I am making one extra post because I just remembered a song I should’ve added to the class playlist. Coincidentally I made it my username for WordPress at the beginning of the semester. For me this song means hope and transcendence. I used to listen to it all the time before transitioning. The lyrics really spoke to me:
“And if I die today I’ll be the happy phantom
And I’ll go chasin’ the nuns out in the yard
And I’ll run naked through the streets without my mask on
And I will never need umbrellas in the rain
I’ll wake up in Strawberry Fields every day
And the atrocities of school I can forgive
The happy phantom has no right to bitch”
The line “I will never need umbrellas in the rain” was super important for me because it felt similar to my desire to take my shirt off and feel the rain on my chest. It was all I dreamed about before getting top surgery.
Now looking at the lyrics I think of the word transcendence. Being a happy phantom seems to Tori Amos like she would not feel the limits of being in a human body. She sings about how she can do anything she wants: “I’ll run naked through the streets without my mask on.” That line in particular paints the picture of a mask giving her the feeling of immanence. Wish I remembered this in class!
Unruly Bodies 
What an awesome piece! I can’t help but connect it to the article on Frankenstein’s monster being an allegory for trans identity, but the lyrics that you pulled create the opposite feeling, that being a “monster” in the sense of a phantom in this context is freeing and that cares wash away. It’s this feeling that I hope many people have when they’ve started living out their true identity.