While watching interviews with Conchita Wurst, I’ve noticed interviewers asking the same questions. “Who is Conchita Wurst?” Is Conchita a man? Is Conchita a woman? Is she both?
Every time I hear these questions, and her answers, which lately seem to vary depending on her mood, one thought always crosses my mind.
Why is it necessary to put her into a box? To label her? To decide if she’s a man or a woman?
Why can’t she be both? Or neither.
Maybe it’s because I live in Thailand, where we have a ‘third sex’, and where ‘ladyboys’ are so accepted and so integrated into society, or maybe it’s just that my brain works differently than other people’s. But here’s where my head goes when it comes to Conchita Wurst.
She could be a man most of the time, but a woman occasionally.
She could be a woman most of the time, and a man occasionally.
She could be gender fluid, a woman some days and a man others.
She could feel like both genders; both at the same time.
She could simply be a man who likes dressing in women’s clothes.
Does it matter?
Because, surely, the only thing that matters for Conchita Wurst (and Conchita Wurst is the only person this should ever matter to) is that, seemingly, she’s just about the luckiest person on the planet. She’s male. She’s female. She’s both. She’s neither. She’s whoever she is at whichever moment in time she wants to be, or feels to be, that particular person.
To me, gender identity isn’t important. What is important is the person inside. And her (for want of a better pronoun)? She’s beautiful.
I look at her and all I see is a person who smiles, and laughs, and flirts, and talks with her hands, and can raise one eyebrow, and does cute shoulder shrugs, and that sexy tongue flick thing, and has an amazing voice, an exquisite soul, and an energy that literally radiates off her, and who feels things deeper than most people, and who when she loves, she really loves, and who seems………… incredibly happy.
So why would anyone want to put a person that remarkable into a box, and ever chance crushing that extraordinary spirit?
She’s perfect as she is. A perfect representation of herself