Xan West's Blog, page 8

Links of the Week 10/1/16

I am starting this up again, because I have found so many amazing things recently. Here are some of the great things I have read or listened to this past week, my recommendations to you.

Two links about disability and kink:

This article about disabled people’s experiences in kink community that shares perspectives from Shanna Katz Kattari, Lyric Seal/Neve Be, Grace Duncan, Lady Solaris, & Azura Rose.

“I’ve had the most issues with the rope bondage community. When you tell people in that scene, “I have joint issues,” they’re hesitant about putting their rope on you especially with suspension. They’re worried something’s going to dislocate, and they’re going to drop me and are unsure of how to accommodate for the way that my body is because they often only learn one way of tying people up.”

This audio series on kink and mental health, by GirlyJuice

Two important trans medical articles:

This one about the first study on binding, that contains interviews with trans men & non-binary folks who bind.

“The researchers hope that the study will provide an initial roadmap for change, educating physicians on the benefits and impacts of binding and allowing those who bind to take charge of their health. They scoured peer-reviewed literature and information from health clinics, LGBTQ organizations, and online community resources, coming up with 28 potential health outcomes from binding. 1,800 respondents answered an online survey with questions ranging from how often they bound, what they used to bind their chests with, and their gender identity.”

And this one on the ongoing injectable estrogen shortage.

“The effects of the shortage are still trickling down nationwide, and the availability of injectable estrogen can vary from clinic to clinic. When the preferred 40 milligram dose ran out at Callen-Lorde, the LGBTQ-focused service provider began doubling up on 20 milligram doses. When they depleted their 20 milligram supply, they started quadrupling 10 milligram doses. Due to its lower concentration, this dose requires 40 milliliters of fluid to be injected into the muscle in a single sitting, an experience that Radix described as incredibly ‘uncomfortable’ for the person to whom that muscle belongs.

‘We need the 40 milligram dose,’ they said.”

Four awesome book recommendation lists:

This list of debut novels by trans women, compiled by trans poet Trish Salah
This list of bisexual YA, put together by Ana Grilo in response to the many recent issues with Voya magazine, most notably the biphobia in their review of Kody Keplinger’s YA book Run.
This list of YA centering POC as main or major characters who are living, struggling, and thriving with mental illnesses by Patrice Caldwell, who also writes about mental health in her family.
This list of ten two spirit authors you should be reading, curated by Kai Minosh

This dissertation on a psychology of unlearning racism by Vanissar Tarakali

This roundtable on sex in YA

“Why a book like Dumplin’ excels in sexual content is that Murphy has made it very clear how that character moves through the world physically. A test I would make when reading is, can you picture the characters’ entire bodies? Or are they just giant intellects on top of a lollipop-stick bodies? The body is such a central part of the adolescent experience—its growth, its betrayal, its tortures when it comes to comparison, its developing talents—that must be included to make a YA story come to life.”

These two podcasts from the Gay Romance Northwest Meet Up:

Trans Authors on Characters, Stories, and Industry

Trans panelists share their perspectives on writing, from character development to tropes to narratives, as well as our experiences working in the queer romance and publishing industry. We’ll talk about how we want to see trans romance evolve and provide resources for authors who want to write trans characters in their fiction. If you have questions about how to portray transness respectfully in your work, or about trans perspectives on the industry, this is the panel for you!

Moderator: Austin Chant, Author (Silver & Gold, Magic & Mayhem)

Panelists:

Tobi Hill-Meyer, Author and Filmmaker (Struggling to be Whole: Stories Exploring the Trans Erotic, Doing it Online)
Laylah Hunter, Author (Gabriel’s City)
EE Ottoman, Author (Documenting Light, Selume Proferre)
Alex Powell, Author (Rangers over Regulus, All the King’s Men)
J.K. Pendragon, Author (To Summon Nightmares, Witch Cat and Cobb)

Queer Swords & Odd Flowers: Sex Scenes in LGBTQ+ Romance

Be prepared to blush, as we discuss the ins and outs of writing, reading, and publishing sex scenes in LBGTQ+ romance. This open dialogue between writers and readers will tackle the politics and practicalities of writing about sex. Authors will talk about their approach to writing about sex, the power and purpose of sex scenes for LBGTQ+ readers, and the practical fears, inhibitions, and joys of erotic writing. Readers will have a chance to share their sex scene expectations and vent their pet peeves. All genders, orientations, and perspectives are welcome at this serious and irreverent meeting of the minds.

