IRL <> VR = Tumblr <> VRChat

From left to right: Greek life self portrait, Self portrait gif, Drawing of me and my internet boyfriend

Along the way I lost and gained my spirit. At first I found my sobriety and then I found my transness and finally I found the soul kernel that would let me lock into myself, bit by bit as a practice. With no destination in mind and no expectations to meet I began to wander. Wander through my insides to let light in, and wandered into Virtual Reality to let imagination in. There I found the Transacademy, Dance Academy, and V Healing 3.0, all worlds where people gathered to commiserate, learn how to dance, and meditate/commune with the spirits. Being alone didn’t mean isolation, and being in virtual reality made it easy to hold my boundaries with others, giving me much needed practice in a low stakes environment. I could be anyone and that made it easier to be myself.

From left to right: V Healing 3.0 in VRChat, Transacademy in VRCHat

And then there was drag. Drag came to release me from the cage of my body IRL. It asked me to follow my imagination to the farthest point I could and then to go further and it was the one place where I am never TOO MUCH. I could make myself into clowns and cartoon versions of myself that would perform funny, sad, and twisted acts in a deep act of catharsis. Then Drag gave me a community, a family, and then a partner. I had finally locked in and the world was dancing with me.

Ambrose Trataris as DestroyHerr

(´･з･)(-ε-)(￣ε￣)(´･з･)(-ε-)(￣ε￣)(´･з･)(-ε-)(￣ε￣)

My lips resemble a flower

Asking to draw in fleshy mounds of similar shape

Smell and tasting sapphic nectar

Like a wasp to it’s orchid

Playing a game of mimicry

A little more with each evolution

I take in my orchid the hallucination of harmony

Touching one blip of bliss

A gay glitch

My orchid lips

I lick clean

From left to right: Ambrose in an avatar dancing with a reflection, Beatrice LaHaine & Mama Celeste outside of Pillows at Powerhouse, Full body tracking system Haritorax 1.1 and Oculus Quest 2 rhinestone by VERA!

Being trans has been a practice of acceptance instead of rejection. I’ve never been much of an anti person, even the “non” in “non binary” feels more like a zero or an egg, an invitation to perceive the expansiveness that exists beyond the practical physical interface of sight or form. Because more is more, more love is more loving, more space is more spacious. And especially when we are intersecting with race, disability, and gender, more access and understanding will only facilitate that expansion.

Our bodies are points or planes of interaction so they are laden with metaphor, symbolism, and act as a literal projection screen. So the trans experience is socially comprehended and dictated by the body and how it’s seen, felt, heard, perceived but the trans experience for me isn’t in my body. It’s been a liberation practice of my mind and spirit. Which in turn has nourished my acceptance of my body, or reality, and of the potential that exists for me beyond fear. I’ve been dissecting the body trying to understand where the transness exists, is it the tenor of my voice, the hair on my stomach, or the size of my breast tissue that pushes me across the line between cis and not cis. On a day when one stranger might call me sir and another one might call me ma’am I start to see the cosmic joke of trying to find my life’s meaning in language and begin to let go of the history of these words that have burdened me for this first chapter of my life. Trying to name this body is like trying to mood slime in my hands. I don’t need to resist the movement.

I can be it all. More is more. And I can find the fluidity of being that exists on each edge and can move in between.

This is the magic I’ve been given and the practice I want to live.

I am trans, and my body is human, I am happily lost not to be found.

From left to right: Cash Monet preparing choreo, Custom built gaming PC by Sean Trataris, Ambrose in their avatar dancing in VRChat

And so now we dance. We practice and play. And the system sometimes fails us, but even so we come up with new ideas and movements and ways of being in the practice together. The physical body, the drag persona, and the avatar all inform each other and create more space for new ideas in all realms. And I release myself to the drama of experimental technology praying that Reiki will save my system and that goodwill will carry me through, more integrated and less fractal.

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This year’s ARC Combustible Performances will be ​​Thursday – Saturday September 7-9 & 14-16, 2023. Tickets are available at counterpulse.org/combustible23

Header Image Artwork created by Lucy Black in collaboration with DestroyHerr. Courtesy of the artist 2023.

Alt Text: A white woman with bright makeup, pink hair, and a blue outfit on a black background is made into a lifesize paper doll holding her own head in both of her hands.