What if I just wrote my name here.
What if I posted a picture of my face?
Why won't I?
Yes, yes, the law and whatnot. The fear of being arrested, of having door closed, of my parents. Shame. Those things are real. But they are not the heart of it.
There are so many stories I have fragmented, compartmentalized. They cling together and bend or swing away as needed; perhaps they are embedded in my bones. Perhaps my joints reflex when I am hit with a situation, an interaction, a question, little pieces of my history swing away, into a distance I try to call irrelevant.
Why do I keep my names caged, individualized? Why do I not embrace the entire community that is comprised by my many faces and identities? I hesitate to say that the name on my state identification is the "real" one. The experiences I have had while being called Corey are as real as any others. They have left their marks on my mind, soul, and lord knows, my body. Passports expire, scars do not.
What is the formula to figure out my real name? Is it where I put in the most hours? Is it the name that is the foundation of my bread and butter? Is it the name my family knows me by? Which family? Over the years, letters have been lost from the name my mother gave me at birth. Being trans, people often ask what my "real" name is - and what they mean is that they wish to know the name I was given at birth. It does not matter to them that even my mother now calls me something else. And she does it even when she's referring to me as a baby. It doesn't matter that the change is legal and proper and you won't find any valid documents that reveal it. The question serves no practical purpose. If I am there before you, you know me, I am legible. It is simply a voyeuristic fantasy. A dirty joke. A reduction of my humanity, my journey - one that was wrought with pain - into an amusement. A token of insider gossip. I detest this and if I feel so empowered, I refuse to give it up. I am usually extremely tolerant of personal questions regarding my gender. This is the one I will not answer. Whatever name I have given you upon our introduction, it is my real name. Repeat it back to me.
This does not only happen with folks who know I am trans. It happens in the business all the time. Customers who want to feel special, who want to believe that you will whisk them away to the champagne room and fuck them, and for free at that, want to know your "real" name to feel like they have some edge over all these other sorry customers. Perhaps if there was not so much shame around paying for anything sexual they would do this less. But I am hard pressed to be particularly sorry from a provider's point of view, because in the end it is still I who bears the brunt of the repercussions. When I am on stage and a client who wishes to buy a dance from me asks me for my real name, I lean down close and bat my eyelashes up at them. "Corey iiiiis my real name" I croon sweetly, and to stop their objections in their tracks, I quickly interject "does Corey really sound like a stripper name?" This usually does the trick. I always feel like I am lying through my teeth when I say this. Not because it is a lie - Corey is a real name for a real part of me, but because of the syrupy saccharine background I imply with it in those moments. I think most any other ho would understand the realness behind calling me Corey. These clients though, do not. Perhaps there's the divergence, in the interpretation. A client pictures Corey as a sweet and naughty youngster, enamored with them and loving to strip. They imagine Corey in the grocery store, wearing a crop top and high heels reaching over her head to pluck a loaf of bread from the shelves, revealing perhaps a peek at her g-string. Whoever that Corey is, werq girl. But I am not her. When I talk to other hos, I imagine they get a more accurate picture. Corey in the grocery store in sweats, a little of last night's mascara still on, nursing bruised knees from the 9 hour shift at the club, carefully counting crumpled dollar bills and dividing them quickly between rent, milk, and lipstick.
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It is true that sometimes I wish to decompartmentalize. All of my names belong to the same address, I am not an island and there are intersectional ways I wish I could conduct the conversation about this work, in particular.
Why don't I?
I suppose I am still looking. Waiting to be surrounded by community that places value in me ahead of my entertainment value. Waiting to build my tribe, find safe keepers of my many stories who will weave them together in a tapestry that will keep me warm and safe, rather than simply on display.
