Missing Witches - Witches Found： Part 1 - The Medium of Life with Jacqueline Beaumont

00:00:00.000 We first met Jackie Beaumont when Whitefeather Hunter invited us to her 0.60

00:00:15.600 lab to meet her coven of witches and the magic and science that they create

00:00:21.840 there. I absolutely can't wait to have Whitefeather back on the mic when she 1.00

00:00:26.760 returns to Montreal later this summer, so definitely keep an eye out for that. She's 0.94

00:00:31.360 the original witch in a lab, and I can't wait to hear about the travels that she's been 0.96

00:00:36.200 on spreading her bold, audacious witchcraft. But I wanted to talk to Jackie about something

00:00:41.840 specific that we touched on in that Imbolc episode. If you haven't listened to it, go

00:00:46.400 check it out, and I put it in the show notes for this episode. And that's just this notion

00:00:50.600 of womanhood. Jackie, as an artist, scientist, and trans woman, I think has a very important

00:00:59.420 perspective on what it means to be a woman in 2019. We talked for a long time, so I split the

00:01:05.780 episode into two parts. Both are available right now. So here's part one of my conversation with

00:01:11.420 Jackie Beaumont. Hi, I'm Jacqueline Beaumont. People also call me Jackie. I am a BFA student

00:01:21.600 at Concordia University in fibers and material practices, as well as a member of the Milieu

00:01:27.860 Institute in the Speculative Biolab. So that's probably where hopefully a few of you have heard

00:01:34.240 of me before. Yes, I'm just going to interrupt real quick for our listeners who don't know,

00:01:39.200 Jackie was on our Imbolc special, where we spoke to her and a couple of her coven members

00:01:47.020 in the lab at Concordia University.

00:01:49.520 The episode was wildly successful, so I'm going to assume that a lot of people who are

00:01:54.540 listening to this have heard that.

00:01:56.640 If you have not, I will put a direct link to that episode in the show notes for this

00:02:00.940 episode, so that you can get all caught up on what we're talking about here.

00:02:04.400 Carry on with your intro, please, Jackie.

00:02:05.940 Yeah, yeah.

00:02:06.580 So, um, I, uh, I'm a bio artist, I'm a fiber artist, I do performance.

00:02:11.740 I'm going to stop you again, because I'm going to assume that a lot of our listeners

00:02:15.160 don't know what a bio artist is or does.

00:02:17.820 Yeah.

00:02:18.240 So a bio artist is, uh, an artist where our medium is biotechnology.

00:02:22.820 Uh, we work with the medium of life.

00:02:27.520 Um, so.

00:02:29.640 The medium of life.

00:02:31.500 Are y'all hearing that?

00:02:32.320 Yeah.

00:02:33.220 Life is a medium.

00:02:34.700 Yeah.

00:02:34.880 so uh so yeah some some people have referred to it as like michelangelo had the chisel

00:02:41.560 um and bio artists have the gene so g-e-n-e yes the g-e-n-e um so that that's kind of like a very

00:02:52.680 rudimentary introduction to bio art um but yeah so we uh in bio art we work with anything from

00:02:58.940 bacteria to cellulose to um phytology or algae um blood yeah blood mycology yeah all that stuff so

00:03:09.860 um it's a really cool intersection where art and science meet and uh luckily for me and my little

00:03:17.000 coven up at the lab uh we also have it interjecting with spirituality and uh sort of like connecting

00:03:22.960 to the earth um not just on a biological level but on a more spiritual level so yeah so you're

00:03:29.400 doing your bfa which is a bachelor of fine art how did you get into the lab yeah uh basically i

00:03:36.480 just kind of tried my tried my best and uh just like worked and worked and i started to talk to

00:03:45.500 a few people and they're like oh wow you really need to go and try and talk to the middle of you

00:03:49.820 people um see if you can get in and so i got introduced into the textiles and materiality

00:03:55.080 cluster uh which is where i still am um and then basically through me talking to people i got

00:04:01.920 introduced to alex so yeah uh that's kind of how i got introduced to the milieu institute and since

00:04:07.100 then i've just been i practically live in that building so i don't really leave when i interrupt

00:04:13.620 to do you're about to say you're also a performance artist yes yeah definitely so uh performance for

