Goodbye MJ

The passing of Michael Jackson upset me for various reasons. A large factor being that his music was the soundtrack to my childhood, but another is what he represents to me as a queer person. I am hesitant to claim him for our camp, but one honest look at his gender performance and I know there can be no other way.

Throughout his life the rhetoric around his cosmetic surgery remained at a base level, and the jokes, "he was a young black man who grew up to be a white woman," might of told the truth but mocked it.

To me, Michael Jackson was a trans woman who never got the chance to come out. Someone who was not attracted to women, and had to repress his gay impulses. The Catholic Church has shown us that sexual repression is the quickest way to pedophilia.

His music was the anthem of my childhood. In the time of tapes, one summer we played the Beat It album so many times it broke in the car stereo. The car my brother Craig had named The Beat It. It was he who objected whenever we played anything else.
By the time I was an adult MJ represented everything terrible about this country: the pain of racism, capitalism, and transphobia played out on his body. I cried and felt depressed when he passed. My friend said that she couldn't believe he'd died , but she also couldn't believe he was still alive.

Friday night I went out to a club and when the dj put on Wanna Be Startin' Somethin the crowd went wild. I think what I need is a whole night of danching to just MJ to heal my heart and gladden my soul.