Come for a fantastic series of genderqueering events at Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio. I am excited to perform with my fantastic friend Goddess Orie, it’s gonna be a great time. Check it out, the fliers are linked to the facebook events.
Tag: Ohio
Bad Parenting: Effects of an Noninclusive Movement on Queer Kids
This past weekend I had a fantastic romp to the University of Toledo. I met some stellar students working their asses off to support their community, and ecstatically networked and made friends with who I consider to be one of the most significant drag performance groups in history, The Kinsey Sicks.
With the Kinsey Sicks and UT student organizers Elizabeth and David.
This visit was my first official “keynote” slot, which like most titles, makes me sound cool and significantly more important than I actually am. I presented a new talk that I’m still experimenting with “How to wake up society in 500 calories or more – a sweet tooth’s guide to sex, gender, and the illusion of normalcy.” The topic turned out to be more relevant to my own thought processes throughout the weekend than I had anticipated. UT’s queer community reminded me very much of the community I was in, or more so on the edge of, during my undergrad at the University of Cincinnati. Now, both UC and UT are large state schools smack in the middle of very racially and economically segregated, (initially) industry based Midwestern cities so maybe one would expect similarities. But even without location, population, or environment, I think there is a bigger influence in play here. Queer communities -campuses included- don’t live in a vacuum. We are all exposed to the same oppressive systems, whether it is anti-queer discrimination and hate or “GLBT” propaganda.
Sometimes I can’t decided which is worse. Having one million monsters outside the door, or one hundred inside the house. Everyday queers are not only dealing with the oppressions of heteronormativity, but homonormativity as well. There is a division in the house of non-hetero politic, but I feel the familiar saying of “a house divided cannot stand” doesn’t apply. I think a house divided can stand, but that’s about all it can do. If G.L. Homeowner can only afford to give minimal upkeep to the house, naturally they will take care of the rooms they use most. If given enough attention, the chosen rooms can get to be pretty swank, maybe accent it with some nice furniture… but the over-all value of the house will be the same. It will never improve, it will be just good enough. And you sure as hell can’t let your family get any bigger than what the nice rooms can accommodate- to break the metaphor, better not let any of those gender non-conformers or people of color in. Surely they’re better off where they are out back. They’re probably happy there, and they’re used to it.
Normative conceptualization of queer communities is not accidentally spread. National marginalization of under-represented, often non-normative groups feeds our marginalization in smaller communities, like college campuses. Smaller communities will naturally have less resources and need to reach out to larger ones, creating a cycle of stagnation with no new exchanges of information. Perfect example: Most people have HRC stickers not because they even actually know what the hell HRC is, its because that was all they could find.All they know is the equal sign means good and means gay. What more is there? Race? Class? Identity? Not relevant. We’re all one homogeneous community, aren’t we? We are starving our youth of information, and they are paying the price for the community’s oversight. If young people are struggling for resources and isolating each other out of fear or ignorance it is because the greater community has not given them access to the information they need to develop their own autonomous understanding of the complex diversity of the queer community. The lucky ones figure it out for themselves, only to be stuck swimming against the current, isolated and alone.
How much can we really accomplish if our resources are close to inclusive, but not actually inclusive? Is this neglect any different from heteronomative society not teaching us about queerness? We are promoting the same practice of oppression, we’re just excusing it because its in house. “We’ll come back for you when we have more to go around” too easily turns into “We forgot about you” which might as well be “We never gave a shit about you in the first place, cause if we did, we would have brought you along in the first place.”
Lounge Lizards and Ladies
Highlights from the last Dangrous Productions show in Columbus before they hit the road for their travelin’ tour of tasty…trag… aka drag. Dangerous Productions is the baby-babes of Gavin Danger, who if you didn’t already know, is kinda a big deal and an amazing mentor. He knows his shit. We are all sad to lose him and his partner to the rest of the country, but we all warned him he’d be back, cause that’s how the Midwest rolls. You always come back!
Gavin Danger and I after the show
[image: Gavin Danger in a suit, bow tie, top hat, and handle bar mustache with JAC -pink hair and brown eyes – both smiling at the camera]
The show, Lounge Lizards and Ladies, was hosted by the fabulous Miss Tamale and Goldie Peacock and featured performers from Ohio (including the Black Mondays and yours truly), Chicago, NYC, D.C., and probably a bunch of other places I can’t remember. I was thrilled to see Goldie because we haven’t hung out since IDKE back in October, so that was a fun. And Tamale and I, who are usually rushed from each other at show’s end, had a fabulous ice cream date the following day. I was psyched to be back with my troupe, no duh, I love them. I also worked out a new number for this show which I am super pleased with and it is the best outfit I have made to date. FAB-U-LOUS. I did full sewing on the petticoat skirt but the top is actually a dress I like too much to alter, so I safety pinned the hell out of it, as is my trademark in drag costuming.
[image: JAC, pink hair, lipstick and blue eye make-up in a teal short dress and a long fuschia poofy skirt that is the same color as JAC’s hair. With one hand he is holding skirt back to show legs and teal underwear with sparkly light pink tennis shoes and with the other hand holding a teal high heel with a bow on the toe and kissing it.]
Tamale has decided when she gets rich from her burlesque career (which I anticipate to be around when my activist career starts to cut the big checks) I will become her personal dresser / safety pin tailor. I did a beastly job on this dress, if I do say so myself.