00:04:19.920 me is uh it's an extension of my it's it's an extension of my performative body it's it's an

00:04:28.720 extension of my expressiveness as a queer body in space um but also uh i think in terms of like

00:04:36.480 what i use it for it's very my performances are very ritual based so um they they do come from a

00:04:45.840 place of if i'm performing as something else i'm performing as an entity like a like a non-human

00:04:52.020 entity um so that's so much persona exactly creature so yeah yeah yeah exactly so um that's

00:05:01.480 where i kind of started dabbling into drag culture um and i've been performing and i'm using air

00:05:09.400 quotations here at drag um for uh for a few for a few months now actually almost a year now uh

00:05:17.480 and for our listeners who don't know you are a trans woman yes i am a trans woman that is also

00:05:22.280 the hot topic what we're talking about um so drag as a trans person is obviously a different

00:05:27.540 Very, very different. Yeah, for sure. I've never really wanted to perform as a hyper-glamazon, just this beautiful essence that is like a hyperized version of femininity.

00:05:44.040 The Miss Universe pageant.

00:05:45.300 Exactly. I've never really identified with that. I do appreciate it to its fullest potential. But I think that there's so many different ways that drag can express itself. And so for me, I use it as an extension of my spiritual practice.

00:05:59.580 I use it as a way to help to sort of embody a more political side to my spirituality as well, where I can I can show the the damage that humanity is doing to the earth in a more in a more performance based way where I am embodying her and and the earth.

00:06:25.820 Yeah. So I do a lot of performance based pieces around that, that spirit.

00:06:32.180 Can you describe like what an audience member might actually be seeing?

00:06:35.520 Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like one of my more recent ones was one that I did for a party called Unicorn.

00:06:43.180 U-N-I-K-O-R-N. It's a fantastic party that me and my friends are doing in Montreal here.

00:06:52.000 And it's very multidisciplinary in terms of what drag you're going to see, which is fantastic.

00:07:00.920 It's not just, again, those hyper-glamazons that are singing along to Katy Perry.

00:07:05.940 And again, for our listeners who know nothing about the world of drag in general,

00:07:10.900 drag is an art form in the way that painting is an art form.

00:07:13.920 Definitely.

00:07:14.440 You can have abstract painters, realist painters, hyper-realism, and drag is the same.

00:07:19.340 That's a perfect, perfect way of describing it. So and what and what's frustrating as as a performance artist who uses drag as one aspect of their performance is that most people will see someone who considers themselves to be doing drag.

00:07:38.980 And they'll assume that, well, you kind of, due to society's notion of what drag is nowadays, it is, you kind of have to be a gay man who is performing as a hyper-feminine woman.

00:07:57.280 If you want to get booked on a RuPaul's Drag Race.

00:07:59.120 Exactly, you gotta, yeah, exactly.

00:08:02.320 And this is what happens when things go mainstream.

00:08:05.120 They get watered down.

00:08:06.500 Definitely.

00:08:06.840 For better, for worse, usually for worse.

00:08:08.980 most certainly yeah so um we're thankful to rupaul and we love you for like creating an

00:08:14.160 industry around yeah that was missing but of course you got to try a little harder

00:08:18.280 yeah um yeah so um and smarter i think i think that's another big thing is that most people

00:08:25.120 don't realize that like sometimes it's not working harder it's working smarter

00:08:29.700 and realizing that drag is such an enigmatic and endlessly beautiful thing

00:08:37.600 um people specifically women themselves exactly so many different ways exactly yes exactly so

00:08:44.500 there's some of this very ugly exactly yeah yeah so and that that's what's so cool about drag is 0.55

00:08:49.920 that now now you're getting all these drag performers who are like some are clowns some 0.90

00:08:56.100 are gore queens some are punk queens um some are like me who are just an animal thing um 0.60

00:09:03.500 And so, yeah, there's so many different ways, and I mean, not even to go as far as to say, it's not even a feminine essence sometimes, it's drag kings.

00:09:17.520 And that's what I find kind of frustrating about mainstream drag, so that's why I really love this party, is just because we try to highlight queer drag and a more inclusive version of drag.

00:09:32.520 So, um, so like my, the performance piece that I did for Unicorn most recently was one

00:09:39.080 where I was, um, embodying her or I call her Gaia.

