Dance, Girl

ANIMECON, MAY THIRD 2025

 

You’re almost late to the workshop so you scarf down your muffin, throw a half-full cappuccino in the trash and present your QR code to the sleepy volunteers. Your heart sinks the moment you step inside the party tent and count your fellow travellers: at most a dozen people. Apparently not many AnimeCon visitors wanted to attend a kimono workshop at 10:30 AM on a Saturday. It’s hard to blame them, you’re not sure why you showed up either. You signed up months ago and let inertia carry you the rest of the way here.

You pick an aisle seat on the third row. It should make for a quick and painless getaway if you need one, but it’s close enough to the stage that it’s not rude to the hosts or anything. The workshop hasn’t started yet because they can’t get the mics to work, so you glue your eyes to your Bluesky feed and pretend not to be here. You will absolutely not be talking to the other attendees if you don’t have to.

The hosts give up on the mics and your heart sinks a little deeper as they start their presentation. They’re all white. One of them is made up to look like a geisha. Personally, you know exactly one Japanese woman, the two of you met only a few weeks ago at a freelance gig and she is the sweetest, nicest person. It would be so embarrassing if she found out you went to a kimono workshop hosted by these weird white women. They’re kinda ugly too. Whatever. You can space out for 90 minutes, let it all wash over you. Maybe learn a bit of historical context.

The only other person on row three is a trans girl who doesn’t understand English (those people exist???), so one of the hosts sits down next to her and proceeds to live-translate the whole thing into Dutch. The noise pollution makes the presentation hard to follow. Not that you wanted to follow it of course but still, why do trans women always have to call attention to themselves like this? You feel implicated in this debacle, because you’re also a trans woman.

Actually, you’re not sure that you are. During COVID you started to think, hey maybe I’m trans. So you started wearing makeup and crossdressing in private. It was fun as fuck actually. Things moved fast from there. You tried a new name, she/her pronouns, got put on the waiting list for hormones, all that jazz. You almost came out at your part-time job, planned a date with HR and everything, but you backed out at the last second. For a few weeks the shame had been trickling in slowly, but suddenly it started coming by the bucketful. Your outfits were fucking dumb and your lipstick was horrible and it was all just really, really cringe. The name you came up with for yourself was also ridiculous, way too girly. Hearing it started triggering deep pangs of self-loathing. The gulf between who you were (half-orc or perhaps hobgoblin) and who you were pretending to be (petite mademoiselle femme) was too big. Coming out to all your coworkers started to seem more and more like a public humiliation ritual. So you backed out.

That was almost four years ago now.

A lot has happened since but also not that much. You quit that job and got a worse one, then you quit that job and got a better one. You haven’t come out there either. You’re on your third kind of therapy now. You're still on the waiting list for hormones because going through the official channels for trans healthcare is for suckers — and you’re a sucker. You mostly use your old name but you decided on a different new name that is more unisex than the old new one, you use it with certain friends. Sometimes people who know you by your old old name and he/him meet people who know you by your new new name and she/her and it gets confusing and stressful. You wonder why you do this to yourself but you don’t have any better ideas so you just kinda roll with it.

You never fully went back to boy but you definitely turned down the girl a lot. You still get your clothes from the women’s section but you pick the ones that are a little more cool and masc, the mom jeans and the hoodies and the crop tops. Actually, lots of guys wear crop tops now, which is unfair because that was supposed to be your thing. You still wear makeup every day (yeah you went to work and school in a full face of makeup before coming out because you’re CRAZY), but you got a little better at it because some friends bought you a makeup workshop. The lady who taught it was all like, tell me which parts of your face you like and you totally shut down. She asked again and you said, I think I like my eyes, haha.

Okay maybe you’re making a pretty good case for why you’re trans but check this out: how could you be a girl if being a girl hurt so much? Surely pain=bad, right? And you can be a boy who wears makeup, that’s cool — to most people that’s what you are right now. You can be a crossdressing boy too, if you want to. The people who harass you on the street wouldn’t care but they’re pretty much a constant so why even think about that. And anyway the only reason you were trans was because you followed all these cool trans people on Twitter and you wanted to be friends with them so you became trans too. Boom. Checkmate, brain.