[image: Tamale in a green formal dress, leg up being held by JAC who is wearing a teal short dress with fuschia sequins]
And yes, I ran around in that little outfit pretty much all night, which actually surprised me. The petticoat comes off in the number so I was pants-less all evening… and in girls underwear for the 1st time in I have no idea how long. I was actually really comfortable, maybe because I knew my outfit was supper cute! My shoes (the heels) were actually where the outfit came from, and Tucson (during IDKE XI) is where the shoes came from. When I got the shoes all I could think was I needed ruffly butt underwear to match. So I got some, and they were a big hit.
[image: JAC in teal outfit, bending over looking shocked, showing ruffle butt teal underwear. His butt is grabbed and bitten by some attractive Black Mondays performers]
The End
MWGQ in a Magazine!
Check out Midwest GenderQueer in Fusion Magazine!
GenderQueer in the Midwest
Mini-documentary about your favorite pink haired femme boy by Hunter Stuart at Stuart Productions
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The Midwest is crawling with queers. Not because of any strong presence but in the more literal sense. Queers are crawling because we do not have the space to stand up. We do not have the resources that would enable us to live full, healthy lives. We, like so many others, are isolated in our homes, in our towns, controlled and confined by others, longing for life and being unable to live it.
I was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. When I came out as trans I didn’t know anyone who was like me and I had no way of finding them. The city‘s “gay“ scene was practically extinct and no trans or queer scene it had never existed in the first place. There was no space for me, so I decided to try and make one.
Cleveland Offically Protects TransFolk
Yesterday Cleveland, Ohio finally passed an ordinance including gender identity and expression in its city discrimination laws. This is excellent news and I would like to reach out a special thanks to everyone who helped us get this on the books (especially my friends at AskCleveland)!
Surprisingly, Cleveland is the last major Ohio city to include GIE in its city non-discrimination ordinance. Toledo passed one in 1998, Cincinnati in 2006 (originally 2004 but was repealed), Dayton (2007), Columbus (2008), and more recently the college towns of Oxford, Bowling Green, and Yellow Springs. The state of Ohio itself has a statewide ban on discrimination on sexual orientation and gender identity and expression brought by an executive order from Governor Strickland in 2007 but it doesn’t cover many elements needed.
What’s interesting is that the arguably more “liberal” cities in the state, such as Columbus and Cleveland, have been the last to get on board. Its almost inconceivable how Cincinnati (my home town) and Dayton passed legislation before the northern cities. Perhaps more liberal areas take their rights for granted more easily, and simply forget to fight for more.
UPDATE 12/3/09
News story on Fox 8 acknowledges all protections were not covered in the new legislation. I am curious as to how long it will take to ammend.
Ohio looks smart….
Sarah Palin supporters in Columbus Ohio
So… there’s some Ohioans… yeah…I wish I could say it wasn’t representative… but it is.
I’m almost sad they didn’t ask about queer stuff. That would of been interesting.
You Scream, I Scream
He stood in the doorway. I could see him shaking from my desk. He sat across from my desk, avoiding eye contact. I tried to get him to speak, but before he got two words out he broke down. I didn’t need to ask. I knew who he was.
About a week before a student had come to my office looking for advice. While working at a center on campus, she met a community member who had come in looking for resources. She gave me a brief description that could be summed up to: this person had been through a lot of shit. It sadly wasn’t an unfamiliar story of a Midwestern queer, but even I have to admit that it isn’t often you run into a case this bad. Abandonment, abuse, discrimination, rape, homelessness, unemployment, isolation, infection… he had been through it all.
I listened to myself as I spoke words of encouragement I had at one point told someone else… or myself: “You’ve been strong enough to get this far, no reason you can’t keep going. There is nothing wrong with you. You have a right to live and be happy.”
I did my best lend a listening ear and set him up with some resources. The sad truth was that there was no real queer community service system for him around here… or anywhere in the state. I wish I could have done something more to help him. I should of at least shaken his hand… His eyes reminded me of another set I have never forgotten. A young genderqueer I met about a year ago in Indiana. They came up to me after a presentation with tears in their eyes and said, “This is the first time I’ve ever met anyone like me. ” I looked at them and I could swear I was looking at myself. All I could do was hug them. “I know its hard to imagine now,” I said, “but it does get better. If I made it this far, you can too.” As the words left my mouth I wondered how much farther I had come than this kid. Did I really have it all together like they thought I did?
I never heard from them. I wonder where they are now, what they are doing, if they’ve made it out ok. I don’t remember their name, only their face… the sight of my own painful past played out in someone else. I don’t think its a specific thing for the Midwest, but I do think it is part of a bigger picture. The fact that there are so many of us out there suffering when we shouldn’t have to. I wish there was some better, faster way to for all of us to know that no queer is alone in all this. Every time someone feels a pain because of their identity, someone else is having the exact same pain some 200 miles away. In that bond we can all be stronger. That bond, that connection is the reason why we have to keep working, keep fighting to make things better. It isn’t over til we are all in the clear, and no one is left behind.
Why we do what we do
This weekend I attended the Sex Education Youth Summit which the Ohio Advocates were helping Planned Parenthood organize. It was a great day and I met lots of inspirational youth. One in particular was a young activist from rural Ohio. They are twelve years old, came out as queer at eleven, and are working on queer activism in their school. How awesome is that? Sometimes you just get lucky and meet someone that sparks the suffocated, warm fuzzy hope that got you into activism in the first place. In that moment, you suddenly don’t feel so jaded, and the hard work and bullshit is all worth it.
x-posted AmplifyYourVoice.org