00:09:44.760 Um, and so, uh, the piece I, I did, it was two songs and a video projection behind me.

00:09:53.020 And so the first portion was Begin Again by Purity Ring.

00:09:56.400 um basically the lyrics or the chorus go you be the moon i'll be the earth let's begin again

00:10:03.560 um and sort of it it sort of begs from the earth's perspective um for

00:10:11.660 existence to start over again because she can't do it any longer

00:10:15.900 um and so the video projection includes um

00:10:20.340 like the migration of manatees or caribou or um microscopic plant growth um and then it moved

00:10:34.600 and through that performance uh the beginning of the performance you see me um uh giving little

00:10:42.320 flower buds to the audience uh and i have i have a distinct number of 10 of them in my hands

00:10:48.080 and um until i had the last one and it switched over to my idol um uh anoni um if if you don't 0.63

00:10:59.000 know anoni i highly recommend you look into her um she herself is a witch um but uh it's a a-n-o-h-n-i

00:11:09.700 um she was formerly known as antony the johnson's um who like again like definitely look into all

00:11:19.280 of her discography uh because she's truly fantastic yes please you said the name i know

00:11:25.100 this name i know this name so when the film version of wig stock came out okay lee bowery

00:11:33.320 did a performance where he gave birth to okay his um he his assistant yeah um was strapped to his

00:11:42.440 body and then covered in like a belly sort of costume and then he gave birth to her on the stage

00:11:48.880 now yeah and I'm gonna put a clip in the show notes y'all have to see Lee Bowery giving birth

00:11:54.980 it's one of my favorite pieces of the world but I know this um this music because when Lee Bowery

00:12:01.480 Originally, I have my eyes closed because I'm trying to conjure the memory, so pardon me.

00:12:07.180 He originally performed it to All You Needed in It's Love by the Beatles.

00:12:10.640 Okay.

00:12:11.360 And of course, there was no way they were getting the rights to put that in the movie.

00:12:14.880 Yeah, no, I'm sure.

00:12:15.420 So, Anoni, not re-recorded, but recorded this kind of like, love, love, love kind of same idea.

00:12:25.280 And as far as I'm concerned, it was better than the Beatles.

00:12:27.160 and she um said you know i i just recorded it up it's horrible and i apologize to the beatles

00:12:35.520 but for me i was like yeah this is the greatest thing i've ever heard yeah i'll put the clip

00:12:40.820 um so uh the the song from anoni was called marrow um and marrow uh dives into from the perspective

00:12:51.400 of um us as collective humanity um taking from the earth and but in uh anthropomorphizing her

00:13:02.000 into a feminine essence um i'm not gonna say female uh but a feminine essence and it's it's

00:13:11.140 talking about sort of like um uh drawing connections between um burning like mass

00:13:19.120 forest fire burning, um, as burn her hair or, um, acid, like acid salt flats that are chemically

00:13:28.320 induced by humanity as like burn her skin and things like that. So, um, then the video transitions

00:13:34.640 over to me, uh, the video transitions over to forest fires and oil mines and, um, all like all

00:13:45.100 this destruction on earth and uh and at that point i only have one flower left and i uh i get

00:13:54.440 very very emotional at that point because to me the song is just deeply deeply emotional and when

00:14:00.800 i get into it i really start to feel like she's with me in that moment and that's why i really

00:14:06.880 love performance it's a way for me to connect with her and feel her run through me yeah exactly

00:14:11.800 and um and and basically at that point um uh a friend of mine who in this case is uh embodied

00:14:22.640 as humanity um throws me down into a chair and ties me to the chair um and pretends i'm using

00:14:32.020 air quotations uh pretends to throw gasoline on me uh and watches me burn um but before i

00:14:40.580 I am completely killed off.

00:14:45.180 I managed to free myself and gather my last remaining resource, which is the last flower.

00:14:51.280 Which you have held.

00:14:52.160 Yes.

00:14:52.500 And not given away.

00:14:53.860 Exactly. 0.99

00:14:54.440 Great metaphor for self-care, witches.

00:14:56.160 Yes. 1.00

00:14:56.420 Carry on.

00:14:57.100 Keep one little flower bud for yourself.