The lady in the geisha makeup is talking about the different kinds of kimonos and accessories that go with them and where you can buy them in Europe and how to wear them and yada yada yada. In one ear and out the other. Then she points to a big table with a bunch of colorful, folded-up piles of cloth on it. Ah. Those are kimonos. The hosts brought them specifically for you and your fellow attendees to try on, and when you’re all dressed up they’re gonna take a group picture. You feared this would happen, because it’s the reason you came. You wanted to wear a kimono and feel pretty. Stupid. This is your cue to leave, this is why you chose that aisle seat.

 

The hangover bites as soon as you exit the party tent onto the convention grounds, so you buy a matcha latte from a vendor — it’s very expensive and in a few minutes you’ll find out that it tastes like milky sand — and find an empty bench in the sun to decompose on. Even on this tranquil Saturday morning, you are surrounded by cosplayers and the sight of them reflexively makes you want to distance yourself. You know that’s dumb, right? Think back to yesterday, when you sat on the same patio with the same people. Hell, think back to last year, your first ever convention and the reason you came back for more. Both times, you felt… peace? Bliss? Happiness? Acceptance? Belonging? Whatever it was, try to recapture that feeling or this is gonna be a hard weekend.

You won’t have to do it alone, because you wouldn’t be here without your friend Elija and his extravagantly biblical name. Outside of anime-related events the two of you don’t really hang out, but you adore him. He is a true enigma: sociable, kind and effortlessly queer — in a way that is hard to define, but maybe that’s like, the entire point — yet so awkward that he’s not intimidating. He is your anchor. Unfortunately, he is at a different workshop.

Elija and you tried to entice a few mutual friends to join, but you only have some last-minute cancellations to show for it. The one person who didn’t cancel is Airyn, who Elija knows from a Dutch anime Discord server. She arrives in a couple hours and you’re dreading it. Not that there’s anything wrong with Airyn, you’re just not sure you can handle hanging out with a cis woman today. Like how standing next to a tall friend makes you look shorter, y’know?

Reading the book you packed — a comfort pick from a billion-volume fantasy series, this one introduces a werewolf character who is very cool and very gender — kills a surprising amount of time and before you know it, Elija messages you that he’s picked Airyn up. You reply that you’ll join them after you get your cosplay stuff from the hostel. Could’ve done that already, but this buys you a few extra minutes alone.

Your room is barebones but clean and surprisingly spacious, and the three other con-goers you and Elija share it with are pretty chill. Well, maybe that’s too generous. One of them acts like he’s a veteran of the First Great Anime Wars even though he can’t be more than thirty years old, one seems relaxed but you’re starting to suspect he just doesn’t know how to express his emotions, and one is cosplaying Team Rocket without a wig, which is a bit basic. But yeah, chill enough. The best part is that none of them are here right now, though.

Last year you cosplayed Chisato from Lycoris Recoil in one of her plainclothes outfits. Short blonde wig, cute hot pants, loose-fitting black T-shirt, beige boots and a long red coat. Objectively a great outfit, mostly thrifted, no specialty made plastic bullshit, jackpot, oh my god, you’re a genius. You still wear it (without the wig, duh) on days you don’t mind being heckled by teenagers. This year you tried for something similar: Rei’s iconic pink overall from Sailor Moon. It’s… okay. It feels a little cowardly, especially since there are so many people with more eye-catching fits here. It’s also not girly enough. Yes, there is the long black wig (which is a major pain by the way) but an overall is like, the government mandated unisex outfit. You also planned an Usagi cosplay (black skirt, cropped pink turtleneck, 10/10) but the cheap wig you got for it looks downright eldritch.

When you’re all dolled and dressed up you examine your reflection in the room’s full-length mirror. Some days you’re like hell yeah, I’m kinda cute. Not today! The wig makes your forehead look huge no matter how you adjust it, which is fair enough because your forehead is huge but c’mon help a crossdresser out here. Your chin is worse, you got some Spartacus 1960 starring Kirk Douglas shit going on there. It’s sad. You will 100% need facial feminization surgery if you ever wanna live up to this whole “woman”-thing. That’s probably never gonna happen considering the waiting lists and the gatekeeping and your nature as a being of pure indecision and procrastination. But! You have a fucking con to attend. Hurry up and get your shit together.

