something about the subtle and soul-crushing oblivion about discovering that you're something that you're not allowed to be. forcing it down only to have it come back up in more and more violent ways only to have to eventually destroy yourself in order to force it back inside.

masterfully constructed, even when you understand exactly what is happening, it still comes right up and rips theheart out of your chest. i left feeling angry in the most righteous and devastating sense, tears running down my face and i'm researching diy hrt again.

the more and more i think about it, the less it's a rightous anger that i feel thinking back about the movie. it's a desperation for survival and an all consuming desire to LIVE. it's a realization that as queer and trans people, self-actualization is of paramount importance. it's not only that you deserve to become what you know yourself to be, but that is something that is worth dying for. some of us won't make it, and we need to live our lives as hard as we possibly can, not only for ourselves, but for them.

seeing it during pride month only amplified the feelings of the above. i've never been one for assimilationist takes on queerness in relation to the rest of the world. i'm only half kidding when i call myself a queer supremacist and separatist. i genuinely believe that queerness is something holy. a personally examined queerness is the self-actualization that many religions and every self-help program under sun are attempting to reach. there is an innate divine to queerness and it's not something i am ever going to be able to describe to someone else. the point of this is: being queer is something that forms the absolute core of my being. i would die for my queer siblings, and tv glow only reinforces that in me. in the face of a rapidly increasing hostility to our existence, at least here in the united states, this movie is a radical treatise on the importance of staying alive. i can never kill myself. i need to keep living for someone who couldn't.

i saw the tv glow is one of the most viscerally effecting movies I have seen. it's changed me. and i'm still thinking about it a week later. if you're queer, if you're trans, please, do yourself a favor. go see it. it's harrowing, terrifying, gut-wrenching, and nearly flawless. jane schoenburn, you will live forever.

on a slightly less serious note. i saw the tv glow is to "realizing you're queer in a small town" what twin peaks is to autism. i'm not going to explain this any further. if you get it you get it.

thanks for reading. this movie is so important to me and i hope it will be for some of the rest of you out there.