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Sze-Yang Ade-Lam

I use various pronouns interchangeably: he, she, s/he or none at all.

There are so many more decisions and choices now about what gender can be. Before, it was male or female, gay, straight or bisexual. Now the alphabet for what the spectrum looks like is always increasing.

The process of letting go of the rules is still evolving for me. Onstage I can be a fantastic superhero, super-quero – or wear heels. I get to do stuff I might not always get to do in real life. I love to portray a very empowered character who can be both masculine and feminine and everything around that and between that.

My onstage persona has pushed me so I can grow into my own choices offstage. Its interesting how much we hold internally, given all that policing and programming. The other day at the 519, one of the desk people gave me a flower. My instinct was to put it behind my ear. I was with my husband. We went onto the street and I thought, “Wow, can I really do this?” I thought I had overcome so many things, like wearing dangly, sparkling earrings, but when I wore the flower on the street I still had to talk to myself.

You can push yourself, but there are real-life situations where it’s not safe to explore those things. Sometimes in a performance or social setting, I’ve worn women’s lingerie. It’s a question of safety. If it’s a queer-positive event it’s different than going shopping in my heels.

The pendulum of my identity swings back and forth depending on the day. Some days I’m in sweats and a hoodie and no one questions that. I have that safety. Not everyone has it: transgendered people have to face the world like that every day. I recognize the privilege of being comfortable and feeling I was born in the right body.

I don’t even have a concrete sense of how I identify my gender. As I try to dissect it, I realize so much is fabricated that I don’t even necessarily know what is what any more. When I think of myself, I think of yin and yang, and not because I’m Asian. I have masculine and feminine sides, and there’s a place where they meet and a place where they’re in between.

When I’m dancing in heels, does that make me automatically feminine, or am I just a man dancing in heels? Am I channelling a woman’s energy in those heels?

It’s hard for men – all our insults are about being a girl, a sissy, a pansy. That instills fear and polices the way we move. That’s why a lot of men aren’t allowed to dance at a young age. As I try to deconstruct all this in my life, I allow myself to move the way that feels right.

It’s about liberation. We are most powerful when we let ourselves be all that we are.

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