00:14:58.460 Exactly.

00:15:00.940 And then this is where it turns really sad.

00:15:04.220 no matter no matter how much pain and harm she's endured she continues to want to give no matter

00:15:13.380 what and so she basically the end of the song is the words we are all Americans now and I proceed

00:15:23.500 to cry my eyes out and motion to give my last remaining resource and I have a number of people

00:15:32.060 in the audience with laser pointers sort of like um giving the illusion that there's like

00:15:38.600 rifles pointed at me the red dot exactly um and uh yeah it's like even as she's trying to give

00:15:47.240 no matter what and like no matter how much pain she's in she consistently wants to give give give

00:15:53.260 and all we or all humanity does is uh treat her with disrespect and harm so and violence so

00:16:02.540 yeah that's it's pretty heavy-handed and not what most people are thinking they're getting

00:16:08.980 themselves into at a drag performance but um i mean now i i've taken it into my performance art

00:16:16.380 has uh been hugely inspired by buto uh which is yeah um yeah okay for those of you who don't know

00:16:25.680 um i would love to do an entire episode about buto one day it's a japanese dance form like

00:16:31.440 modern ish you know um i'll let jackie talk about it yeah yeah i mean i i like i'm totally like

00:16:39.500 just a beginner in it and i've only been practicing it for a few years um just a beginner

00:16:44.560 There are masters that have been doing it their entire lives, so I don't even want to begin to say that I'm an authority on the matter,

00:16:55.480 but just around the philosophy of Butoh and the movement and the grotesque amount of beauty in the movement,

00:17:04.420 it stirs something in everybody. It's inexplainable. It's just crazy.

00:17:12.320 One of the creators of Vuto, I think, described it as, like, in Western dance and ballet, it's very much reaching to the sky.

00:17:19.640 Whereas in Vuto, it's getting very close to the earth and touching the ground, even rolling around on the ground.

00:17:25.220 It's a completely different appreciation of nature.

00:17:28.700 Exactly, yeah.

00:17:29.540 Yeah, writhing around and diving into those things about, like, birth and death.

00:17:34.080 And some of them have stated that to practice Butoh is to look at something grotesque and not turn away until eventually you see the beauty in it. 0.51

00:17:50.320 Again, witchcraft. 0.97

00:17:51.400 Yeah, exactly. 0.95

00:17:52.660 Yeah, yeah, definitely.

00:17:53.680 So I definitely see the two as linked.

00:17:56.820 And so now my performance, just because of the difficult situation of being a trans woman that does drag,

00:18:05.820 I've kind of stopped calling myself a drag queen.

00:18:10.900 I never really was.

00:18:11.780 You're a queen queen?

00:18:12.040 Yeah, I'm just a queen queen.

00:18:14.600 But now my performance art, I'm just a performance artist.

00:18:18.400 um so uh now my pieces are a lot more about um my status as human um and trying to examine the

00:18:32.580 the uh the connection that humanity has with the earth and um not just my connection but as i see

00:18:41.980 humanity's connection to the earth or therefore the lack of connection with the earth so um

00:18:47.940 um if anyone's in Montreal actually um uh I you can definitely reach out to me and I'm gonna be

00:18:54.620 I have several performances booked over the next little while so um I'd love to share it with

00:18:59.500 everybody uh-huh yeah so um we'll definitely be all over this don't worry listeners we won't hear

00:19:05.120 about it perfect you'll hear it here a second perfection if you follow Jackie on Instagram

00:19:08.800 you'll hear it there first perfect yes exactly you'll hear it on Missing Witches second we're

00:19:12.640 big fans oh i'm big fans of you too yeah so um yeah so basically i'm uh the through performance

00:19:21.080 art i think that's been a big way for me to connect um both my both my artistic practice

00:19:27.360 and my biology practice but also um deeper to my spiritual practice i think now um somehow with

00:19:36.020 doing ritual since I was in my early teens um I've become very accustomed to ritual movement

00:19:43.920 and dance practice uh in my spiritual practice so I think it was only like a matter of time before

00:19:51.020 it manifested itself into a performance-based um interaction so yeah and I'm just deeply

00:19:57.600 fascinated in terms of like the the methodology behind ritual and how um because like we talked

