"Just a Bunch of Hot F*ck Ups"

The Trans Comedy of Dissociation and Wanting to Be Normal

Hi bbs,

We’re here with a special, fancy conversation about trans comedy between yours truly and Charlie Markbreiter—be sure to subscribe to Charlie’s fabulous newsletter, Unbearably Bright.

From the actual DMs of Jules and Charlie:

Charlie: Jules, I'm obsessed with your piece. Like, really obsessed. Your thoughts on trans comedy and normativity really got me.

This passage also reminded me of something that Emily Alison Zhou wrote recently, which is that if you're desiring normativity from an abnormal position, then it's always going to look weird. Not just because you aren't supposed to have access to that normativity, but because "the normative" as an aesthetic category is actually pretty funny when you try to actually be like....“What is this. This is fake.”

Jules: I adore that point about the aesthetics of normativity being weird and so too with genres like comedy. Like, I couldn’t imagine how humorless being straight would feel. I’d rather be traumatized and hysterically funny

C: Do u follow @autogynefiles? It’s very like…the humor of desiring normativity.

J: Yes yes yes I love her! I think the humor of having normativity as an object of desire that is therefore humiliating is very funny! I’m always online like “being trans is v abject thank u”

I may have had too much edible to be smart, but I think “self-deprecation,” all the r/me_irl or r/egg_irl genres of embracing the radical embarrassment and shame/humiliation attendant to being trans in the world...are an interesting cultural form? They embed critique opaquely in the pleasure of claiming what wounds in the first person.

There’s a way to embed a structural critique of the slow death of trans life by embracing the pleasure of abjection—saying, “look how fucked up I am because of the world, it’s hilarious (because it’s bad)!”

C: Yes!! Your points on transition, comedy and normativity also reminded me of something Grace Lavery wrote along the lines of, "In grad school, transness (and transsexuality in particular) was seen as bad and gauche; you had taken queer theory too literally."

If queerness is all about how you deviate from the norm, transsexuality is all about the literal. It’s about how you took the norm too seriously. What makes that funny, though?

Have you seen this?

J: Yes 100% you cracked an important code of trans humor re: taking the norm too seriously.

I fucking love Patti. 

I think she is the funniest person on earth

Genius!

Part of it is she’s so committed to every bit, with zero winking at the audience. So everything that is “satirical” on one level is also just plain impressive for how it is flawlessly executed. But she’s also such an oddball comedian. Like, with half her jokes or bits, I’m not really 100% what the punchline is, but I love it because of that.

Also, I’ve never seen such a great embrace of the abjection of femininity as hers. Did you ever listen to the podcast she did with Lorelei Ramirez, A Woman’s Smile? It, like, changed my life, it was so funny. I listened to it when I was an egg and for some reason it convinced me I could transition? 

C: So that you too could get a woman's smile?

L: YES! I, too, could get a woman’s smile. For real! I find the confidence of that kind of comedy really comforting and capacitating. Going from a life where the joke’s on me and I have no control, to one where I choose to make the joke on me? That’s being trans, baby.

C: You’re right, Patti commits to the bit. She is always in character. Is taking norms too literally just....committing to the bit?

J: I think so? That’s what Andrea Long Chu says, right? Except, like, we could say straight people commit too much to the bit too, so there needs to be a bit more of a differentiation. I think it also has to do with desire? That is, wanting the the thing so badly you don’t mind humiliating or abjecting yourself for it? 

C: Andrea and Patti are two different versions of committing to the bit. So what makes Patti's version feel extremely funny and kind, and Andrea's version… less so? 

J: I think there’s also a critical distance in Patti’s comedy—she’s in command but without trying to master the situation. Not as sure about how that works in Andrea’s writing.

C: That reminds me of smth that Colby Gordon told me once, which was, "A little dissociation isn't always a bad thing.” 

J: I for one love a little dissociation.

C: In Patti's comedy, dissociation’s critical distancing allows you to see the genre or story that you're in. You're committing the bit, but in a way that allows you to see yourself as one of many characters. Whereas with Andrea's project, it's…just her. It was always just about her.

J: I think Andrea’s line of thinking presumes there is only one character model out there (the female). It’s not especially dimensional. But I love this idea that dissociation’s upside is allowing you to approach being many kinds of characters.

C: I guess dissociation can do both though?

J: Yes, definitely it can. How to wield dissociation? I mean wow, that’s a big question. 

C: Like how to wield dissociation so that it makes you more collectively minded and not less. 

J: Oh god, that’s the real riddle. Or wield it to let other people into your psyche? But not in an invasive way?

C: I remember Emily saying that "dysphoria makes you myopic," which feels relevant. When you’re really dysphoric and dissociated, sometimes you’re just spiraling about literally like... your torso. That's like all you can think about. 

And that's no one's fault, it's not like we're really given the tools and support to deal with that kind of trans pain? But the ethical stakes are that if we don't learn to deal with it collectively, people start becoming narcissist transfluencers really fast lol

J: Yes exactly. It becomes the Jeffrey Marsh “Stop thinking about other people and only thing about yourself. That’s magical.” And like, no, it’s not. Most people need to think about others, badly, as my friend JT Tremblay reminded me recently.

Also the only cure for dysphoria I’ve ever found is cuddling with other trans ppl.

C: There's a reason that transfluencing is so much about marketing individual self-promotion and self-care. 

J: Yes! It really must feel nice, to weaponize your isolated suffering into a singular commodity. Also our economy encourages it. But it’s like why therapy is only so useful for trans ppl. I always hit the wall with my therapist where I’m like, “Transphobia makes it hard to live, you can’t help me adjust to that, it’s unethical.” Maybe it’s…funny?

C: You also need something that will help you with the collective and structural nature of your suffering. Which is one of many reasons why the Genderfck thing feels so evil.

J: Exactly! That shit is toxic, it will actively undermine poor trans people. You can’t create a gated community of pay-for-respectability-to-my-gender-transgression and call it innocent.

I continue to think the rub is that we are all so wounded and angry and desperately in need of care, there are real dynamics that keep us from communal anything. So maybe comedy plays a nice role here in facilitating being together as de-idealized subjects. Just a bunch of hot fuck ups. 

C: AP9NDSR80IDO-F7HUCDJS89FXIJU8ZSRPCD.

J: Right? I think...we solved it, we can retire now and be elders.