Moderator: Eric Andrews-Katz, Author (The Jesus Injection, Balls and Chain)



Panelists:

Isabella, Author (Always Faithful, Executive Disclosure)
Karelia Stetz-Waters, Author (Something True, For Good)
Lou Sylvre, Author (Loving Luki Vasquez, Delsyn’s Blues)
Yolanda Wallace (Murphy’s Law, 24/7)

Tagged: A Large Full Meal, bisexual, disability, kink, mental health, mental illness, oppression, POC characters, queer, queer romance, romance, sex, Show Yourself To Me, trans, trans authors, trans women authors, two spirit authors, writing, young adult literature

Going at My Own Pace, Part II: An Excerpt from Shocking Violet

Yesterday, I posted an essay about pace, and disability, and how reading Rose Lemberg‘s novelette, Geometries of Belonging, cracked something open for me as a writer around pace in Shocking Violet. I talked about how I was writing in a way that moved at my own disabled pace, and that honored the disabled realities of my characters. I said:

“So, I have characters who let themselves stim, who struggle in honoring their access needs, who grapple with being triggered, who honor each other’s need to manage symptoms, who try to go at their own pace, who get overwhelmed and figure out how to manage it, who push through, and who slow down because they have to. And I am making this aspect of disabled reality a consistent thread not just in the plot, but integrating it into the pace of the story, in the way the book builds and flows.”

I wanted to share an example of what I was talking about in that essay, a new excerpt from Shocking Violet, my queer kinky poly romance novel. This is from the latter part of Violet and Jax’s second date, and is set at Violet’s apartment, where they go after dinner. (If you want to read earlier excerpts first, links to them are collected here.)

Violet was looking at him in this way that had so much in it. Like there were layers swirled together and he couldn’t even parse them all. Couldn’t make sense of her eyes. It was making his hands shake, trying to look. His heart was beating way too damn fast. He stopped talking. It might have even been in the middle of a sentence. He’d lost track of what he was saying anyway.

But then there was this silence. It just grew bigger and bigger and somehow it was in his chest and there was no room for it and it was too fucking much after that look in her eyes.

Jax got up. Somehow he got his legs to work enough to make his way out of the room. He closed the door behind him and leaned against the wall, trying to get his brain to figure out where the bathroom was. He had said too much. Or she had seen too much. How the hell had they started talking about this anyway?

Oh, there it was. The bathroom. He closed the door, just gave in and sat on the floor against the wall, wrapping his arms around himself. Let himself rock, his back making contact with the wall over and over.

It had been the room itself. How there were fidgets by the bed. A vanity full of makeup and nothing scented at all. That was what had started the whole thing, that vanity. He had told her that he’d never been with a femme before that didn’t use scent, and how much he appreciated it.

She had said, “So they used scent even after they knew it made you ill?”

And it poured out. He hadn’t wanted it to. Hadn’t decided to let it out. Something about her tone made this…space. Something about how she phrased it. Like it wasn’t him that was wrong at all. Like he didn’t need too much.

There are so many moments like this, woven into the tapestry of the novel. They are an integral part of how the story flows. They are part of what makes this book so exciting for me to write.

Tagged: access, disability, going at my own pace, overwhelm, scent sensitivity, Shocking Violet, stimming

Going At My Own Pace: The Impact of Rose Lemberg’s “Geometries of Belonging”

We have this saying in my chosen family of fat disabled queers: “Go at your own pace.” A saying, a reminder. To ourselves, and each other. A way of holding onto our reality, insisting it is enough. A counter to the thousand tiny and huge ways that the world insists that we are too slow, that our pace is wrong.

It comes from a particular moment in shared history. My boyfriend was in the fashion show at a queer fat activist conference. Our beloved friend was running the show, and at rehearsal declaimed in a booming celebratory voice for the models to “Work it! At your own pace.” Ever since then, we have been saying this to each other, encouraging each other to go at our own pace.

For me, it is sayings like this that help, in moments of pressure and judgment. Help me remember that my intention is not to try to match the expected pace set by others, but to listen to my own self, to honor my own disabilities, and go at my own pace. The frequent repetition of this kind of exhortation is a balm for daily experiences of ableism, and a way to interrupt my own internalized ableism around how I move through the world and do everyday things, from how much I write, to how I get from one place to the next, to how I think through something.