00:20:06.140 about like methodology methodology is ritual exactly yes it's just how exactly and and it's

00:20:13.040 it's all in the perception of the context that you're looking at it in um so yeah yeah no um

00:20:20.260 what are your thoughts on speaking of performance the judith butler the gender is performative

00:20:25.200 yeah you know what are your thoughts on that uh judith uh interesting um judith is a great gal

00:20:32.080 she's got lots of really hot topics that are absolutely incredible i think one of the one 0.98

00:20:37.360 of the biggest things um around gender which i'm assuming we want to talk to a lot about today

00:20:43.180 um uh judith judith said um at one point i forget exactly what article so don't directly quote me

00:20:53.000 here and uh and basically judith had stated that um we're every gender is all encompassingly a

00:21:09.420 performance because at the end of the day when you get home you take off your clothes and you

00:21:16.260 lay at home naked and in that moment you are without a gender um a gender is completely

00:21:23.760 performative and i and i think i i think a big thing that we should clarify just really

00:21:29.680 loosely on because i don't want to dive into the dynamics of this too deeply but um huge thing like

00:21:37.760 sexuality and gender are two very very different things okay listeners we started out assuming

00:21:44.840 that you know this and maybe you don't and you know what that is okay yeah we're here to learn

00:21:49.260 so exactly why don't you explain to our listeners who may not definitely definitely so um sexuality

00:21:56.220 is uh is who you are attracted to and it is a more biological thing but even then

00:22:05.060 how do you deal with these complicated and nuanced very singular experiences of life

00:22:14.020 it is we can't say this is how it is exactly to sit here and say no this is how it is for

00:22:18.520 trans people exactly this is only how it is this is only for my my experience so um and and what

00:22:25.260 what's interesting i mean perfect example like i grew up as an as a non-binary person who more so

00:22:33.900 erred on the side of homosexuality and then i began my transition um and and i started to

00:22:43.740 fully realize who i was um and now it's like wait i'm i'm not homosexual which is it's so

00:22:55.140 crazy that breakthrough moment in the clouds where you're like wait a minute this whole time

00:23:01.160 i've been saying and like like strengthening myself with like yes you're strong and you're

00:23:08.320 gay and it's okay yeah and then all of a sudden you're like i'm i'm a strong independent trans

00:23:15.160 woman who's just doing her thing and i'm not gay i'm like yeah i'm just like i'm like 0.67

00:23:25.540 yeah exactly and i'm just like wait am i am i am i straight that's crazy my whole life i kept 0.69

00:23:34.800 telling myself i'm not straight i'm not straight i kept telling people i'm not straight um and now

00:23:40.800 i'm just like you know what it sexuality completely changes because sexuality is just the label that

00:23:47.700 you put on it um and and i mean for me i i would more so categorize myself as like a bisexual

00:23:55.040 pansexual i guess i'm not even sure um things surprise me every day for um our listeners who

00:24:01.460 maybe you've never heard the word pansexual it basically just means like anybody yeah anybody

00:24:06.180 that's rad i don't care if you're trans what kind of titles you have if you have breasts or not

00:24:11.040 doesn't matter yeah you know i'm attracted to like humanity exactly it's just an essence 0.98

00:24:15.960 Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So I think sexuality and gender are two completely opposing things. They, they're, it's weird to say that they're correlated because they technically are in a definition sense.

00:24:36.700 And in a conventional sense, they're correlated, but they're not causated.

00:24:46.240 And so it's, yeah, it's a very deeply...

00:24:51.820 Okay, so very personal.

00:24:53.500 Very personal to you. 0.60

00:24:55.640 How did you know that you were a trans woman and not a femme gay? 0.73

00:25:01.420 Yeah.

00:25:02.160 How did you personally, like, did you have a moment?

00:25:04.680 I mean, I've, I've always felt more on the non-binary side. I think once I started, um, I think once I started to really, um, start noticing the effects of this beautiful thing called aging, um, I love it.

00:25:24.220 Another follow-up.

00:25:25.020 Yeah, it definitely is.

00:25:27.140 I started to realize things that I didn't identify with anymore.

00:25:34.900 Puberty.

00:25:35.480 Puberty, yes.

