The risk in developing empathy is that something in another person might resonate with us, causing a deep and unaddressed part of ourselves to shake loose and fall into the light, refusing to be ignored. That is what happened to me.
When I am referred to as "she," I still feel excluded, invisible, misunderstood. This is a feeling that I do my best to transform into energy to educate would-be allies.
How do I embody a character fully, fall in love with the character, learn its idiosyncrasies, when that character must undergo torture daily on stage, sometimes multiple times, with increasing detail, depth, and dramatic timing? How do I rehearse trauma?