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[queertheorymagic]

(un)telling complexities

The act of telling a story, especially my story, seems impossible. My story is fragmented. It contains big fragments that have come to define my life’s narrative, and then smaller fragments that are hidden, disappeared behind the easy fragments that, upon repetition, come to make this story seem less complex. There are fragments of pride and ones of shame, fragments of forgiveness and fragments of utter confusion. One thing I’m realizing: we are all extremely complex. And that is beautiful.

I have been engaging in conversation around self-care and validation lately with friends. What has amazed me is that we are all so fragile, yet we live with a pretense of strength. No, strength isn’t the pretense. But not-weak is. Not tender, not vulnerable, not immensely fragile. We sometimes think that allowing ourselves as vulnerable and tender and fragile and resilient and strong all at once is too complex for our narrative. Perhaps impossible. How can we be everything, messied together, packaged into a nonlinear story of us? It’s untellable. It is. Yet there is something to be said for telling the untellable—for attempting to share our nondirectional experience in language and affect despite the impossibility of telling. Or perhaps it is something entirely different. Our telling is possible, but we must transform what it means to tell. Maybe our stories can never be told—like us, they must always exist in the telling. To think there exists one way of telling is to limit and stifle our complexity. It is to engage in violent fantasy that shuts doors and drowns our becoming. I am only interested in nonviolent fantasy that enables life and death to swim about in a space against binaries. That fucks with everything we know except for that we are becoming, we are breathing, we are unfolding and creasing and moving. We are moving. Let’s embrace this movement and engage with one another over our continued telling of the untellable.

[queertheorymagic]

hugging the world

sometimes i just want to hug the world. i want to squeeze it tight and tell every person on it, you’re beautiful.

there’s something great about getting out of my bubble. i’ve been at the same cafe - the one i only go to around finals time - for four days in a row now. and in between sips of coffee and paper writing, i’ve been watching everyone around me. and you know what? they’re all so beautiful. like, gorgeous. and each wrapped up in their own lives. and some are pregnant or caring for their children. and many are studying intently, hoping so badly they can get that A. and some trying to distract their kids while they work on their laptops. and some are eating alone and staring into space, and i wonder what they’re thinking. and others are tugging on their shirts as they walk, pulling the fabric lower around the waist as i often self-consciously do. and i want to go hug them and tell them how beautiful they are. how their outfits are dandy, but even more so their attitudes are so delightful. like how this one panera employee is constantly so damn friendly to oblivious customers. and i want to tell this person how it literally keeps making my day when she remains so pleasant, so genuinely friendly with people who aren’t always easy to be so friendly to. and then there’s a person so fixated on his phone that i wonder what he’s reading. or if he’s scared to just sit alone, like i used to be, and he feels a need to be busy while he eats alone. and then there’s a dad with a few kids, and i can tell he is concerned about the price of the food. and his kid is upset she got a “kid’s meal” and not an “adult meal” and he thinks a sandwich is a sandwich. and people shuffle in and out of this place and they’re under so much pressure. and i have no idea where they're coming from or where they're going when they leave. and the employees keep going through routine, yet one is so light about it. she doesn’t see it as routine. she’s happy. or appears happy. and then she runs next door during her break to buy a mother’s day card and seals it before getting picked up at the end of her shift. and i wonder about why they work here and think about how this is a job. this is their job, the job that pays rent and covers that dental appointment. and this college-aged guy with his dad sits and tries to make conversation, and you can tell they lead different lives, but they’re here together, eating, sharing some words. and you know they both feel pressure from each other and want each other’s approval, and gosh life is interesting. and we’re all consumed by our work and our relationships that we don’t often see each other, you know? like we don’t look around and wonder what we’re all thinking. we don’t wonder why we’re here together. why we’re eating out tonight. why we’re alone or with others. and we all can get so caught up being critical, of ourselves and of others. i can worry so much about what i’m wearing or my skin or my hair. and i can think something snarky about the girls’ sorority shirts or that guy’s crack that totally showed as he sat. and then i feel bad that i just noticed because i would not want someone noticing my crack if it just slipped out in public. and then i’m thinking about that mom by the window. and how i assumed she’s a mom. and how she put her sunglasses on after sitting there, even though there’s no sun shining near her. and then her son brings her water and she smiles. i could sit here all night and just watch all of these people who have each decided to come here and who each are so absorbed by their own lives. and wow everyone’s so beautiful. as they worry about grades or kiss their kids’ noses or teach their kids "proper" grammar or sit alone and look into space as they nibble on their baguettes, they’re all so beautiful. and, if they’re like me, they’re sometimes really not feeling it. i hope they are, but sometimes i’m sure they aren’t. sometimes they feel uncomfortable or weird, and sometimes that doesn’t feel good. but they’re so beautiful. like everyone here is so gorgeous and their lives are important and the way i treat them and everyone is so important. and sometimes my soul feels so refreshed when i take a step back, out of my daily stress, and just watch for a bit. it’s not all about me. it’s about the we. the we of togetherness and of existence, together. of sharing the same room for an hour, or breathing from the same pool of air that surrounds Earth. of the salad we eat that comes from somewhere, that was nurtured somewhere and probably at the hands of another worker who is exploited and struggles and is consumed by their life, but who also is so beautiful. and as this beauty sinks in, all i feel is a need for appreciation and responsibility. appreciation of others, myself, this world. this magnificent fact that we’re here together. we share our time here together. and responsibility, because we owe it to each other that we think about one another, that we care not to cause harm to one another. that we realize the harm we do cause and the harm we navigate through in our daily lives. because we are so beautiful. and we need to remember that.

