It’s hard to deny that passing is a privilege. Read rightly or wrongly, in certain times and certain places, I am white, cisgendered, straight, monogamous, femme. As my pregnancy advances, the possibility of stealth evaporates. I google, “masc of centre maternity wear”. I doubt a checked flannel or trilby could save me now.
My mother attends my wedding, to a man I love, who loves me too. I try to release myself from the feeling of sadness at her joy at getting what she has wanted for so long, at last. I want it too. I am almost a good Filipino daughter.
After years of disapproval, and despite my deepest fears, she votes yes. All the known things separate. Still, we don’t invite my Filipino relatives to the wedding. To avoid the embarrassment of their knowing that my brother won’t attend. Because he is too disapproving of me, my “lifestyle” or my “politics” or whatever variant of my choices has offended him in the past. She tells them, “It’s an Anglo wedding”. At which they nod, understanding.
I make the one hundred-something bomboniere for the tables with my “maid” of honour, Domenico. We overlap between things, races, genders, sexualities; I love him for the way he never makes things limited. In this way, he reminds me of Prince.
No one reads me queer here, nor there. It’s only when I tell them that that I love them that it makes sense.
This and you are amazing. How do you get time to write and perform all this?