Foreigner in my Body

Create a movement routine! For the purposes of this workshop keep it short: 4 moves that you can loop is plenty!

Describe your routine with enough detail that somebody who can't see you would still get a good sense of what is happening! To make it more interesting, pick one of the following options:

1. Describe the routine as a poetic metaphor: You're not a human body you're a flower blooming, a tree swaying, a old building crumbling. Stick to one metaphor and try to fit all your moves to it.

2. You and your routine are a beautiful part of nature and David Attenborough is describing what you're doing.

3. You are a puppet and your puppeteer needs instructions of what bits of your body to move when, so your can perform your routine.

Reflect on your description! Mark any words that would give away your gender. Pronouns are an obvious start, but try to look deeper! Adjectives like forceful or strong might evoke masculinity, while elegant and graceful sounds more feminine. Verbs such as “stomping” create a different image than “placing a foot”.
Do you like that description of you? Does it affirm your identity? If so: awesome! Without triggering gender dysphoria, try re-writing your description to another gender.
If the description feels uncomfortable, rewrite it to the version you'd love other people to use, the version of you you wish other people would see when they look at you.

If you're doing this by yourself, record your description, or even different versions of your description, and move to it. See how different words influence your movement, your confidence, your well-being.

If you're doing this in a group: swap descriptions and try out somebody else's movement. Find our how they like being described and reflect on how their description influences your movement.