[queertheorymagic]

questions and questions, and no answers

oh humanity. oh the never answered questions. the never answers. we seek answers. we crave them. we think they give us meaning. give us truth and explanation. they define what we don’t understand. they make the abstact tangible. the discomfort a little less uncomfortable. they give us hope that something is concrete. that we’re here together for a purpose, experiencing the same reality with the same factual answers. the same things to stop our questioning so that we don’t get carried away. so that we can rest. our minds can rest assured. things don’t just happen. there are answers. we, the almighty humans, can explain the world.

but we can’t. answers are words that we craft to ground us. to make us feel more powerful and in control of this world. because we know we can’t control it or each other or even our own minds sometimes, but answers let us feel like we can at least understand what we can’t control. we can predict. we can reflect and connect the dots. we can make meaning from the meaningful and the meaningless. as long as we assign our answers, we can know that somehow, we aren’t alone in this made up world. we are living in reality with real questions and proven, logical answers.

i’m coming to strongly dislike answers and the importance i am obliged to feel toward them. this world is busy and messy and things happen. and we happen. and we can’t even answer ourselves why we feel certain ways or do and say certain things. we don’t always know why we make decisions and why we act certain ways and think certain thoughts. and we read books or blogs to help us find answers and make us feel less alone or less powerful or less weird. we look because we want to know, we are curious, and because we need something to graps hold of.

i have so many questions. i have questions about life and the future and the unknown. i have questions about faith and love and vulnerability. i have questions that “matter” and questions that also “matter.” and i have no answers. or i do have answers, but i know those answers are simply to stop my questioning. this world is overflowing with questions, and those questions are imbued with insecurities. vulnerabilities. we don’t know everything. we know very little. we will never “know” and, really, what does it mean to know? to settle on some version of truth and be content with that?

i want to continuing embracing that i don’t have answers. i may have observations or experiences, but that is not evidence or some answerable truth. i want to challenge myself to remain resistant to dominant structures of education (and basically any system in society) that wants me to find answers. that wants me to feel uneasy with unanswered questions. i want to engage with others with the spirit of full engagement. of questioning. of sharing. of knowing that on this earth we are small and beautiful and our questions are extraordinary. and i don’t entirely know what that would look like—to stop valuing answers like we do. and i don’t know what would happen or if i would like it at all. but i know that it’s okay to question. to wonder. to fantasize and imagine new realities, new paradigms, new non-realities. i know that i have movement to do and ideas to ponder. i know that, like with all posts, i am going to keep developing further on this topic and then feel adorably silly for what i’m saying now. and that is okay. it’s wonderful. and sometimes answers are good. do i want to sleep? yes. where do i live? berkeley. but i want to embrace the unknown more. to accept, happily, a shift away from always looking for an answer and toward engagment. opening more and more doors, closing less and less, and feeling connected by merely knowing nothing about what is to come or why i am here on the earth right now. i let go of trying to make sense of everything and worrying about these questions i cannot ever answer. and instead, i can appreciate this vulnerability we share. we are so not in control. why do things happen? the answer is not the point. there is no “the point.” we exist. we breathe. and things happen. and those things can inspire big, big questions, which can spark new questions. and we will never really know their answers. we can, though, feel their effects.

[queertheorymagic]

Nobel prize-winning author Toni Morrison talks to Emma Brockes about being a single mother, the death of her son and why love doesn't last

"On the rare occasions Toni Morrison chooses to focus on criticism, it is this she comes back to: that before her work even "gets out the gate" it has already been taken as representative – of her race, of her gender – so it becomes less a novel than a sociopolitical statement. Morrison is fine with sociopolitical readings of her work, but the artist in her rebels against it being the only reading, particularly when her novels are held up against some preconceived notion of what, as a black woman, she "should" be writing about.

... I want to feel what I feel. What's mine. Even if it's not happiness, whatever that means. Because you're all you've got.

...There were certain things I could do with ease. Teach. And read books. And write them. And that area seems very natural to me. Things outside it, except with very, very, very close friends, are a little bit of an act. I mean, not in a bad way. Social."

[queertheorymagic]

Thank you for sharing. I've been thinking about this a lot lately and how I navigate my queerness and gender identity and expression.  :)  Glad to hear how others share in this (uncomfortable) navigation of identity. Lots to think about.

