Putting the heat on and getting it out

It's far too hot for October.
I walked a couple miles today in the 90 degree heat.
Now some of you might think "that is nothing". But for a mammal raised in the cool wet tucked in Puget Sound this dry swelter, is too much.

I need rain more than I need anything else right now. I see people in their fully coved shoes and long sleeve shirt and I think they must be nuts. I'm in my thinned tank top and cut offs and holy fuck are my sweat glands working overtime. I've probably go some sort of sunburn already.

I am a creature hight sensitive to heat. No, not just sensitive. Resentful. I loathe the way it makes me lazy. The way I move slower beneath it's heft. I despise the way it makes me forgetful. Like how I forgot the spot that serves my favorite buckwheat noodles is closed today. Heat makes me wallow and notice every little shift in my discomfort.

I knew, even before I sat down in this cafe, that the temperature was going to force me to write about it. But now that I've cleared out those moist cobwebs, something slightly more serious settled in (seriously is there good writing about the weather? cuz no good conversation has ever been about the weather). Rest assured, this topic is just as superficial as the weather. And it starts with a flashback.

Last November instead of writing a novel for NaNoWriMo I wrote and posted an essay/blog post every day as well as writing myself to the 50,000 word goal. At the time I was also experiencing recurrent and worrisome health issues. I was also struggling thought some pretty serious shit in terms of my gender and identity at large. And I was on a very specific diet.

All these things made my life difficult (not as hard as some by a long shot). And now that I'm in better health, am not an a wacky diet, and have a slightly less nebulous understanding of my own gender, I fear that somehow my writing is "less interesting."

Now this may just have to do with my affinity for uncertainty, but I think, art, especially that which we call "transformative" or "radical" runs the risk of fetishizing the suffering of the writers/narrators.

If you have been to a lot of poetry slams I think you might know what I mean. They can turn into traumathons, competitions to see who can reveal the most "raw shit" that they have been through.
Now this might have to do with the inherently competitive structure of slams themselves (which I straight up set off my sweat glands like too-hot October). But it is the side of the writing community I connect to the least.

It ignites in me a deceitful voice that says "You'll never write anything good because you had a happy childhood" or "Your poems can never be that striking because you have never been (sexually) assaulted".

The fucked up part is my childhood was not always happy (is anyone's?) and that I have been  sexually assaulted. But I guess they just don't seem like "enough" suffering to make my writing "good".

I've been thinking  a lot lately about his speech Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave years ago about the danger of a single story.

I think, that is what is happening to me now:
The way I dehumanize others by simplifying their complex lives into a single story is the same way I am delegitimizing the thoughts and ideas I might want to put into writing.

By only allowing myself to be in a struggle in order to seem "interesting" I've trapped myself in the single story I desperately hope everyone reads into my writing. Apparently I don't give my thoughts permission to be interesting unless there is struggle/suffering present. If you're a writer/creator, ask yourself, are you giving yourself permission to see you thoughts as interesting? If not, what is stopping you?

Evaluating ideas while they are still in your head is deeply ineffective and really only serves the purpose of stopping you from getting anything out.

For instance, despite the fact that I have a supposedly less-difficult life than I did this time last year, my problem in terms of getting myself to write is not that I have nothing to write.

In fact I have too much to write about. More than I could ever get down.

I started this entire day of writing talking about the weather. But I considered writing about so many more things:
the social awkwardness i feel when when I see someone I recognize and decide not to approach them
The treehouse my brother tried to build out of doors salvaged from condemned buildings.
A series of micro reviews of all my favorite tv shows and youtube channels.
The murals/graffiti in downtown Oakland.
The nasty gut feeling I get when I read/hear the words "both men and women" or "she or he" in things directed at general audiences.

I think deep down the part of me that denies import of this stuff might is just afraid of complicating its worldview and giving in to the fact that interest can lurk anywhere.

Appropriation Is Erasure

Preface:

Alright, let's get this out of the way.  I am a white person about to write about race. And I am scared to do it. 

You're more than welcome to skip this preface and proceed onto what this post is really about. Trust me, my clumsy thoughts on racism and appropriation and art are much more interesting than my fears. But I must speak them.

I have been afraid of blogging about race in the past. I still am. The only other times I have written about race I've either used a disclaimer, or not addressed it directly while making note of implications I was skipping. The fear I experience is complex (like most human emotions) but mostly boils down to three basic thrusts. 

