We May Sashay

rainbow I discovered her in a shop in North Wales. It was a show-dress in its time – but from then on it showed me to the world. Where hasn’t it travelled? Round the World. Round the Pearl River Delta. On-stage and off. Before it there was another rainbow dress, and a rainbow streamer and rainbow beads and rainbow lashes, and I was in the first of my big parades, Sydney Mardi Gras 2001. When I came home and wrote the Mandayana, my great transgender Epic, a rainbow snake – The Rainbow Snake - wound its way through the pages with its story. When I wear this dress – when I march in it, or sashay – am I feeling truly part of our great rainbow family, of which trans is an essential part? Of course, I am. But I’m also feeling truly me in all my rainbow character. Colour brings me to life – I favour pink and prefer yellow-gold. Blue enriches me. I can be a riot in red. I have only one regret – when they made the rainbow for LGBTQ they mixed up the indigo and the violet. I’m not a purple person but I’m no shrinking violet, - I am an indigo individual, - I am deep, and I do miss the indigo, the colour of my main mood.