One of my classmates made a post about our discussion of fantasy in our class and how this reminded them about the ways in which they feel they are constantly justifying themselves as “queer enough” based on their understanding of their gender and sexuality. This brought me to this blog post titled

[queertheorymagic]

[queertheorymagic]

deep breaths

today’s been lovely. like, let’s go swing on a swing in some park with flowers and feel the sun beating down onto our skin that soaks it in. let’s feel that breeze and feel alive.

today feels interesting. it’s been a day of deep talks, of friends, of sitting on the grass and giggling and joking and talking about futures and wants and fears and fantasies and hopes. and it’s been a day where i’m so glad i have people in my life who bring me such joy. who i don’t worry about burdening because it’s not like that. who i don’t worry about censoring myself around because we need no filters. who actually know all of me—the varying presentations of my self.

we were talking about how we frame and are framed by others. how sometimes i’m sweet old mary and sometimes i’m radical as shit mary and sometimes i’m “mary sass-man.” who i am to others depends on how they frame me and how i present myself. and it varies in different spaces. and that further shapes how i show up in those spaces. and i am sweet and radical and sassy and all sorts of other things, but sometimes i can feel stuck and not know how to bridge my spaces. but sometimes i love it because i don’t need to. and sometimes i can just be with friends who get this.

so today. happy thoughts. and the juxtaposition of my happy thoughts and my fear of tomorrow. the day i’ve been dreading since one year ago. the day i still want to pretend won’t come. may 8.

why is it that death can be so intense to encounter? i remember in a class last semester when we talked about death and the unknown. how we’re all dying. yet what about a chosen death? why does suicide feel so different? it’s a choice. it often comes from misery and sadness and loneliness. it can’t be understood unless experienced, and thus can never be communicated. i don’t know. i’ve spent a year thinking about it and have realized i’ll never have answers to my many, many questions.

one year ago someone in my housing unit killed himself. a witness to that night, to that public death and the trauma experienced by many, i am forever changed. and what the hell is the significance of an anniversary? why is 365 days so important, but 360 days less important? why does this constructed measurement of time feel significant?

i remember the night so vividly. i remember the next day so distinctly. and i’ve been noticing may 8 creep closer on the calendar. and now i feel like pushing the world away for a day, but also reeling it in. holding it close. holding the sad and the lonely close. surrounding myself by people who don’t care if i cry or need a hug or need to be alone but in their house. i’ve been planning in my head just where i should be tomorrow. should i be in this same unit, where i still live, or should i hide away at a friend’s? should i place candles in the courtyard like i did last year, or does no one else remember?

and then talk about coincidences. what are the chances that i took a work shift in that building tomorrow night. the same night, same time, same building, one year later? i realized that yesterday and freaked out. is it a sign that i am meant to be there tomorrow? or should i try to get someone to cover for me? what the hell are the odds? then today i ran into a friend, a former co-worker, and his RA last year. twice. what the hell are the odds of running into her twice? but i needed it. because we didn’t need to be awkward about bringing it up. when we asked how each other’s doing, we both knew what we were answering about. and that feeling of not being alone was needed. having someone else to light candles with. having someone else who remembers and actually knows that night.

i don’t want tomorrow to come. i’m looking at the clock and wishing it could suddenly go back to april. and i’m thinking about his family. and i’m hearing sirens out my window and remembering the sounds of that night, the images of paramedics rushing to him, then taking out their white sheet. and me watching from my 8th floor room and changing forever.

i like to think he lives on. his spirit surrounds us. he’s in the lit candles and the burning matches. he’s in the air of the east bay, where he was born and raised. he lives on in my memory.

i just don’t want tomorrow to come yet. but i’m hoping i can also find peace with it. with one year passed.

and so i feel weird about today. because it was so good. and it was so good to have that friend who i could share this with. who said i can hide away at her house or she could come be with me. or not. who said i am okay to not know and i’m okay to feel emotional and i’m okay to feel unemotional. and i know that, and i’ve been telling myself that for a year now and i really do know it. but it’s good to have someone else know it, too. to assure me i’m no burden, without me asking or her even saying it. to just know that i have that support system. and that tomorrow is going to suck, but it’s also going to be okay. that i am alive. and life can be hard, and it can be cruel, and it can make me feel so heavy. but it can also be so light and playful and fun. and it’s okay if i spend tonight laughing or working or drinking tea or drinking wine. and it’s okay to feel these knots in my stomach. and it’s okay to feel sad, because death can be sad and his death can be sad. but it’s also okay to not let that claim my mood forever. because he can live on and i live on, and while the world can obviously be so tragic, it can also be so bright. and it’s all okay.

