Trans people are not the only ones who dissociate—but we tend to be good at it. We’re a kind of people who need to not be in body or world. The body feels wrong. The world treats us as wrong. Dissociation can be debilitating. And also sometimes not. I used to write a lot, in dissociated states. Then I transitioned, and couldn’t write at all. And yet still needed to dissociate. I felt better about being embodied, but the world didn’t. So—raves. And out of raves, the writing came back, slowly.
I want to recover at least some kinds of dissociation from the language of psychiatrists. I want to find ways this disability can also be enabling. A way to find out things about the world. So now I have two dissociated practices that I need to live: raving and writing. Raving got the writing going again. It’s a challenge to bring them together. It’s taking patience, and practice.
Wark, M. (2023) Raving, Durham, London, Duke University Press.