00:25:37.240 And as I grew, I started to notice things about my body.

00:25:43.040 I started to notice just a feeling inside me that it's really hard to explain.

00:25:52.460 But it's just, it's just, I didn't feel like I was completely 100% in the right body.

00:26:00.080 So, um, yeah, it, it was just, it wasn't really a huge epiphany.

00:26:05.700 It's just the turning point where I was like, okay, now's your time to shine.

00:26:10.580 Now's your time to get on with it.

00:26:12.460 Um, I was, I was in an extremely abusive relationship and, uh, coming out of that, I,

00:26:19.280 I mean, a romantic one.

00:26:21.060 Um, yeah, my, my, my boyfriend at the time, um, yeah, anyway, uh, don't want to give him

00:26:28.340 too much air.

00:26:29.120 No, but, um, being, being in abusive relationships affects us.

00:26:33.980 Oh, yes.

00:26:34.560 It affects us more than we probably even know.

00:26:38.760 Oh, yeah.

00:26:39.500 No, definitely.

00:26:40.280 So we don't concentrate on our abusers, but we also don't pretend that they didn't affect

00:26:43.720 us, right?

00:26:43.940 Exactly.

00:26:44.680 Carry on.

00:26:45.000 That is 100% correct.

00:26:46.400 So, yeah, I kind of just had a moment.

00:26:52.100 I gathered up all the strength that I had left.

00:26:55.820 My friends and family were there and supporting me through it all,

00:26:59.080 and they were just like, you've got to get rid of this guy.

00:27:01.720 Yeah, I've been hugely privileged with that.

00:27:05.060 And so basically I kicked him out,

00:27:08.380 and I started to unravel my trauma and deal with some stuff,

00:27:15.000 some unaddressed issues in my life um and i was like you know what there is something that has

00:27:21.140 been eating me away for years and years and years and maybe now is the point where i finally start

00:27:26.960 to try to address this thing in my life um and so that's kind of where my transition started

00:27:33.660 was after that i was like you know what i'm not gonna try and do anything else except me

00:27:40.120 so I've only listened to myself about it all I just yeah I think that was like huge um epiphany

00:27:47.840 moment where I was like okay now's the time to do it and again I think um being a witch means that

00:27:53.440 like it's all it's all and so we talk about listening to other people and engaging and

00:27:59.020 connecting but we also talk about listening to only yourself yes but we we as witches somehow

00:28:04.760 we make room for both of these things to listen only to ourselves but also to everything always

00:28:08.920 all the time definitely yeah so you took a moment coming out of abuse and again we see this a lot

00:28:14.900 especially with witches i was just talking to marigold about medusa you know okay yeah medusa 0.81

00:28:19.840 was a rape victim and that's how she became a quote-unquote monster yeah you know but you can

00:28:25.220 see the snakes as power yeah oh exactly yeah righteous anger yeah exactly and i think i think 0.51

00:28:32.120 another aspect of femininity that most people don't realize is yeah sure earth is giving and 0.77

00:28:38.200 she's beautiful and she is loving and caring um but also at the same time it's it it's just as 1.00

00:28:47.680 much a part of her feminine essence to be destructive and to have those moments of just

00:28:55.320 a volatile vulnerability and like just let it go and be angry and yeah it that that is just as much 0.99

00:29:04.300 a part of femininity femininity yeah volcanoes as much exactly yes a sweet ocean breeze exactly

00:29:11.920 yes perfect yes good so um so and i think that's that's something that a lot of people don't realize

00:29:19.440 is um that there there is that duality with femininity femininity isn't just about um

00:29:26.600 keeping the soft warm nurturing nature to ourselves it's like it's okay to be like

00:29:33.140 a thunderstorm it's it's okay to feel those moments um uh so yeah i i really i lost a lot

00:29:44.560 of that um it's like when we embrace the term witch we're embracing the volcano exactly and

00:29:51.720 And allowing ourselves to take up space physically with our voices, making sounds, you know, performing, being on stage, all of those things that we're walking down the street in our own self-confidence.

00:30:03.920 Yeah. I mean, to just be, like, visibly femme is an act of rebellion. 0.79

00:30:09.180 A political act. 0.85

00:30:10.100 Yeah, political act, definitely.