[queertheorymagic]

[queertheorymagic]

For fear of being silenced, I silence myself

i was thinking about what it means to write publicly. i’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. and i’m thinking about how my writing does shift when i’m writing for others’ eyes or mine alone. both are authentically me, but writing privately is a way for me to release. i can process what i’m feeling or release my thoughts so they no longer are bottled up inside of me but trickle out my fingertips onto my 129-page word document where my story has been building for three years. i’m thinking about what i write on my private document. and how writing to myself is so different. it produces something different. it feels different. and that’s totally okay, but i’m not sure it’s what i want. i’m thinking about what it means to write publicly, and not even an advertised kind of public but an accessible public. i can even be anonymous, but the act of having my words out there feels different than having them for me alone. sometimes i finish writing for myself and i look back and think holy hell this is beautiful. and it can be something i’ll tell my closest friends about, but i wouldn’t want to share it with them in writing. there’s something about the writing, the working through and the uncensored stream of consciousness, that makes it feel different. more private. even if my friend knows about that experience or knows those feelings or that person or whatever, the written manifestation of those feelings is incredibly different than my spoken expression. why do i feel so vulnerable to write and share that writing?

i was always taught to be careful what i put in writing. it’s documented. it’s permanent. anything sensitive should be spoken, i was told. that has been handy advice, and it remains useful as i move through my adult life. but what am i afraid of?

for fear of being silenced, i silence myself.

then, as i was walking around tonight, i got thinking about my favorite writers. those who most move me, whom i am fueled by, have drawn so passionately upon their lived experiences. dean spade, for example, has posted on his website(s) very personal work. (what does personal even mean? isn’t all work somewhat “personal” we just sometimes mask it and pretend it’s “scientific” or “academic” or “researched”?) i mean, he shares his life. he shares experiences that are intimate, that involve feelings and mistakes and imperfection. his work has ignited something within me. yet i remain hesitant to be public myself.

there are values to being private, too. i mean, there’s a balance between thoughtfully sharing your thoughts and experiences and sharing everything. there’s maybe a selectivity. the quality of the posts, not the quantity. gosh, who’s to judge quality.

when i think about what drives me, i feel scared to share so much. i already discount my experiences. i don’t want to sound whiny. i don’t want to make more of my experiences than what they’ve been. like, i grew up in a poor family. that daily struggle has shaped so much of who i am. yet i always feel like an imposter claiming my poor identity. look at how much privilege i carry. look at where i am. look at how my family has found it easier to make ends meet. who am i to talk? for fear of being silenced, i silence myself. i devalue my own lived experience.

i’ve gotten better at trusting my voice. something inside of me clicked last fall. something that said “what the fuck are you doing, mary?” how can i love my ideas and opinions, love my writing, self-care enough to write, but stop short of that confidence for others to witness my work?

i’m coming to realize that there is no sudden “click” that can actually happen—maybe in realizing, but not in action. i am always becoming, and part of that means always facing that resistance within myself. and wow have i come far. i look back at how i’ve developed in thought. how i have been on this roller coaster of confidence. how sometimes i’ve silenced myself when i have personally felt most commitment to my beliefs, but when i’ve stood alone. or feared standing alone. but how i’ve sometimes fought through that and led mass mobilization. it’s almost like i have these cycles.

well, in the spirit of becoming, i can’t make any promises. but i can commit to myself more challenges and more vulnerability and more public celebration of life. i read this book last summer with a line that resonated with me: “sometimes people use thought to not participate in life.” i pledge to participate. sometimes that means actually posting that comment on facebook or sometimes that means going on a spontaneous hike. sometimes that means attending conferences and sometimes taking time away from that paper to get coffee or watch a movie with friends. sometimes it means using that thought not to generate more thought among myself or my friends, but to push further. to want feedback and dialogue with more people. and to let myself want that, and to let others know i want that. to invest in my ideas enough to make them vulnerable, to develop them further. sometimes it means not writing for my own release or creation, but pushing submit or send and participating in a reciprocal act of knowledge production and feeling sharing. because even if no one reads my work or i don’t care for anyone to read it, sometimes it’s the act of taking that risk, of valuing my words enough, that ignites my soul. it can be a whole new experience. i don’t just love myself and my becoming; i appreciate my whole process through life enough to share it. to be vulnerable. to live without as many barriers. because i look around, and what is the point of us all going through life with these walls up? like we’re protecting ourselves, but we don’t even know what from. for fear of being silenced, i’ve silenced myself. and i’m sure i’ll continue to experience moments of silence. and those can be productive and insightful, too. but i commit to myself a new sense of self care by being more public, by taking up more space, by sharing my voice longer and louder. to exposing my fears, my joys, and my insecurities throughout all of the spaces i occupy. to investing even more into myself and my becoming. to not silencing myself, but embracing the other looming fear of actually being heard.

[queertheorymagic]

On a light note, this pretty well describes being a GWS major.

