Flaming Beautiful Failure (THE PEOPLE'S JOKER, 2022)

[DEADNAME] Cox has been published at [WEBSITE YOUR DAD KNOWS ABOUT] and [SEVERAL OTHERS NOBODY CARES ABOUT]. They worked at [GROSS EXPLOITATIVE PUBLICATION] and [NICER BUT STILL EXPLOITATIVE PUBLICATION] and earned an MFA from [PROGRAM THAT IMPLODED WHILE I WAS ATTENDING IT]. They were supposed to go on tour as a women’s humorist before the pandemic occurred. Now they are a transmasculine menace with a thousand burnt bridges between themselves and the success they thought they wanted. 

They know this is just an author bio gag, but seriously: now what?

_____

“Haven't you ever wanted something so bad you did anything it took to get it, no matter how scary it was?”

This is a question I ask people sometimes. They often deflect, sighing that they don’t consider themselves brave enough to do the things that I do. They are always deeply offended when I agree with them, but what am I supposed to do? Bravery is not a transitive property, though it is frequently a property of trans people. 

The thing they want to be brave enough for varies. For the unhappily entangled, it's the guts to blow things up and walk away. For the aspiring writer, it’s the lack of shame that allows you to say what you actually mean. And of course there's always a carton of eggs in my DMs, begging for their shells to be struck open. 

I used to be there, too. That’s why I know bravery is required to leave. Being an honest trans artist is a better way to lose your family than gain a lucrative writing career. There are spots in the industry for those lucky or well-connected or content to lick enough boots to break through, but you are more likely to win an actual lottery than this cursed circumstantial scratcher. I haven’t even figured out how to be this kind of writer and make enough money to keep all my teeth in my head. 

Integrity is still important, because you’ll be able to see the money, even if you can’t touch it. You’ll watch it fall into the hands of people who sell you out in a thousand ways. They will appropriate the danger you live in and turn it into vibes, steal your work and bleed you dry in the name of “diversity,” and then dump you when you’re no longer of use. 

You will fall prey to these scammers until you learn to see the pattern. You will tell yourself it's only cishet people who do it. You will be wrong. It’s going to hurt when it’s somebody you admire. It’s going to destroy you when it’s somebody you love.

You will turn to self-declared allies for help. They will fail you. People think they’re tough until they have to stand up for a trans person in front of an ignorant relative or an influential editor. You will lose important relationships and professional opportunities, and that’s only the beginning. 

There’s a scene in THE PEOPLE'S JOKER where Joker, aided by booze interacting with her psych meds, is able to be more honest with her mother than she ever has before. She tolerates several passive-aggressive barbs (how dare you wear those clothes, how dare you do this weird antisocial art thing, how dare you want something different than your sweet midwestern family?!) and finally explodes:

“You're right! You're right, ok, it's stupid and childish. I am going to fail. I will fail, because I suck!”

At that moment, I felt the full weight of the past five years fall across my shoulders.

I felt the portfolio of works attached to my deadname, writing that feels like it was done by another person. I felt the hours I spent grinding away at the walls between me and success, thousands of words that absolutely nobody read. And eventually, bylines at national publications that I worked for years to achieve, worth less than nothing to me now. 

I felt the departure of a thousand well-meaning “allies,” the hypocrites who sent me scolding multi-page emails when I challenged legitimate injustices, the wanna-bes who mined my knowledge and connections and then ghosted until they needed another favor, a thousand transactional relationships that crumbled the minute I grew a beard and showed my broken teeth.

I felt my aching mouth. I felt my sore back, my growling belly, the exhaustion that hovers behind my eyes. I felt the sum of everything I have lost, and everything it cost me to lose it.

I am lucky that in that moment I was watching a movie made by a trans person that was all teeth and venom, someone who claimed the boring plastic dolls of superhero culture and melted them into a mirror to show herself to the world. I was watching an unmarketable, anarchic vision of flaming, beautiful failure. And I watched an auditorium of hundreds of people like me eat it up, give it a standing ovation, and clamor for more.

And in that moment I thought: I am so lucky that I failed enough to become Harm Cox.

I can’t tell you if you’re brave, but I’ve dealt with enough cowards that I can usually tell if you’re not. I will watch you beat yourself against my life like a moth against a lightbulb, I will protect myself from your flailing however I need to, and I will watch you fly away when you realize you’re too delicate to hang.

I will remain in the heat and the light. I am still doing this because I want to be the person I am right now more than I want my own teeth. If you’ve never had your heart beat like this, if you’ve never been so sure you’re willing to die for it, if you’ve never wanted something this badly? I feel sorry for you.