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Gender and Education Conference Presentation

6/15/2016

Today started out a bit of a rubbish day. Because of the time zone difference between where I currently am (Sweden) and where my U.S. fam are, I learned about the tragic murder of Goddess Diamond. Y'all, I just need the murder of my beautiful trans* sisters of color to fucking stop.

And then I needed to present a few hours later...which felt overwhelming. I spent the better part of the morning trying hard to stay present and having a very hard time doing so. I was fading in and out of paying attention, which is unfortunate, because there are some very interesting people here, and the sessions were also very fascinating. But I just couldn't stay here in my mind and my heart, which was (and still is) broken. However, I saw (and still see) my presentation today as a thinking about the way our methodological choices have materially violent effects. In a moment where I have been thinking a lot about whether my work does much of anything, I really was worried that today would just be a bit of me prattling on about things that perhaps didn't matter beyond a line on my CV...which is quite a miserable thought, to be honest.

Before I presented, I made sure to talk about my QT* kin of color, both those in Orlando and Goddess, who have continued to be murdered. I needed to bring them into the room with me, or perhaps better put, I needed others to recognize that my people are always already with me wherever I go, and they are the very reason I do what I do; that this is not a thought exercise for me.

I'm surprised I didn't lose it, and am not sure what it was I really said during the presentation, but it seemed to be well received. I felt relieved, overwhelmed, and exhausted. I was glad that I didn't let my friends who had invited me to do this presentation down, and was also glad that the thinking we were doing together--which we hope to ultimately craft into an edited book--was met with positive feedback and engagement. I was especially glad to hear things seemed to go well because my thinking is in a very nascent stage.

Speaking of the nascence of my thinking, I have been asked to share my presentation. Below, I have posted the slides, and although it can sometimes be odd to trace thought via slides, I would welcome any ideas/feedback/critique folks may have. At the end of the day, I just want this violence to all fucking stop, and I feel like perhaps talking through methodological violence and its multiple effects on trans* people, experiences, and subjectivities may be one way I can contribute to making a better world. This is one of the ways I can maybe help this all fucking stop.

Desiring in London

6/13/2016

Today was…well…not great.

After a very sleepless night, I woke up and headed into London. On the train ride in, I read The Guardian, which had four pages dedicated to the Orlando shooting. The paper, despite being left-leaning, still participated in the kind of homonationalism that we all knew would rear its ugly, jingoistic head, and although there were some good bits of the reporting—including some bits that pushed back against Islamophobia and xenophobic rhetoric—I still couldn’t quite shake the desire to just break down and cry.

When I got to London, my friend headed off to a work meeting—the reason we had traveled in—and I just walked. I went down to the River Thames and kept walking and walking. Along the way, all of the newspapers from around the world had the same story on the front page. Although I couldn’t read many of them, there was one word that stuck out to me: Orlando. It’s a good thing it was raining most of the day, because I couldn’t stop from crying.

I walked all along the South Embankment of the River Thames, and despite my trying to giggle about walking along The Queen’s Walk, I couldn’t shake the utter sorrow I felt. This atrocity is both mine and not mine. This happened to my communities, and I also recognize that, by virtue of my White, enabled, and middle-class privileges, this didn’t happen to my communities. I am half out and half in, and so while I am not attempting to take on all of this as my tragedy, it also is very much ours as a queer community.

I began thinking that I should be taking pictures to share with friends, but then realized I didn’t really feel like taking pictures. I just felt like walking. I wanted to put pain into my legs so that I could take the pain out of my heart. This is often a strategy I have used in the past by cycling, but without a bike, I was left with my legs, so I put them to use.

I also began thinking about what I wanted from my life. I don’t feel like making large-scale demands right now. I have tried that before, and I feel like it has led to little effect. First off, cis and/or heterosexual folks need to talk to each other to figure their shit out. I can’t with the feelings, the private apologies, and the suggestions that their silence is about “them hurting, too.” I know this is slightly problematic, and I know this may be (mis)read as separatist or whatever, but I just need to disconnect myself from cis and heterosexual folks who aren’t interested in me beyond my ability to be their token. I am not here for that.

And I don’t want to make demands of my QT* kin because quite frankly, we need to be and feel whatever we need to be and feel right now. This is fucked up. And it’s not fucked up because it’s the “biggest in modern history,” it’s just fucked up. Full stop. Period. End of story. And I just feel the need to feel.