[queertheorymagic]

another reflection

rarely do i leave a class feeling so full. i feel so full. i am full of emotions and energy and hope. i feel incredible and alive. i feel so full that i’m soon to ooze with these emotions. i feel ready to hug the next non-stranger i see. i mean, the world is so beautiful. there is so much beauty and possibility and magical impossibility. i feel happy and tickled. i feel so alive and vulnerable. so so full.

i mean, when we talk about creating our fantasy worlds, we must deconstruct all of these boundaries we place between one another. i must let go of all of the narratives i tell myself only to silence myself. it’s rare that a class can have such an impact on me. i mean, look at how we all share so many of the same feelings. yet we seldom admit them, often not even to ourselves. and the blog made it possible to engage with these ideas and feelings, to share them with the world. the act of making public what is often most private is certainly scary, but that scariness, the fear that weighed on me and many of my classmates, was so productive. sometimes we can’t just stick to our comfort zones. and sometimes we can’t stick to feeling sort of uncomfortable. sometimes i need to expose myself and trust in myself enough to know that whatever happens, i’m okay. but sometimes i need to send my words and my energy into the unknown.

we all carry with us these traumas and vulnerabilities.not everyone needs to know these, but holy hell it is so transformative to share. i feel so transformed by this course at a very personal level. i feel connected with a class like i never have before. i mean, imagine what we can accomplish if we hold onto the spirit of this class. i commit to carrying this spirit of our space with me in all do, in all classes i take and spaces i enter. i don’t want to lose this.

i was so moved by our blog presentations. i took notes and plan to continue unpacking all of the words and phrases that resonated so deeply with me. this experience was so powerful for me—the act of speaking about things so private, making them not just raedable but heard my many, many whom i respect and admire. these last three classes were so beautiful and a testament to all of us and the space we’ve created. we’re all so fragile yet fierce. i want to say we’re all so human, but i know that isn’t entirely what i want to say. we’re so raw.

this semester has been a wild ride, with high highs and low lows. i’ve felt so present and then so removed. so heard and so silenced. i needed this class. i needed the confusion and the questions. i needed to feel connected to this university and my classmates. i needed that reminder of why i’m here at berkeley. and i think i really needed to feel that connection of vulnerability. we all go to class and sit there and sometimes make comments and take notes, and that’s cool and all, but i need more from this institution that routine academic behavior. this class was about feminist theory, but it was also about being human, about being alive, about common and unique pains and desires. it was about experiencing something together, and taking away completely different and completely similar things. but being together. learning together. developing together. challenging each other and ourselves. investing in ourselves. spending time with our feelings and our confusions and our frustrations.

part of me wants to find some great, remarkable, wrap-it-up kind of statement. but no, this isn’t something i need to/can wrap up. this is something that i’m going to keep unpacking and working on, and i don’t want a clearn ending.

[queertheorymagic]

Embracing the Rhizome 4/23/12

I guess this is the last official blog post for GWS 104.  :(  I am so ready for the semester to end, but not for this class to end.

I feel like today's class did bring us full circle. We didn't find answers, because that's not really the point. There's a multiplicity of answers while, really, there are no answers at all. We have to accept that discomfort, and hopefully embrace it. The concept of the rhizome helps us think not only about the questions we pose and the work we do, but also who we are, the space(s) in which we operate. Accepting that discomfort provides a sense of comfort for me.

Classmates brought up ideas of "getting lost" in the rhizome or being "units" that "get stuck in the structure." This whole concept is new to me (looking forward to some good summer reading of Deleuze!), but what strikes me about the concept is that it really challenges and enables us to rethink ... everything. The notion of "getting lost" or being "stuck" in a rhizome is the frustration of negotiating our current understandings—of self and other, of past, present and future, of origin and growth—with an abstract concept that deconstructs everything we base our understanding on. The rhizome allows us to see that we are not simple autonomous units. We are not containable. We are spread throughout, without clear beginnings or ends, but with endless possibilities. How cool is the thought that we are not containable? Imagine how real our fantasies can become when we deconstruct these limits we place upon ourselves and others. We are rhizomes. We are messy and productive and dangerous. We continue to generate thoughts and feelings, and we must believe in the impossible to realize it, to allow our fantasies to flourish.

I also can't help but think about the difficulty I sometimes have translating these GWS thoughts beyond our classroom. The rhizome allows us to believe in a fantasy world like never before, but we must believe it's possible. And that can be difficult to negotiate under current circumstances. Again, I have no answers. But I don't really want to come up with some answer. I just want to keep moving (I was going to say forward, but no! We're nondirectional!). I want us to keep developing. And I want to continue having these confusing and illuminating conversations together.

[queertheorymagic]

Why I need Gender & Women's Studies this week 4/11/13

This week has been rough. Each day, I've been reminded of how I need this department. I need these classes. I need to feel that my voice is heard and valued.

Where do I start?