1. I don't want to further enforce oppressive structures, and/or harm those whose experiences/cultures I'm speaking about. 
2.  I am afraid of bumping up against the spots in my world view that've been made blind by my privilege. I am afraid to find in myself those deeply lodged flecks of violence and oppression I've yet to eradicate.
3. I am afraid to have this process laid bare in public, because I ultimately want to be thought of as a "good guy". But giving up being the "good guy" is part of challenging power structures that put me and people who look/act like me in power (and gives us the freedom to call ourselves "good guys" and be believed). So here goes.

Before you read any of the following please at least skim  DEFINITELY READ ALL OF Nicholas Powers's Why I Yelled at the Kara Walker Exhibit. In fact, if you only have time/energy to read one take on this topic make it his not mine.

I strode to the front, turned around and yelled at the crowd that when they objectify the sculpture’s sexual parts and pose in front of it like tourists they are recreating the very racism the art was supposed to critique. I yelled that this was our history and that many of us were angry and sad that it was a site of pornographic jokes.

Among the many thoughts and feelings I had after reading this, this is proof positive for me that more comprehensive interdisciplinary arts education is necessary. I want a clear connections drawn between art and social justice. There is such a fucking failure in our schools and at large to connect past atrocities and suffering to current occurrences and artistic trends.

Unfortunately Powers's experience is only a glaring example of how the centering of white folk's contexts for experiencing erases the culture and history of others. I mean look at how "exotic" art (whether it be foreign, "urban", Native American, or otherwise "tribal"/"primitive") is presented in film/tv. They're used as props or background and all too often end up as the butt of some throwaway joke. Those jokes as well as those photos people were taking of the Kara Walker exhibit are as naked a portrait of appropriation as I can imagine.

The very reason that experiencing art itself can be transformative at all this that it asks us to consider and in theory inhabit contexts other than our own. But so many white and otherwise privileged people have been insulated from this process. So much so that when they encounter anything that seems outside of their experience/history they assume that it must only exist for their entertainment. The viscous cycle of erasure and appropriation is fed by this consistent failure to connect with the cultural contexts of those either deemed "other" or simply not spoken about at all.

In one of the presentations at my residency last month someone said "people who have suffered are smarter". That phrase clicked with me then but I think only now am I understanding why. People who suffer and are made "other",  are forced to, and for their own survival, become adept at understanding contexts and experiences other than their own. This was the "smart"ness referred to.*

The mechanism of appropriation laid bare at the Kara Walker exhibit, is the process of reducing the art of "the other" to the frivolous, exotic, and/or racy/trendy (and usually profiting from that redefinition). And I am ashamed. But more important I'm livid.

Livid that the insular straight-up dumb assumption, that "if [x piece of art/culture] is not about me/my experience then it must not be that important (to anyone)." is part of my culture as an american and as a white person. The comfort of that privilege is NOT making us smarter, or better people. It only makes us more comfortable (at the expense, erasure, and discomfort of others).

*After drafting this I was informed that this context switching "smartness" is known as "outsider-within" perspective in feminist stand point theory. Source

My Lumpy Bravery: on chest binders and trans superhero narratives

Last week I bought my first chest binder from a reputable online vendor. With vigor, glee, and a hunger for play I clicked the purchase button. It came on a Thursday night. When I had stomach cramps and vicious heartburn that dissuaded me from enacting the fantasy of tearing open the package just when it arrives and trying on its contents that very instant.

The next morning I was alone and had forgotten about the bulging envelope in favor of my morning piss, the laundry & various other mechanics of morning.

I only remembered it while loading up the washer. I realized that all of my sports bras (and by all I mean 3) were starting to exhibit a decent amount of sweat funk. So, with a song in my heart I topped off the washer with my current slightly rank bra before adding soap and letting her rip. Afterwards I thought giddily, 'Oh yeah, I could try it out for a bit'.

I went downstairs and opened the envelope. Immediately I didn't like the synthetic, rough fabric. It reminded me of the surface of a cast. Though less rigid. I slipped it up and over forearms and head, but it got stuck. Awkward on my shoulders. I had to slowly but stiffly tug it down my back bit by bit.

The experience didn't get any better.

I thought I might find a way to press my expectations through the discomfort. But the force of my fantasy didn't push me past the sixty minute mark. Sure I liked the way it made me look in some of my tighter shirts. But the pinch behind my armpits made me wince  and pushed my usually stout shoulders into a slouch. Besides it really didn't do much more than my tightest sports bra already does.

