In retrospect, acquiring the physical skills was the easy part. Getting up in front of audiences and demanding their love and attention was much, much harder. The lashes and costumes and heels helped: They allowed me to become what legendary New York performer World Famous Bob referred to as a “female female impersonator.” That is, we are biologically female performers putting on the trappings of that particular drag and playing the part of a sex symbol. In my mind, this is a better way of describing this state of being than “diva,” which I reject as a form of convenient misogyny, since it implies that women who declare their professional worth are silly and spoiled. This level of confidence is an act — one I learned over many ups and downs — that you could repeat and hone until you came to believe it yourself. Maybe not all the time, maybe not when I was dating or trying on bathing suits, but more so than ever.Standing in the spotlight, making audiences laugh and gasp convinced me that I deserved to be seen. Moreover, that I deserved to be seen and judged on the rarity of what I do (for context, there are currently fewer than 350 or so living sword-swallowers on Earth) and the skill with which I do it. And mostly I get that, but not always. In New York, where I live, there are stages where I’ve shot national TV shows during the day that would not welcome me at night for fear that I would violate the aesthetic requirements of their bottle-service crowd. I am often reminded that I’m still a female working in showbiz, and there’s no perfectly happy ending here. Like Amy Schumer and Carrie Fisher and Adele and pretty much every female performer, people take my appearance into consideration when deciding whether audiences should even see me.