embodying freedom, fragility and power

i almost wept while dancing today. i’m following direction from my iyanifa, an initiated priestess of Osun, to be true to my most essential nature – and at my core, i am a dancer. i am also not quite a woman, definitely not a man, and i love people regardless of their birth assignment. i practice traditional chinese religion and Ifá.

all of these things, i learned to fear.

why did my own blood look at me with fear in their eyes? i know now it wasn’t about me. i am not a monster, inhuman, or unsalvageable, as I once believed. i am 李道玲 lee dao-ling, human being. always have been, always will be. no more, no less. i no longer depend on the family that wanted an award-winning-china-doll-ivy-league-neutered-straight-cisgender-obedient-puppet who kept up appearances for the clan. i don’t have to contort and amputate my essence anymore, nor do incestuous emotional labor for abusers to grant access to basic resources.

it took this long.

a decade.

not everyone can be out.

i have survived abuse, sexual harassment, homophobia, transphobia, gaslighting, betrayal, and abandonment. and i am more than all of it.

i am the sunlight on the water. a humpback whale’s dive. the dark moon and meteor shower of my birth. incense on the ancestor shrine. hearthfire of our irish homestead. steel and stone. scars and ferocious sweetness. the flower that blooms in winter.

my gender is me when i’m dancing. i rise in love when i encounter an Ori with beautiful character.

Ifá said the monsters in my family would be defeated.

every free breath i take is a testament.