Realness With a Twist1: Gender Creativity in the LGBTQ Ballroom

Abstract

ABSTRACT Based on semistructured interviews with 20 transgender people of color who are active in the New York City LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning) ballroom-house culture, this qualitative study explores the subjective need for recognition of transgender realness against the demonstrable threat of exposure, rejection, and gendered violence. Applying a Winnicottian lens, the ballroom is understood as an intermediary space where gender creativity is celebrated and the subjective meaning of realness is unchallenged between the internal psyche and external, transphobic culture. Using D. W. Winnicott’s concept of the “right not to communicate for fear of being infinitely exploited,” this article considers the “joy in hiding and the disaster in not being found” for people of trans experience who are sought out and exposed, yet not truly recognized or protected. In clinical work, a focus on detecting transgender realness shows up as impingements—deflected by the patient’s compliant object-relating—on what Winnicott calls the “personal core,” thwarting genuine communication, psychic growth, and “all the sense of real.” Lessons from the ballroom-house community illuminate the hard-earned quest for recognition against the demand to unmark transgender realness for trans and gender-diverse (TGD) people of color who navigate explicit and micro violations, including the historical violence of erasure.