This week I found out I didn't receive a scholarship I was a finalist for. While I know that life goes on, I inevitably am reflecting on my application, preparation, my mock interview, and my actual interview. I have no idea why I did not receive the scholarship and I know that everyone at the finalist stage deserved it. In reality, getting it versus not getting it does not so much matter. But what I am finally realizing is my frustration throughout the process. While the experience was transformative and rather incredible, it was so because I believed in myself and felt so proud of how I did. But I felt proud because I had to answer some really tough questions that doubted my abilities. I'm finally able to put words to how I felt: devalued. I constantly had to prove my legitimacy beyond the typical competition. By being a double major in Sociology and Gender & Women's Studies (instead of the typical Political Science), by proposing a policy on transgender folks and identification documents, by reference Audre Lorde and centering my work on the most vulnerable in society, by declaring a future in academia (instead of a typical law career), I already had more to prove. Not only that I deserved the scholarship, but that this work is valid, that my passion matters, that my anger is productive and healthy, that I am going somewhere and worth investing in. Before my actual interview in Denver, I had a mock interview here on campus. It went well, and I knew that it went well, yet I still felt defeated after I left. I couldn't figure out why I was on the verge of tears. A month of reflection has helped me realize that, although the mock interview did in fact go well, I was overwhelmed by the questions I was asked and the feedback I was given. I used the word "feelings" during a response, and I was quickly criticized for using the word. After all, policy making has no room for feelings. Policy making must be based on rational decisions. I was warned to be careful not to sound defensive. Because we don't want people who need to be defensive, right? These issues of poverty and incarceration and violence only matter enough for us to sit around and debate while sitting in some privileged setting.

I let my true self show. In truth, I would never submit an application that "played it safe," as some encouraged me to do. But it does suck to wonder if this is a reason I didn't receive the scholarship. In my application, when asked what issues I will address in the future and why, I mentioned how my work with incarcerated queer and trans inmates has allowed me to find a "healthy place of anger" that fuels my future work. Of course I was asked about this during my actual interview, and I referenced Lorde and talked about how all of the issues I represent are highly personal. I will not give up. I understand the gravity of these issues and that fact that I'm fighting for the survival of communities and people who should not have to fight just to claim their identities or live without constant threats. I'm not going to quit because of the uphill battle I'm against. I am committed to this work.

Here's the deal: I have lots of feelings, I am defensive, and I am fueled by anger. I'm unapologetic, and I'm still not giving up. I sadly feel the need to clarify that I didn't just go in with my guns blazing. But I was me and I did respond to the question about gay marriage stating that it should not be our main goal. When super randomly asked about banning pornography (obviously asked because that's all we talk about in GWS, right?), I didn't give the simple answer they thought I'd give but instead complicated the entire argument by talking about the agency womyn and queer and trans folks can experience through porn. With everything, I didn't waiver from my strongly held convictions.

During my mock interview I was asked about school bathroom policies for trans students. The mock panel didn't like my response and tried to help me package it differently. I understand the idea of needing to convince people. I also think it's a fine balance between meeting others where they're at while also realizing that where they're at may need to change. If we keep using the master's tools, we all know by now that we'll never dismantle the master's house.

I guess the whole thing has me thinking about the trap of recognition and the problem of seeking validation from others. Throughout this semester I've witnessed myself trickily juggling when to seek that validation and when to know not to. For example, I designed a DeCal called "Collective Liberation" that I facilitate through the GWS department. At first the Academic Senate did want want the course to be three units, despite GWS faculty approval. I know I'm reading into it, but the experience totally felt like this GWS DeCal was devalued as rigorous work worthy of three units. I had to work hard to prove that the work we're doing is valid, academic enough, and rigorous enough. Then with the scholarship process, I again feel like this work we do in GWS or as queer feminist activists is absolutely devalued, misunderstood and deemed threatening. And there are totally benefits to receiving recognition and having the US government financially invest in what I seek to do, but there's also a weird feeling I get about having to prove myself to a panel of mostly old white men—or to anyone (and perhaps it's not good that I distinguish the panel as being mostly old white men). I don't know. I just don't know. But I do know that my future in academia really came under fire during my interview as I was told by panelists that professors really don't make that big of a difference compared to people working within political campaigns and the government, and again that does not feel good. Because even if this panel was merely trying to challenge me (which I know they were. They do believe professors are rather wonderful), they are still displaying common views that I'm up against. And while I know I have an uphill battle ahead, I sometimes want to take a break from constantly having to prove that the work I do is valid, that the change I seek is important, that the people I represent do struggle for survival and should absolutely not have to. Sometimes it's exhausting. While I know it's important and know I'm moving forward with even more conviction, sometimes it feels good to convince others and be given a helpful hand. And hell, while my list of where things maybe went "wrong" for me may be entirely made up for my own narrative of what happened (I'm hella conscious that I have no idea and will never know), the fact that I have these pretty damn good criticisms of what exactly did get asked of me still goes to show something.

Okay, part two. I know, this is long. And it's a total stream of consciousness so I hope I don't regret sharing this much!