Wearing and taking off the binder just made my breasts feel absolutely massive. Having all of the pressure on my chest, just served to remind me every moment of each inch of flesh the binder touched. I could never not be thinking about my chest and it's size while wearing it. I'm sure I could adjust out of feeling this way but honestly I don't want to. That didn't stop me from wanting to want to and feeling guilty for not wanting to.

The worst part came when I took it off and I was hit in the chest with the realization that the only other garments I'm comfortable (com)pressing my chest were wet and swishingly unavailable. I just sat there with red stress marks in my armpits, my chest achingly huge and aware of itself.

My sports bras do more for me in terms of getting my breasts out of the way when it comes to moving though the world. But more than that, they get my breasts off of my mind, which is great. They enable me to think of my chest as just my chest. This ease and flexibility is an extraordinary tool in navigating my gender.

I mostly ordered a binder out of sartorial naiveté. Because I lust after the clean lines of menswear and want some of my looks to not include a lumpy chest. I have a vague desire for smaller breasts and a more muscular chest but for the most part I love my breasts and have no animosity toward them. (I recognize I am lucky in this regard).

There's a part of me that loves thinking about clothes and presentation as all fun and games, but the truth is, it's only on my best days that I get to feel that way. Many days result is me feeling that my clothes are confining me.

All of the 50 minutes I spent in, putting on, and taking off the binder were painful and unsettling. But I kept it on for that long because I wanted to show myself I was “tough”. Or because some part of my brain shamed me away from comfort by screaming 'Real trans people are willing to suffer to ease their dysphoria (and so you should too).'

The shame and self loathing I felt gave me flashbacks to trying on prom dresses in high school. Except this wasn't about not being thin enough participate in the concept of pretty (which I never got that hung up on anyhow). This time it I felt like I wasn't tough enough to be trans and that because my gender dysphoria isn't actively painful that I am incapable of bravery or sacrifice.



Oftentimes trans* people are laughingly and empoweringly referred to as superheros, badass mutants, or as having extraordinary powers of bravery, endurance, or chutzpah. These are important stories. But they are just that, single stories about individuals. The trans* community is so diverse.

I love the power in these superhero narratives. But the way they glorify, and mythologize trans people's choices oversimplifies the complex and individualized abilities and tactics trans people create to cope with the suffering and discomfort of gender dysphoria. Worst of all it offers very few models and resources for newly out/realized trans folks (like me).

We see these “strong trans characters” and assume that transition and trans lives must include certain activities and compromises to be considered socially acceptable or brave. In Sophia McDougall's piece I hate Strong Female Characters she states that “The Strong Female Character has something to prove. She’s on the defensive before she even starts.” I would a argue that superhero trans narratives have done the same. And while the thing we're on what defensive about is very real and very dangerous we are more than just our fights against our own dysphoria.

I have a trans friend who will brush off or object whenever someone calls her “brave” for expressing who she is. Part of what I read into that refusal is her acknowledgement that being willing to suffer or to choose different forms of suffering is not bravery. She defines her dysphoria as suffering; a constant ache which can spike randomly or in reaction to certain experiences. Whereas I identify my dysphoria as a discomfort I regularly find myself bumping up against. The conditions of our lives and dysphoria differ. So too must our metrics for bravery.

As someone who has to balance the discomfort of my dysphoria with the discomfort of chronic pain and social anxiety, I don't always have the willingness or resources to suffer in order to ease my gender dysphoria. Sometimes I have to choose to ease my dyspepsia or my social anxiety first.

But too often that choice leaves me wondering, am I a coward? Am I  a disgrace to trans superhero narratives every where because I chose not to suffer the discomfort of a chest binder?

Of course not. (says my logical brain)

My body is a multi-purpose space for working on feeling okay. My unique gender and gender dysphoria are only some parts of this work and are not confined just to my physical body.

Because I've got many long term bodily concerns not related directly to my gender, I often prioritize my short term physical discomfort. This runs counter to the superhero narratives of trans folks that I love and clung to in the past and that have become a beacon for young trans people today.

For me complication of this narrative means choosing (for now) to forgo the discomfort of a chest binder. And to continue building myself and my expressions sans a traditional trans narrative.

I've decided that bravery, like dysphoria, has many forms. My bravery is apparently lumpy and unbound.