And the line is drawn, wherever it wants to be drawn.

And the line is drawn, right down the middle.

And the line separates, one tit on either side.

The line is bi-partisan, but not partial. It does not choose sides.

I spent the summer trying to teach my boyfriend\’s twelve year old daughter the difference between bi-sexual and hermaphrodite, hermaphrodite and transsexual, transsexual and transgender, transgender and drag, drag and queer, queer and fag.

The lines blend too easily.

I showed her a documentary about tranny girls living through their teenage years, separated from their taunters, police and families by the lines of their throats, the lines of their crotches, the lines of their clothes. Unaccepted.

My boyfriend freaked out, called it inappropriate for one so young. She\’ll figure it out later herself, he said. She\’s smart. She won\’t be poisoned by the bigotry that the Catholic Republican side of her family is teaching her. Unacceptable.

The line has been crossed.

But I was only a year older when I started donning my blood-red lipstick, my platform boots, my glitter and wigs and the total extermination of my eyebrows.

But you are of a different kind, he said. You were never twelve. Not really. You are beyond precociousness; you have always been old. You\’ve been waiting since birth for time to draw its lines across your face. Don\’t make her grow up too fast.

Age is relative. Maturity subjective. Performance a point of view. But knowledge and understanding bridges the gap between the lines, and forces the subject to make a choice between one side of the line and the other. It\’s true that I chose to live my life behind the Mask. It\’s not true that I choose to hide behind it.