I wouldn’t usually go dancing both morning and evening, but they were both special parties. The morning rave was Flanger, one of my favorites, this time in a new venue. It’s about six in the morning, and Jenny and I have found our way to the second floor of an old industrial building, to a little patio with a view of Manhattan.

Out on the patio is a gaggle of six or seven transsexuals. I’m surprised to see them all together, as I didn’t think these ones knew each other. There’s not that many trans ravers in Brooklyn, so I guess it was just a matter of social pinball before they’d all bounce into one another.

What I like about this little world is that it is usually pretty ordinary that we’re in it. That’s one of the hard things about being trans: finding places to be ordinary. Sure, sometimes we like to be special, but that can get exhausting. And more often than not—when we’re not allowed to be ordinary—it’s not to be treated as special, but to be treated as garbage. This is why I like Flanger’s queer atmosphere. I get to be ordinary together with my kind.

It is also a bit lonely, as I’m two or more decades older than the rest. Sometimes, I’d like to be among dance freaks more my age. That’s what I’m hoping for with my second party, later in the day, off in Downtown Manhattan.

Jenny has a flight to catch, so we cut short the chit-chat, step off the patio, and into the spectral light of the dance floor. I set the alarm on my phone to vibrate, just in case we get lost in that sideways time a good rave opens. As we reach the dance floor, we’re greeted by—silence. I’d learn later that the big visiting DJ had somehow turned the mixer off, and couldn’t figure out how to get it back on. I see the sound tech’s LED light scouring the decks for clues. Soon it’s working again, although I can’t say the set was all that inspiring. Sometimes it just doesn’t quite happen. The rave will happen to you whenever it wants. It can’t be forced. It’s a bit like grace, that way.

“What I like about this little world is that it is usually pretty ordinary that we’re in it. That’s one of the hard things about being trans: finding places to be ordinary.”

Well, at least it’s good exercise. Jenny and I hug the sub bass at the front for a good couple of hours. Then my handbag buzzes. Time to go. On the way out, I get talking to Cliff, the EMT. I nearly got on his bad side at the last Flanger, but that’s another story.

That evening, I trek into Manhattan to take up an invitation to experience Flicker. It’s a legendary party, started in 1970. It’s changed and mutated over the years, but we’ll be dancing to most of the original sound system. I find my way to the function hall of a Downtown community center. I greet my host, who is busy hugging friends. He seems to know everybody. There’s people my age, which is technically early-60s, but I pass for early-50s. It’s funny that I care more about age-passing than gender-passing.

The vibe is open and friendly. Bittersweet for me, as I’m among my peers, but I don’t know anybody. I’ve not clocked any other transsexuals, and I’m not getting queer energy from most of the people here. I like them, though. I hope they like me.

The DJs start us off with some reggae classics. The turntables are audiophile belt drives. There’s no blending. Everyone stops and claps after each track. The sound is rich and warm, without the heavy sub bass characteristic of contemporary dance music. Vinyl records just don’t have that. It takes me a minute to adjust. Usually, I like to be right in front of a sub bin, to feel that deep bass. Here, the sweet spot was right in the middle of the floor.

“The warm sound, the classic disco and R&B deep cuts, the enthusiastic crowd all work their magic on me. Soon I’m off in a different kind of time to that of a Brooklyn techno rave.”

The Flicker crowd ranges in age and is also multiracial. It is frankly a privilege for my white ass to be around older Black people, dancing. There’s an intimacy to dancing, to letting the beat in. It’s not something one always feels like doing, around just anybody. The warm sound, the classic disco and R&B deep cuts, the enthusiastic crowd all work their magic on me. Soon I’m off in a different kind of time to that of a Brooklyn techno rave. There’s something optimistic about this ’70s-era sonic space that’s been lost since. I guess because nobody under 40 much expects anything to ever get better again.

There must be other trans people here. We might be only one percent of the population, but gather a few hundred, and we’ll be in there somewhere. I got The Look a couple of times. The look that says: “It’s up to me to decide if you can be here.” The look that says tolerance, but not acceptance. That’s the exception, though. Mostly, I feel warmth and joy, even if it’s a different kind of party now to the days when Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles showed up to it as drag queens.

“I’m addicted to bass,” I tell my host for the night. I love those strands of disco and R&B that are built on the timbres of bass guitar. That keeps me moving at Flicker. In the morning, I was among trans people, but felt alone as older; here, there are plenty of older dance freaks, but I feel alone as trans. It isn’t common for trans people born around when I was to live this long.

HIV/AIDS ripped the heart out of the original Flicker community, and that of many now-legendary scenes in New York, like The Saint and Paradise Garage. At Flicker, I feel their ghosts, dancing with us. At Flanger, I feel like I’m the ghost, some remnant of intergenerational queer community. I feel like crying—am crying, while I’m dancing. I wish Jenny were here. Looking around me, I take strength from what is here, from this community, these dancers. Keeping alive this hard-won thing. This space of joy, this time where we share with each other the free moments of this life.