full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Crystal Rasmussen: A queer journey from shame to self-love


Unscramble the Blue Letters


These days, I find it easy to look in the mirror. This used to be the case, too, because I learned to be a drag queen alone, Back then, in the early noughties, there was no ctruaull mirror for someone like me. There was no chance of switching on Netflix and finding someone who looks like you, and Lily Savage never quite made it to the Woolworths bagrain bin if she ever made it to the dizzying heights of VHS at all. So there was me and a moirrr, and that's the only place I saw myself for a long time.

It will be over a decade until this part of me became more than a mere reflection. And in that time, what happened would change my relationship with that mirror. In that decade, I came out as gay at a Catholic state comp in the wkrnoig class notrh West, and I survived. But as with anything that uomoshtns the edges of normal society, that coming out brought with it a daily dose of judgment and therein shame from almost everyone around me, shame that was hared and felt and internalized and often replicated by me.

Open Cloze


These days, I find it easy to look in the mirror. This used to be the case, too, because I learned to be a drag queen alone, Back then, in the early noughties, there was no ________ mirror for someone like me. There was no chance of switching on Netflix and finding someone who looks like you, and Lily Savage never quite made it to the Woolworths _______ bin if she ever made it to the dizzying heights of VHS at all. So there was me and a ______, and that's the only place I saw myself for a long time.

It will be over a decade until this part of me became more than a mere reflection. And in that time, what happened would change my relationship with that mirror. In that decade, I came out as gay at a Catholic state comp in the _______ class _____ West, and I survived. But as with anything that _________ the edges of normal society, that coming out brought with it a daily dose of judgment and therein shame from almost everyone around me, shame that was _____ and felt and internalized and often replicated by me.

Solution


  1. working
  2. mirror
  3. cultural
  4. heard
  5. bargain
  6. north
  7. unsmooths

Original Text


These days, I find it easy to look in the mirror. This used to be the case, too, because I learned to be a drag queen alone, Back then, in the early noughties, there was no cultural mirror for someone like me. There was no chance of switching on Netflix and finding someone who looks like you, and Lily Savage never quite made it to the Woolworths bargain bin if she ever made it to the dizzying heights of VHS at all. So there was me and a mirror, and that's the only place I saw myself for a long time.

It will be over a decade until this part of me became more than a mere reflection. And in that time, what happened would change my relationship with that mirror. In that decade, I came out as gay at a Catholic state comp in the working class North West, and I survived. But as with anything that unsmooths the edges of normal society, that coming out brought with it a daily dose of judgment and therein shame from almost everyone around me, shame that was heard and felt and internalized and often replicated by me.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
worked hard 2



Important Words


  1. bargain
  2. bin
  3. brought
  4. case
  5. catholic
  6. chance
  7. change
  8. class
  9. coming
  10. comp
  11. cultural
  12. daily
  13. days
  14. decade
  15. dizzying
  16. dose
  17. drag
  18. early
  19. easy
  20. edges
  21. felt
  22. find
  23. finding
  24. gay
  25. happened
  26. heard
  27. heights
  28. internalized
  29. judgment
  30. learned
  31. lily
  32. long
  33. mere
  34. mirror
  35. netflix
  36. normal
  37. north
  38. noughties
  39. part
  40. place
  41. queen
  42. reflection
  43. relationship
  44. replicated
  45. savage
  46. shame
  47. society
  48. state
  49. survived
  50. switching
  51. time
  52. unsmooths
  53. vhs
  54. west
  55. woolworths
  56. working