00:30:12.360 So, there's so...

00:30:13.940 And it's certainly, sorry to interrupt you, but it's certainly, like, the way that our society has gone.

00:30:17.560 I mean, people don't look twice at a woman wearing pants.

00:30:20.180 yeah exactly but if you want to be edgy as a man all you have to do is like put on a skirt and

00:30:26.440 you're the edgy oh yeah edgy so yeah it's very strange how we yeah no no no no exactly exactly

00:30:35.280 it's and i mean like even even if i think about like my experience as a non-binary person before

00:30:41.080 i started my transition versus after like i i would i before i would have a large variety of

00:30:50.460 suitors um and now that i've grown breast tissue and started like yeah exactly yeah um and like

00:31:02.780 all of a sudden all of them are gone i'm like what was the i don't dress any differently

00:31:08.700 i don't i don't dress any differently it's just now that i identify as one thing

00:31:13.760 that is on the more feminine side of things i'm like completely off limits it's so funny

00:31:21.800 how much do we lose when we succumb to essentialism i am this and therefore i won't do that

00:31:27.900 like these people who are hating you are really losing out thank you but i see because they're

00:31:34.500 like i'm a gay man exactly woman now yeah and and yeah and and it took me a while to

00:31:40.860 i'm not that ball of mess in my head i was like why like we were talking for months and now

00:31:49.660 no what um like why won't you have coffee with me um but like it it just um i it was a huge

00:32:01.520 moment where i was just like i was almost like misgendering myself in my own head for a few

00:32:08.440 moments i was like why don't why aren't you interested in me anymore why did and then i was 0.92

00:32:13.880 like oh wait yeah i have tits now and like i am a woman now so it's like there's both a bodily

00:32:22.660 change in my own body and another clarification for some people who don't know um not all trans 0.95

00:32:28.560 women take hormones. So, um, and not all trans women are, how do I say this? Um, visually

00:32:39.620 present themselves as feminine. Um, like for, for myself, I don't really take too much care

00:32:45.960 in trying to like wear low cut tops and high heels. Exactly. Yeah. Again, that's never

00:32:53.180 been me it never will be me yeah so yeah it and so i think that and that's perfectly fine i'm just

00:33:01.060 as much a very strong trans woman if i don't want to shave my legs and i don't want to wear a low

00:33:08.540 cut top i just want to wear my like scuba shirt it's confusing for people because they have this

00:33:15.160 very generic idea of femininity and if you want to be a woman yeah quote quote you want to be a 0.83

00:33:21.300 woman, that means you must want flower crowns. I mean, I love a flower crown. High heel shoes 0.98

00:33:29.180 and long nails that make you so you can't play your guitar. I never got, I mean, I love

00:33:35.940 all of y'all's manicures, but like, how do you live? Like, please email me and tell me

00:33:41.800 how you go about your life with these things I can't. And I keep walking in heels and again,

00:33:46.480 I'm like, I'm a cisgender, six foot tall.

00:33:49.540 Yeah.

00:33:50.060 You know, I don't want to talk in terms of our physicality.

00:33:53.420 Yeah, definitely.

00:33:54.220 Yeah.

00:33:54.480 So, yeah, and it heals.

00:33:55.900 I've just, over the past few months, I've just realized, you know what?

00:33:59.460 I, people already are like, oh, wow, you're so tall.

00:34:02.940 I'm like, really?

00:34:04.940 I'm only 5'3", completely lying to their face.

00:34:08.380 And they're like, what?

00:34:09.240 That's wrong.

00:34:10.840 Because I'm 6'2", if anyone else who hasn't met me doesn't know.

00:34:16.480 So like when I wear a pair of heels, I feel like I'm really trying to perform some act of hyper femininity.

00:34:26.240 And I think that's perfectly fine.

00:34:27.920 I love my heels, but at the same time, I would much rather walk around in my toe shoes and be very comfortable.

00:34:35.640 so um and and i think that i think that that's a very important part to uh touch on with transness

00:34:45.580 is that not all transness looks the same not even close not even close at all

00:34:49.840 listen to part two of my conversation with jackie beaumont now

Missing Witches - April 24, 2019

Witches Found： Part 1 - The Medium of Life with Jacqueline Beaumont

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