​website | twitter | instagram | facebook page | publisher's page​

Hey there! You're reading the Tuesday Telegrams, a bimonthly newsletter from author Naseem Jamnia. Every other Tuesday, I send out a Telegram that's either writing related or a personal essay. You're currently reading a personal Telegram, which involves a rumination on something that's happened in my life—often related to being a queer, trans, person of color and member of a diaspora.

I'm writing this Telegram in advance; by the time you read it, I'll be traveling out of Kansas City and to Columbus to visit two of my dearest friends who I haven't seen since the before times. I wasn't sure what I was going to do for this Telegram, but then I saw the date, and it clicked. Which is to say: Happy Halloween, one of my favorite days of the year.

I think most people (at least, in the US) love to use Halloween as a way to perform. They might not see it that way, but Halloween gives us an excuse to dress up and pretend to be something else—maybe something we're not, or maybe something we'd desperately like to be.

It's easy for my mind to hop from here to gender. Gender as a performance is not a new concept. Probably not invented but definitely articulated by Judith Butler, the idea is this: gender is not just a set of societal norms and expectations, but roles that we play (or perform) to establish and reaffirm those expectations. Performance doesn't mean that it's necessarily false, but rather, that it's not a biological imperative.* There are behaviors and characteristics that create what it means to be a "man" or a "woman," and those are learned and reinforced with continued practice.

(*There is truly no biological basis of gender, and biological bases of sex are deeply oversimplified and misunderstood in the mainstream.)

One way to see gender as a societal construct is seeing how gender roles change over time and across different societies. This is very obvious in something like beauty standards or clothing but perhaps less obvious in societal expectations (which are also cultural in nature).

But this isn't a Telegram on gender performance per se. Rather, I'm giving that basis to then explain the ways in which I see Halloween—and cosplay* more generally—as ways to practice gender euphoria (at least, for me).

(*In case you're not familiar with the idea of cosplay: for some people, cosplay is wearing the detailed getup of a beloved character, often more involved than just wearing a costume. For others, cosplay is also inhabiting the persona (no pun intended, given what's coming) of that character. Cosplayers are so impressive; google professionals to see just how detailed people get with it.)

Gender dysphoria is a fairly known concept: when one's assigned gender at birth (and therefore the expectations placed on them because of that gender) clashes with their internal understanding of themself and their gender. Gender euphoria may be a less common idea outside of the trans community: it's when your external presentation delights and affirms your internal understanding of yourself. While these concepts are generally discussed in reference to trans people (whose mismatch of internal and assigned gender often causes distress), cis people can also experience both gender dysphoria and euphoria.

This is where I see Halloween come into play. Anyone who has ever dressed up as something or someone and felt a flash of joy, a wish that they could always behave as they do in that "costume," has, I believed, experienced a form of gender euphoria.

For me, this form of euphoria feels particularly salient when I'm cosplaying as Joker from Persona 5/Royal. I'm just a baby in the cosplaying realm—I bought my Joker getup from Etsy, not something I made myself. (My knee-high black boots are also what I think Joker should be wearing instead of those brown booties that make no sense in his black getup.) But wearing that swishy coat, those heels, that shirt, those gloves, all make me feel like I'm inhabiting something truer about myself.

I don't expect y'all to know anything about this character or game, so let me give you a two-second rundown: Joker, the codename of a second-year high school student, was wrongfully convicted of assaulting a drunk guy trying to force himself onto a stranger and finds himself shipped off to Tokyo to live out a year of probation; there, he learns to enter a parallel universe created from people's cognitions, where actions in that world can affect a person's real-world counterpart, and forms a vigilante group that acts in that other world to force toxic and abusive people in the real world to repent.

I wrote an essay about how Atlus failed Joker in making him a JRPG silent protagonist, because he could have been so much more than what they allow him to be in the game. I'm replaying Royal for the... third? time (and my... fifth? sixth? time playing Persona 5) and particularly paying attention to how Joker is constructed beyond what I wrote in the essay. My caveat to what I ranted about in the link is that he actually often lives up to his code name—he tends to have pretty funny dialogue answers he can whip out. As someone who also finds myself hilarious, I relate well to him.

Which is my larger point—I relate to him, somehow, despite his lack of canonical personality. At the end of the day, based on the game, here's what makes up Joker: he's the fearless leader of this vigilante group, willing to put himself on the line for people he's formed bonds with, and affected by the injustices of the world that are often perpetuated by corrupt adults. But in little canon moments—and in the thousands of fan renderings of him—we get glimpses of someone more: a rage-filled teen whose been treated unjustly by the people who are supposed to care for him, who desire to protect others from suffering the same fate.

As someone who has a lot of feelings on justice and injustice, on how adults often fail those they're supposed to care for, I imprinted on Joker pretty quickly. So when I dress as him, those feelings come alive for me.

But it's also just... a feeling. Joker's outfit in the parallel universe is his internal view of rebellion; what would he look like if he's at his most powerful, fighting back against an unjust society? It's a domino mask, a swishy coat, heeled boots, a sleeveless top; it's a splash of bright red gloves he adjusts after every battle and a dagger he twirls and holds while doing backflips. There is something so undeniably queer about Joker in this parallel universe—a universe revealing, on some level, his true self—that I'm drawn to.

(Yeah, that's a hill I'll die on; this kid is not straight.)

In my wildest imaginings of myself, that is me: I am flexible and strong and resilient; I am tough and able to do impressive-ass shit; I am fighting injustices in the world and looking stylish as hell while doing so. When I'm thinking about my vision for myself, I'm not seeing the baggage I carry (despite it undeniably shaping me). My internal vision of myself aligns so strongly with how I see Joker that dressing as him feels like a homecoming.

So: gender euphoria and cosplay. Sometimes, dressing up as others is the best way we can honor ourselves.

Please continue to share information about the escalated settler-colonial violence against Palestinians. On my IG, I've been sharing information, analysis, and historical context in the mornings and evenings. If you donate any amount to a vetted organization helping Palestinians—see my latest IG post—I'll look at a query letter, first chapter, or otherwise help you on your publishing journey.

​