So for a Sociology project I visited Santa Rita Jail this week. I am very into the penal system and how certain bodies are particularly vulnerable. I am especially interested in gender, sexuality and kinship and how the jail is both informed by norms while also reproducing norms. Interestingly, I argue that the jail paradoxically queers gender, sexuality and kinship relations while also attempting to "teach" normalized notions of identities. I could go on and on. Anyway, I was talking with a deputy sheriff who oversees one of the female housing units at the jail, and I asked her about transgender inmates. She talked about how they "have one inmate who thinks she's a he." She went on to say "a man is a man. This inmate is not a man, she doesn't have man parts, so she remains in the female housing unit." Okay, so I've done a good deal of research on trans folks within jails and prisons, but experiencing this first hand brought a new sense of sadness and frustration. With all due respect to this very kind deputy, but she is pretty clueless about transgender identity. Referring to one housing area for  trans men, she said they're all just gay men. I feel overwhelmed by the difference between current conditions and what we want (not to mention an end to the prison industrial complex). I feel so charged to create change and then also overwhelmed by how difficult it is to not only make change, but also to create change that doesn't involve accidentally harming others or that doesn't "play the game." Because really, I'm so sick of us "playing the game" to make small advances for the few. Yet, of course, when we don't do that... it just sucks how hard we fight for the rare victories, you know?

Okay, so I was feeling deflated and rather invalidated throughout this week for myriad reasons even beyond the couple I shared. But I guess I should finally end on the positive note: I love Gender & Women's Studies. I love the conversations we have in class. I love the fact that my feelings can and do matter, that my anger can be understood as productive, that we're all defending something/someone. I love that when something is said that feels uncomfortable or ignorant, we care to address it. I love that I have forums such as this blog on which I feel safe enough to share all of this and hopefully not feel weird about it once I hit "submit." I feel so grateful that at least most folks in GWS will find the things I'm saying valid and provoking, even if they disagree. I think that is very cool. And for yet another week, I'm reminded of why I need this department. This week, through all of the courses and assignments I've taken, it has given me the language to describe my feelings and to know that my feelings do matter. And to know that as long as we keep pushing through together, it's all going to be okay.

[queertheorymagic]

Words and Tricky Justice 4/4/13

Tons of things are on my mind this week. First, words matter. We all know this, but Mel Chen's book Animacies highlighted this mattering in new and important ways. Her distinction between the animacy of a vegetable versus a stone (41) is simple yet profound, and the consequences are huge. Our fights over language like "you guys" and "victim vs. survivor" are obviously critical, but we cannot think be satisfied. The ways in which we dehumanize humans, nonhuman animals, and objects along the animacy hierarchy consequentially impacts our own feminist and queer efforts for justice. In a sense, until we broaden our scope and think about a collective liberation for more than just humans, we will never be liberated and we will never achieve justice. Yet because we are unconsciously participating in this animacy hierarchy, perhaps we can never do justice. Or, as Chen said in class today, we may never be able to "do final justice." Because that would require others' input, including those from whom we cannot receive input. It's a really tricky privilege we have as humans, I think.

Today's guest lecture (which was amazing!) really got me thinking about doing justice and the impossibility of it, which doesn't mean we should try but that we should be cautious of our ignorant attempts. Again in Animacies, Chen talks about trans- identities, making me think about how words matter at such intimate levels. Chen argues that the hypen matters: "Such a prefixal trans- is a way to explore that complexity of gender definition that lies between human gender systems and the gendering of animals [...] gender is omni-present, though it is rarely monolithically masculine or feminine" (137). Chen's exploration of transness beyond humans is exciting and challenging as it expands the boundaries of what is typically understood as trans-. In fact, I'd argue that even among humans we often have a limiting understanding of what "counts" as trans- and which bodies and identities can lay claim to trans- identities.

When Chen brought up the idea of protesting the dehumanization of certain humans today, I was flooded with questions about how our efforts are so imperfect (which of course they are, but now I understand them in new ways). Who do we value enough to attempt to humanize? Isn't part of the history of trans and intersex activism a fight for humanization? To have trans folks seen as equally human within the animacy hierarchy, not as subhuman? I think even in my own work I have argued that "trans folks are often rendered as subhuman." However, in the last class we talked about the idea of causing unintentional harm. I have been so focused on not harming other humans that I have failed to acknowledge how my focus on humans consequentially harms nonhuman animals. Because even if someone/something/some being/some object is not human, don't we still want dignity and justice for them? How can we be causing harm to those we aren't trying to humanize?

Whew. My head is spinning. I mean, on a personal level I'm vegetarian because I don't believe it's right for humans to exert this power over nonhuman animals. I don't think our valuation of life is just or fair. But Chen wonderfully complicates everything. I'm going to keep thinking as I read on.  :)

One final thought: I've always loved Butler's idea of the human becoming strange to itself - an undoing of the human to make all humans possible (rather than fighting for inclusion). But how can we think about this idea in relation to the animacy hierarchy?

