{"id":2687,"date":"2025-02-20T16:46:35","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T21:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/?p=2687"},"modified":"2025-02-20T16:46:35","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T21:46:35","slug":"carnivals-swimming-pools-and-elusive-trans-narratives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/2025\/02\/20\/carnivals-swimming-pools-and-elusive-trans-narratives\/","title":{"rendered":"Carnivals, Swimming Pools, and Elusive Trans Narratives"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201c[…] the portrait I had brought home from the carnival. Betsy didn\u2019t know what my mother was talking about. Finally after much confusion, she asked, \u2018Didn\u2019t I draw your son?\u2019 I remember the complete joy I felt when my mother came home with this story. I looked again and again at the portrait, thinking, \u2018Right here, right now, I am a boy.\u2019 It made me smile secretly for weeks, reach down into my pockets to squeeze a stone tight in each fist. I felt as if I were looking in a mirror and finally seeing myself, rather than some distorted fun-house image\u201d (Clare 146).<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Clare\u2019s writing in\u00a0\u201cstones in my pockets, stones in my heart\u201d is undeniably full of emotion, but this was a particular spot of resonance, in my reading. His story of being perceived as a young boy has several connections to the rest of the chapter, notably the highlighted childhood question \u201cAm I feminine?\u201d (Clare 144). Clare also writes about his later discovery of the lesbian community, specifically the butch lesbian community. He states, \u201cI knew I could be <\/span>this <\/span><\/i>kind of woman\u201d and describes finding \u201ca definition of woman large enough\u201d to fit into (Clare 155). All these components build into the idea of being seen. The second part of this passage is principal\u2014in it, Clare sees <\/span>himself in his true form. The stone companions add to this imagery of growing up and finding safe spaces. Clare found several ways to move through the world as he grew with his gender identity. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Segueing into a personal note, I felt seen by Clare\u2019s story several times in this chapter. It is curious to me that I had similar experiences during similar developmental times. When I was roughly seven or eight, I went to a pool party which was being hosted by my mother\u2019s associates\u2014nobody\u2019s children knew each other. I, with my choppy, chin-length hair and swim trunks, spent the whole afternoon with a group of boys my age. We played football, because that\u2019s definitely a sport that\u2019s meant to be played in the water. It wasn\u2019t until my mom came to find me and called my then-name that I\u2014and the boys\u2014became wise to the misunderstanding. They\u2019d thought I was a boy the entire time. I was giddy with the keen sense I\u2019d pulled something off, even if it hadn\u2019t been intentional. I immediately thought of this day when I read Clare\u2019s carnival story.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then I was nine, eleven, thirteen. I was the class tomboy. I played sports. I did not date. I was \u2018not like other girls.\u2019 I, too, found \u201ca definition of woman large enough\u201d to house me until I hit high school, snapped, and came out. This makes me think about the transgender community in a broader sense. No two trans individuals are the same, and there is no universal experience, as emphasized by the other social factors Clare addresses. I advocate for celebrating everyone\u2019s individual \u201cdefinition of <\/span>know <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>feel<\/span><\/i>,\u201d but I\u00a0wonder if there are more common experiences I have yet to <\/span>see (Clare 158)<\/span>. Trans narratives have entered the mainstream in the last decade or two, yet I am still taken aback upon feeling recognized. I wonder if trans representation feels tenuous because it is so contested. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201c[…] the portrait I had brought home from the carnival. Betsy didn\u2019t know what my mother was talking about. Finally after much confusion, she asked, \u2018Didn\u2019t I draw your son?\u2019 I remember the complete joy I felt when my mother came home with this story. I looked again and again at the portrait, thinking, \u2018Right … Continue reading Carnivals, Swimming Pools, and Elusive Trans Narratives<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5602,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[346812],"tags":[93485,346828,48594],"class_list":["post-2687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2025-class-post","tag-analysis","tag-eli-clare","tag-gender-identity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5602"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}