Part of going at my own pace is about refusing to invest in passing as non-disabled, in all the ways that I have invested, much of my life. Honoring my actual reality by not trying to match the expected pace, or the pace of others. Honoring how I move, how I think. As if it was simply ok to be who I am. As if I not only believe that it is ok, but also believe that I don’t need to spend so much energy and so many spoons hiding my disabled reality. As if I don’t need to pretend that I have more mobility, or that I am in less pain, or that I am not mentally ill, or that I am neurotypical. As if I can just accept that the way I cope with difficult things is different, because autistic people’s brains work differently and that affects how we manage things like grief, because my access needs impact what help I can actually get, because dealing with a crisis when you have a migraine or are experiencing flashbacks is a just different kind of thing.

This intention, around not investing in passing, needs frequent reminders and bolstering. It is not easy to choose this, to remember it, to honor it. Just today, I was reminded by a dear friend, who is also autistic, that it’s ok to stim. That despite what we have been told as autistic people, stimming is not only ok, it actually helps. I need these reminders. I needed that one today, because I was struggling with that very thing, struggling to let myself stim in public, in a way that would be perceivable to others. Just a gentle nudge, a reminder of what I already know but was forgetting in the moment. That it’s ok to be who I am, and to let other people see it. To not spend so much of my very limited resources on hiding it. To go at my own pace.

When I read Geometries of Belonging (read for free here), by Rose Lemberg, one of the first things I thought was, “this story goes at my pace.” Just the fact of that, the way I moved in time with the story, felt like a miracle. Because I honestly don’t recall ever feeling that way before. Feeling like I didn’t need to work to match pace with the story, because it moved like I do. Like it didn’t take extra brain to follow what was going on. One of the next things I thought was, “ohhhh. I need to read more stories written by other neurodivergent writers.”

I cannot explain how deeply affirming my reading experience of Geometries has been. The pacing alone…the way this story moves just flat out works for me. It begins slowly, builds in spirals. When I am in it, I am fully immersed and held, supported. I get to attend to the things that are important to Parét, follow the way he thinks, connect with how he feels, and this gets to be so much deeper because I am not using such a big part of my brain trying to match pace with the story. I found myself breathing slow and even as I read, almost like I was meditating. It was as soothing as letting myself stim feels.

The story itself is told from the point of view of a man who is mentally ill. Throughout the story he gets triggered, and manages that, gets overwhelmed, and manages that, is cognitively impaired, and manages that, slides into pockets of depression and hopelessness, and manages that. It is woven deeply into the story, and I think an essential part of why the pacing works for me. Because so much of that experience resonates, especially the ebb and flow of it, the constant thread of managing. My days are threaded with managing sensory overwhelm, brain fog, pain, and PTSD symptoms. Getting to read a story centering a queer disabled character who moves through the world this way, in all the complexities of his life…I don’t have words for how much it means to me. To witness Parét grapple with ethical difficulties as a healer, take steps to avert war, honor his own needs, take a stand that values consent over cure, and be deeply in his desire for his dominant, all amidst the ebb and flow of managing his disabled reality…it was nourishment that I didn’t even know I needed.

This story, at its core, challenges cure narratives about both disability and transness. Paret is asked, by the family of an autistic non-binary trans person named Dedéi, to perform a cure for both their transness and their autism, despite Dedéi’s insistent repeating “I do not want to be remade.” Ada Hoffman says in her review on Autistic Book Party: “Approximately zero story time is spent on the decision of whether to perform or not perform a cure. It is obvious to Dedéi that they do not want to be cured, and it is obvious to Parét that he will not perform mind-healing on a patient like Dedéi who does not want it. The conflict in the story comes, not from agonizing over what it would be appropriate to do with Dedéi, but from the fallout and social consequences of Dedéi and Parét both sticking to their principles.” For me, an autistic trans reader, a story that grapples with cure in this way is nourishing on so many levels. And, these are intensely fraught and emotional things to read about. So I was particularly comforted by the pace, by the internality of Parét managing his own distress, overwhelm, and symptoms as he moves through the story. The pace, the way the story flowed, made it easier for me to manage, myself. I could hold all of this really charged stuff because the story held me as it unfolded.

This reading experience changed me, as a writer. It unlocked something I didn’t even really know was locked down inside me. I felt like I had all this new permission, modeling, capacity, to go at my own pace in writing Shocking Violet. To write a story that ebbed and flowed as disabled characters managed their everyday lives, building and renewing access intimacy with each other. To give that experience of managing overwhelm and trauma symptoms and brain fog lots of room in the story, integrate it fully.

