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Kate Bornstein is pretty amazing. I enjoyed the performance a lot, as a performance at least. However, I found that her exaggerated theatricality actually took away from her message most of the time for me. Someone said something interesting in class the other day about how it was actually quite fitting that she was performing/exaggerating because gender is a performance. I think that this is actually a great point. Gender is a performance, and Kate especially has had to experience and perform many different kinds of roles. I guess I probably would have benefitted from going to the conversation on Thursday morning, because then I would have been able to see the side of her which I think was missing from the performance. I guess with someone so interesting I want to see the real  them, not a rehearsed and polished version.

Regardless, I think she's a very talented performer/actress and that her writings, which she read aloud, are beautiful. I was especially touched by the small part of her play which she performed. However, the thing that I most appreciated about Kate and her performance was her honesty. She wasn't standing up there and saying that she used to be confused but now she was perfectly well-adjusted. She came to us as a work in progress. She came to us admitting very difficult things, and told us flat out that she was an anorexic, alcoholic, ex-phone sex operator, and a whole slew of things people try to keep hush-hush. I guess that's why Kate is so revolutionary. She doesn't keep her mouth shut on issues people was to let fade away into the dark. That takes guts. It also makes change happen. Go Kate!