 

Airyn is very tall for a cis woman. It’s great — makes you feel a lot less bricky. She likes geeky, niche stuff you’ve never heard of and she’s cosplaying some kind of vampire-adjacent character from an anime that’s too boyish for you. She’s fun. She also does that thing which a lot of Dutch nerds do where they randomly start speaking English to each other and it annoys the hell out of you but that’s clearly a you-problem because you don’t want to be associated with Dutch nerds even though you’re currently at an anime convention so you should just get over it already. Even Airyn’s outfit has nothing on Elija’s though, who is dressed as Chopper from One Piece. He has the big hat and the striped shirt and he drew a little snout on his nose with eyeliner. Adorable.

What does a squad of overexcited nerds do at a con? They shop! Inside the grey, windowless convention center is a big plaza with a ton of vendors. There are artists selling stickers and pins, small grocery stores with Asian products, and the occasional lame stand with novelty mugs or weird foodstuffs. Mostly though, there are figurines. So many figurines. You own zero figurines because you think they are cringe, but do you want one? Of course you do, you are cringe too. Embrace it or continue your miserable, figurine-less existence.

The problem with figurine shopping is that many are weird sexualizations of female characters. And yeah of course anime is full of weird sexualizations of female characters but you try to avoid that stuff (you will never be able to explain this to anyone because it makes you sound like a pervert in denial) and it makes you very uncomfortable to be confronted with it like this. Not that you’re a prude but… yesterday Elija and you met up with a guy he knows from way back and this guy really wanted to see the hentai voice-over event, so the three of you went together. And hey, nothing wrong with porn, right? Can’t be a 21st century queer leftist and be anti-kink. And they’re just drawings, it's not even real. It’s probably fine.

Right at the start, the guy in charge climbed on stage to explain that, to him, the name of the game is selecting clips so disturbing that people walk out in disgust. This proclamation of malice would reverberate in your skull for the next 90 minutes because holy shit, this stuff was fucked beyond words. The people who volunteered to do the actual voice-overs didn’t make it any better: you got the distinct impression that a new generation of sex-offenders was revealing itself before your very eyes. There was this guy with a joker outfit who kept doing these high-pitched screams and another guy with aviators, a Hawaii shirt and a goatee who did these horrible low growls. It was torture. But you didn’t complain to the staff because you didn’t want to be the woke cucked politically correct soy snowflake tranny who ruined everyone’s fun and you didn’t leave because you didn’t want to let anyone involved know you were grossed out by it. Denying them the satisfaction was the only thing you could control.

So yeah, you're a little less amused by all the miniature anime girls with big plastic titties today, but it helps that Elija and Airyn don't pay them any mind. You have a good time browsing the uncountable variations of Hatsune Miku with Airyn and shop for some Bocchi the Rock girls with Elija — Bocchi is like literally you — and of course you get a Chisato figurine because you wanna be like her when you grow up (you have voted in multiple elections). A few people recognize your outfit and offer a compliment. It's the greatest thing that ever happened to you, until you run into someone in Makoto’s green dress. Together you are 2/5ths of the Sailor Soldiers, if the other three showed up you would probably explode. Tomorrow, you’ll head home with four figurines, totalling approximately too much money. Two will break immediately, but that won’t dissuade you from haphazardly arranging them on your desk, where they continue to collect dust to this day.

 

After lunch (expensive, small portions, who cares) the three of you peruse the arcade cabinets (Elija likes them). You want to try some rhythm games because sometimes they have songs you know, but they’re all occupied by people hammering buttons like their lives depend on it. Plan B is the Initial D machine, because you used to play a lot of racing games before you realized the automobile is Beelzebub incarnate. You’re not sure how this supremely boyish past works with the gender identity you may or may not have right now. On the one hand, women that are into cars exist. On the other hand, you would fit the mold of the True Transsexual so much neater if you had played with Barbie instead of Majorette and Bburago. Cars are still neat though, you want to own a Miata at some point in your life.

You lose interest in the Initial D machine after a couple races and saunter around until you see a little boy climb onto the seat you just vacated. He is so small his feet don’t reach the pedals. You want to help but you know you shouldn’t, for your own safety. What is a trans woman in the public imagination if not a sexual deviant who must be kept away from children at all costs? This is another reason the sexy figurines bother you: trans people are already presumed pervert until proven saint and simply attending an anime convention means you're not beating the allegations. You imagine yourself getting tackled to the ground as soon as you get close to the kid. Too bad. He’s just gonna have to figure out a way to stretch himself to about 150% of his current length, maybe he could steer with his forehead and use his hands to watch where he’s going.