And this got me thinking…what do I need more of in my life? What do I want and need and desire for my life? What would be helpful for me at this particular moment in time? Below is an impartial list, but perhaps it will resonate with you. I offer this to you in lieu of pictures from my walk along the River Thames in hopes that, perhaps, we can move along together in giving each other what we need, desire, and want to help make our lives full, vibrant, and full of queer love.

I desire…

more theory. I want gender theory, and political theory, and critical race theory. I want disability theory and poststructural theory. Theories are what I need more of at this very moment in time, because theories will help me unravel and disentangle the ideologies that are twisting, warping, and promoting the very violence being inflicted asymmetrically across various bodies, subjectivities, and experiences on the margins.
more philosophy. I want philosophies rich and deep like our communities. I want philosophies that liberate and emancipate. I want philosophies that project possible futures that we have yet to even dream about. Philosophies are, for me, the way I frame how I come to know what I know (i.e., epistemology), what I believe to be just and right (i.e., ethics), and how I envision existence (i.e., existentialism). I want to immerse myself in more philosophy. I want to write philosophy. I want to exude philosophy from my pores.
more feeling. I want to kick and scream and love and cry and hug and not say a damn thing and bottle it all up if I feel like it. I want to reminisce and yell late at night at the top of my lungs “I LOVE YOU” to all my queer and trans* family, because we may not hear it as much as we should, but we damn-well should. I want to feel bad about things and good about things and realize that life is a confusing, muddled mess of emotions. I also want to not feel a thing if that is where my day takes me at any given moment.
more art. I want to lose myself in the expression of others through any and all artistic medium, especially those artists who are queer and trans*. I want to explore resistance through painting, photography, and film. I want to be changed by art. I want to make art. I want to invest in art that invests in me.
more dancing. I want to move my body, the very body I have such a conflicted, love-and-hate relationship with because internalized transphobia, trans*-misogyny, and shame are not constructs I have yet to cast off. I want to lose track of time, and become sweaty by moving to whatever beat takes me away. I want to dance on my own, and smile, knowing my body is my sanctuary if I allow it to be. I want to dance in my kitchen, and in my bathroom, and in my office, and at the celebrations of my nearest and dearest, and in academic spaces where dancing is taboo.
more remembering. I want to remember who came before me, because without them, I wouldn’t be here in the way I am. I want to think about the varied legacies that are often forgotten, and resist the racism, trans* oppression, compulsory able-bodiedness, and classism that suggest that only certain people are worth remembering. I want to remember who my people are, and to carry them with me as I move through my days. I want to speak their names into existence in ways that feel rewarding and loving. I want to be with people across time and space, because I can do that through remembering and recalling.
more political resistance. In a particular moment where it is quite clear that my peoples are being used as a political tool around the world (at the moment I am writing this, I am in England, and those leading the Brexit campaign have decided to use the atrocity in Orlando as a way to further xenophobia in the name of “national security”), I want to resist what I have been told are political strategies that are “in my best interest.” I want to remember that hate crimes legislation has been used to build up and fortify the very police state that criminalizes, punishes, kills, and harms my queer and trans* kin. I want to have the strength to resist simplistic calls for tighter gun restrictions without calling out the hypocrisy of how the United States participates and perpetuates mass violence through the sale and export of weaponry across borders. I want to take the time to investigate how political candidates are connected to gun lobbyists and those who believe in furthering violence. I want to remember that the person who killed those individuals at Pulse worked for G4S, a global “security” firm, also known as a privately contracted army that has “a force three times the size of the British military” (Langewiesche, 2014, para. 1). I want to remember that freedom does not need to equate to repression, and that I should not feel bullied by anyone into voting for candidates who do not represent my politics, because perhaps politicians aren’t interested in the sort of revolution that I want and need.
more compassion. Plain and simple, I need more of this. I need to give it, and I need to remember and recognize when my people give it to me. I am fortunate to be surrounded by love, and I need to focus in on where and who that love is coming from, and give it back tenfold.
more slowness. I have been pushing myself very hard, and while that is good in some respects, I also know it has come at the cost of my own personal wellbeing as well as some relationships in my life. No longer. I desire a slower life, one in which I cook and share meals, make more phone calls to my queer and trans* kin, and take more trips to be alongside the people I love and who love me. My work life is in order, and while my personal life is usually there, I want to tend that garden a bit better.

So these are some things I desire…an incomplete list, for sure, but a start. Because this is how I can wrench myself out of the complicity and complacency that often grabs hold of me/that I sink into over time. And through these desires, I can picture different, liberatory, and communal futures. So maybe that’s all the picture I needed from today.

Let’s desire together.

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Gender and Education Conference Presentation

Desiring in London

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