This philosophy didn’t sit well with me, and I told people in the chat room that I planned to be out even though I passed, because I wasn’t ashamed of my history. A lot of the girls there took that as judgment of their choices, which left me isolated even among trans people. But I couldn’t help feeling that withholding my history not only implied I was ashamed of it but also sacrificed too much of myself and my life. It was never a question for me that I would come out if I were to do Vagina Monologues, but I’d assumed I would do it if I were cast, focused as I’d been for so long on challenging people’s assumptions, getting into spaces based on mistaken perceptions of me then using those occasions to rebel.

But auditioning was enough. Stage lights thrilled me the way they always did, but I was coming to realize that being trans—in a way that was even more magnified than anything I’d experienced before—felt as though I was onstage under glaring lights all the time. Every day, every moment I was in public felt as though I was under scrutiny, how any second someone would recognize I wasn’t real and banish me. But one thing I knew well, had known my whole life, was that the key to playing a part convincingly was to believe in yourself, even if that belief was something you needed to fake. By the time I auditioned, I was well on my way to knowing I was a woman rather than just playing one, as Ralph and I had parted the previous June so I could figure out who I was without him, after many days of anguished tears on both sides. When those producers shone the light of their perceptions onto me, I refused to blink, even when I was not the kind of woman they were expecting.