Fuck it. This looks like a job for Supertran. Heroically, you approach the arcade cabinet and guide the boy through the inscrutable menus. The division of labor is perfect: you throttle and shift (braking is for losers), he steers. Together you will no doubt scale the highest peaks of difficulty and climb to the top of the leaderboards. It is time to make history.

What follows is about 15 minutes of crashing into walls and spinning. You don’t mind, anything is fine as long as the boy is enjoying himself, but he just blankly stares at the screen. The machine mesmerizes him. A good sign? Impossible to tell. When his mom comes to pick him up you brace for the impending slurs, but a sincere thank you and a warm smile are all you get. It’s like you’re a normal human being, the feeling is incredible. You want to high-five the air and proudly exclaim I AM NOT A PEVERT. Don’t do that though.

The mom probably doesn’t even realize that you’re trans(-ish). Crossplayers are abundant like poodles at dog shows here, so you are in no way remarkable. On some level this annoys you. You want to be recognized for who you are, even though you refuse to recognize it yourself. But it’s still by a long, long way the most comfortable you’ve ever felt in public. If this is sitting in a living room with the heater on, existing anywhere else is being out in a hailstorm until you go numb from the pain. Have fun becoming normal again on Monday!

 

The rest of the day goes as expected. You have dinner (expensive, small portions, who cares), play Jackbox in the E-Sports section (no drinks allowed so you better chug that lukewarm Strong Zero like a true gaijin), get drunk (self-explanatory), go to the karaoke (but don’t sing), take pictures (no), take more pictures (nonononononono) and

 

Hold on, maybe you should pause and like, reflect. You’re drunk at AnimeCon, compartmentalizing is out of the question anyway. Might as well soul-search, right? What are you waiting for? STOP STALLING BITCH

 

weirdly affirming to be called a bitch, huh? Haha

 

Okay

 

here goes

 

You took those pictures with friends who you’re sharing one of the best weekends of your life with. Why do you hate the pictures? Because you are in them. Why do you hate you?

 

Why, if this is one of the best weekends of your life, do you want to punish yourself for being here so badly?

 

It’s weird that the people giving the kimono workshop are all white but why does it matter that they were ugly? Would it be better if they were pretty and white? It would, wouldn’t it? What the fuck is wrong with you?

 

Who put these thoughts here? This internalized transphobia? That’s easy, that’s nothing new. Twitter and YouTube and the newspapers and the street harassment. A video essay debunking transphobia is 99% as good at getting the self-hatred into your head as the real thing. A counterargument needs an argument.

 

Should you be allowed to be a woman if you’re such a fucking misogynist?

 

You’re so jealous of the people in the girlier cosplays. There’s a gorgeous woman cosplaying Kagamine Rin, she’s cute as a button. You could never compare. It should be illegal for attractive people to do cosplay.

 

Why don’t you just fucking kill yourself? You think about it all the time anyway. Every single day, the constant refrain of kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself. You inconvenienced someone? Kill yourself. You remember anything that happened 10 years ago? Kill yourself. Kill yourself. Just. Fucking. Kill. Yourself.

 

You would make yourself smaller than an atom if you could, but you’re the size and shape of a regular guy.

 

Ayrin, Elija and you have been buzzing to go to the saturday night party all day. It was so fun last year. For years you had been too self-conscious to dance and then suddenly you wore out the soles on your boots in one night. Turns out all you needed was a wig, some embarrassing music and a room full of people just as awkward as you.

And it’s fun again this year. There’s one shirtless guy who is a crazy good dancer and he graces you with his presence more than a few times, you share some sweaty platonic boy-hugs. And yeah, you’re not bad either. You have quick feet and your stamina is still okay even though you don’t do sports anymore. You have no idea what to do with your upper body though, which feels shamefully masculine. When all this trans stuff started you signed up for dance classes, then quit after the first one because you couldn’t stand being in a room full of cis-women and failing. Towards the middle of the dancefloor there are a bunch of very tall femmes with long wigs and pretty outfits doing elegant moves right next to the DJ booth. They are probably trans? You wish you could fit in with them, but here you are, doing your stupid boy footwork. You want to take dance classes so bad. Will you ever? It’s amazing how you can spoil even the best nights for yourself. Still, when Monday comes, the comedown will be bad. You’ll wish you could be at an anime convention forever. You better cherish this moment. Dance, girl.