Shocking Violet is abundant with disabled characters: characters with chronic pain and illness, autistic characters, characters with mobility disabilities, mentally ill characters. Many of the central characters in Shocking Violet are disabled in more than one way. And this way of writing, that moves at my disabled pace, that honors the disabled realities of these characters in how I tell the story…it feels amazing. Like one of the deepest ways I could continually choose to honor myself as a disabled writer. It feels like the next step in my journey around centering disabled characters in my fiction.

So, I have characters who let themselves stim, who struggle in honoring their access needs, who grapple with being triggered, who honor each other’s need to manage symptoms, who try to go at their own pace, who get overwhelmed and figure out how to manage it, who push through, and who slow down because they have to. And I am making this aspect of disabled reality a consistent thread not just in the plot, but integrating it into the pace of the story, in the way the book builds and flows.

Over the last few months, I‘ve been approaching the book sideways, sliding in to capture moments that need to be written right then, instead of writing in a linear way, which had been my original approach. I find myself frequently writing moments like the ones I describe above, that ebb and flow of managing. This way of approaching the book is new, and it feels right. Like it is honoring my pace, where I am at right now as a writer.

Tagged: autism, chronic pain, cures, disability, disability culture, disability representation, disabled characters, Geometries of Belonging, mental illness, non-binary, pacing, passing, Rose Lemberg, Shocking Violet, stimming, trans, trauma, writing, writing characters who are trauma survivors

What I’m Reading at Perverts Put Out 9/24 in SF

I am very pleased to be reading this coming weekend from my recent collection, Show Yourself To Me. at the Pr-Folsom Street Fair edition of Perverts Put Out!

Perverts Put Out! is San Francisco’s long-running pansexual performance series.  Join us for PPO!’s annual pre-Folsom-Fair blowout on September 24th. Doors open at 7pm. Reading starts at 8pm.

Celebrating the universe’s largest leather event, it’ll feature some truly perverted performances by Jen Cross, Gina DeVries, Daphne Gottlieb, Philip Huang, horehound stillpoint, and Xan West, presided over by your hosts Dr. Carol Queen and Simon Sheppard. Please don’t make us get down on our unworthy knees and beg!

At The Center for Sex and Culture in SF. 1349 Mission St. between 9th and 10th in San Francisco

I will be reading my story, “A Large Full Meal,” which centers two transmasculine tops. At it’s core, it’s about riding a wave of intense desire and endeavoring to be deeply respectful to a top who trusts you enough to bottom to you. It contains knife play, rough body play, and fisting. Here is a tiny taste. (As a heads up, this excerpt contains descriptions of knife play and rough body play.)

Knives get to me like nothing else. I’m one of those tops that likes to start with a knife and a wall, and go from there. To trap my prey, cornering him, until the wall is at his back and he is stuck facing my bulk and my knife. Because knives get me hard, instantly. There is this electric metal taste that seeps into my mouth, as adrenaline starts pumping in tune to the movements of the knife in my hand. We play that adrenaline together, and I find myself soaking up the steely scent of it, sliding my tongue along skin to taste it. 

So it is not surprising that he got to me, and I came face to face with the fiercest animal need I have ever experienced.  

A few months earlier, I had caught his eye at a sex club, but we both were busy at the time.  I grinned when I saw him in the hallway at the queer conference.  He was giving an impromptu lesson on cruising gay men to a couple of eager young trans fags. 

“It’s all about the body language,” he explained.  “See, in gay men’s community, touch is a primary mode of communication.  Say I think that guy is cute.” 

He raised his brows at me as I was walking slowly past him.  I turned slightly to catch his eye and cocked my head, pausing, eyeing his ass.   

“So I’d body up to him from behind, see?” 

And he did, slowly.  I could feel his breath on my skin. 

“And then I’d wait,” he said. 

I moved back slightly, completing the contact.  He wrapped his arms around my waist, settling in behind me, resting his chin on my shoulder.  Even from behind, I could tell his bulk was mostly muscle. 

“See how I waited for him to complete the contact before I wrapped my arms around him?  It’s all about the subtle signals.  Now I bet, if I trailed my hand along his arm, and tilted my head, he’d follow me.  We wouldn’t need to say a word.” 

