bunch of them. We lost so much, you know, history that will never be written down. Oral histories that have just evaporated. Gorgeous dancers that I know, anybody in the dance community – if you know someone who lived through it, they lost a friend, a family member, a lover. We lost so much of our community.
Being trans for me just means getting more and more comfortable in this body that has been through so much.
So much confusion, so much pain. Just to make it more and more home for me, and hopefully by doing that, other people feel comfortable around me, and so I can be a safe space for others. And if nothing, maybe be somebody's trans dad somewhere for other gender non-conforming kids. You know, if I can be a trans adult to help more trans kids, that's cool.