[queertheorymagic]

Tricky science and a demand for new resistance strategies

3/22/13

This week’s readings on feminist perspectives on and practices of science has left me with so many questions. I guess I always have trouble with our desires to locate scientific truths that justify our identities. Women have historically searched for legitimacy through science, even though oppression was also based in science. Some could argue they are using the master’s tools while on the flip side, they are changing the master’s tools. There is something to say for explaining our world through science, so I’m not proposing we ignore it altogether. But I think it is so complex, and sometimes when we even engage cautiously, we still cause harm. The queer community often relies on legitimizing scientific discourse, like throwing around the phrase “born this way.” Yet what does this do to people who are not born how they want to be? All lives should be possible, and it shouldn’t matter if they are “natural” or “by choice.” So we shouldn’t be framing our fights for queer justice in any legitimizing discourse that, while helping some, further marginalizes other folks. And I feel like science does that a LOT.

Another thought I had this week was around the idea of being deserving versus undeserving in terms of medical treatment. With trans folks, we see how many people have to be strategic in order to achieve livable lives. In order to have the bodies they want, people must take on a certain medicalized discourse that says they are disordered. With seekers of fertility treatment, we see something similar (though very, very different). In class, the article my group had quoted a woman comparing her infertility with having lung cancer. She was trying to access fertility treatment and, in order to have her desire seem legitimate, she relied on certain medical frameworks that would make treatment seem necessary. I am not discrediting any person for their tactics. Instead, I think it is critical that we are aware of how medical discourses frame oppressive structures and the ways in which we resist oppression by utilizing the discourses in different ways. And, in the end, I would argue we should instead seek different means for resistance. While I am not saying science is “wrong” or altogether “bad,” I do think that it should not matter whether science backs up our efforts or not (and thus utilizing it when it does causes harm for those for which it does not). Instead, we must make it so all lives are possible, whether they are scientifically legitimate or not. 

[queertheorymagic]

A Pitfall of Some Feminisms: Charis Thompson's "Making Parents"

In chapter 2 of her book "Making Parents," Charis Thompson describes feminist work on infertility and highlights tension between infertility treatment advocates and feminists. She argues that feminists have largely disapproved of infertility treatment because of its essentialist connection of motherhood and womanhood and relationship with heteronormative kinship.

Here we see a pitfall of some feminist work: this pitting of some people versus others. When we understand and frame our arguments this way, we all lose.

We should instead focus on everyone being able to live however they want. People who seek infertility treatment should be able to access it, yet they can do so and still resist heteronormativity. What about how queer and non-normative families can use infertility treatments and this reproductive technology? What about how it can be used to queer kinship relations? The issues are complex, but I think any time we simply stand against heteronormativity (and thus say some women's choices/desires are wrong/fueling oppression/etc.) without grappling with the complexity, we're failing to fight for a world in which all people and all of their desires are okay.

This all reminds me of a class discussion I once experienced about the limits of trans health care and the complexity of our arguments. We were all agreeing that of course health insurance should cover medical procedures for trans folks, whatever they may be. Then the professor challenged us: should a woman, say, be able to also get breast enhancement if her claim of feeling like herself is similar to a trans' person's claim for surgery? While we kind of scoffed at this at first, it became a challenging question we had to weigh. How would we negotiate these policy considerations? When it becomes so gray, I'm not sure there is some right answer. But I do think we have to ask these questions and care for everyone to be able to claim their own identities and lives, not just some.

Really, feminists cannot rely on having one right way. We cannot pit women against women, arguing that the choices some women make are wrong—that because some women do want children, and want medical treatment to help them become pregnant, they clearly do not care about inequality. Honestly, I feel like these are often the discussions we can get caught up in and, as a result, we miss the bigger picture. We spend time and energy causing harm to each other rather than focusing on productive ways to achieve our goals and ensure the dignity of all people.

[queertheorymagic]

Professor/Celebrity Sightings and Missed Opportunities

I'll never forget my first professor/celebrity sighting at UC Berkeley. I was a first year in my first semester, and I had just read a great piece by a  professor on campus in my Sociology 1 class. I was so intrigued by his work (and know he taught at my school) that I researched more of his work. Then, one day in Barrows, he got in the elevator with me and I had the first star-struck-by-a-professor moment. It was great.

Since then, I've realized how most of us are horrible at realizing the myriad opportunities we have to engage with professors and the work that inspires us. Brilliant minds surround us, yet we often get so busy and overwhelmed by workloads to find time to go to office hours or special lectures, let alone spend quality time engaging with the readings.

Tuesday's class was special because we had the opportunity to dialogue with a scholar whose work we just read. We could ask about her specific research. We could learn about her writing process. We could ask or say anything. Although many of us had midterms on our minds, I think we also didn't realize how cool this opportunity was. So I guess this is a reflection on my sometimes lack of engagement, and a promise to take step back and remember little first year me, the girl who was amazed to read something published by my own professor. While we become bombarded with hundreds of pages of reading and essays and midterms, I think it's good for us to take a step back and think about what we are getting out of these experiences. What do we want to get? Because we have such cool opportunities to get our questions answered, and I know I don't want to just let that slip away.