He was right.  I followed him.  Into the single stall all gender bathroom, and locked the door.

I play hard. It is the only way to play. And I had a live one that night. A fellow top who, by the grace of the gods, had decided I was worthy. His strength was glorious, his power immense, and I was playing with someone who absolutely could take me physically if he chose. Our play was premised on his continual consent. There is nothing hotter than a faggot who owns his desires, especially desires that rarely get fulfilled.              

It began with touch. His large body against mine. My hands reaching around him and gripping the back of his neck. I was reading his response, his eyes. That’s when I knew he wanted to be under me.              

I pinned him to the wall and focused on pounding, on reaching into his skin to find the man underneath. This man with a wicked sense of humor, a twisted intelligent brain, and an incredible level of psychic and physical strength. I kept driving my body into his, grabbing him. I was determined to find him. With firm hands, with pounding fists, with skin grasping his. I wanted to learn him, know his body, devour him. He was no snack. He was a large full meal. All that strength and power, all that delicious desire. And the most jolting green eyes that just opened to me as if it were effortless.

I am excited to read this story; it’s a personal favorite.

Also, please save the date for a reading coming up next month. On Sunday October 16th from 2-4pm I will be reading my kinky queer smut at Feelmore 510 at 1703 Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, alongside Avery Cassell, BD Swain, and Sinclair Sexsmith.

Hope you have an amazing Folsom weekend. I hope to see you at PPO!

Tagged: A Large Full Meal, erotica, erotica readings, kink, readings, SF Bay Area, Show Yourself To Me, writing erotica

Reading at Perverts Put Out 9/24 in SF

I am very pleased to be reading my queer kink erotica at the Pr-Folsom Street Fair edition of Perverts Put Out! I adore PPO, and have been reading at this edition of the fabulous performance series every year since I moved to the Bay Area. I am glad to continue that tradition.

When: Saturday September 24, 2016. Doors open at 7pm. Reading starts at 8pm.

Where: The Center for Sex and Culture in SF. 1349 Mission St. between 9th and 10th in San Francisco

What: Perverts Put Out! is San Francisco’s long-running pansexual performance series. Come get kinky with us! Performers include Lori Selke, Gina DeVries, Phillip Huang, Daphne Gottlieb, horehound stillpoint, Jen Cross, Naamen Tilahun, and Xan West (me!), with your fabulous hosts Simon Sheppard and Dr. Carol Queen.

Cost: $10-25 sliding scale

I will be reading from my recent collection, Show Yourself To Me.

 

Tagged: erotica, erotica readings, kink, readings, SF Bay Area, Show Yourself To Me, writing erotica

Queer and Trans Storytelling Workshop is Canceled

Unfortunately, I will not be moving forward with my previously announced Queer and Trans Storytelling Workshop at Liminal (a feminist writing space in Oakland).

I am going to explain why, because I think that folks in trans communities in the Bay Area may find the information helpful.

The contract I was provided by Liminal misgendered me, despite the fact that Liminal knows the correct pronouns to use. I stated that I would not sign a contract that misgendered me, and stated that it felt disrespectful to receive one. Liminal did not take my concern seriously, nor address it in an appropriate or respectful manner, and did not provide a corrected version of the contract.

I have concluded that this space is not a good fit for me as a trans educator, or for a workshop on queer and trans storytelling. I will not be teaching it at Liminal.

Sincere thanks to everyone who was excited about the workshop and helped to promote it. I hope to find a way to teach the workshop soon, either online or somewhere else in the Bay Area.

I have retitled it Trans and Queer Storytelling.

Tagged: misgendering, queer, trans, trans exclusion, trans oppression, writing workshop

Queer and Trans Storytelling Workshop

I am very excited to announce that I will be teaching a Queer and Trans Storytelling workshop this fall at Liminal, the local feminist writing space here in Oakland.

Workshop Description :

This workshop will engage with queer and trans stories, both our own and the work of others. Together, we will think through this central question: What makes a story queer or trans? The setting? The politics? The themes? The identities of who wrote it? Who it’s written for? Who appears in it? We will read, listen to, and watch performances of queer and trans stories, finding inspiration for our own queer and trans storytelling.

Each workshop session will include engaging with stories, doing writing of our own, and sharing feedback with each other about our writing.  You are invited to work on something you have already started, or to begin a new project in this workshop. We will engage with stories that are both fiction and creative non-fiction, and you are encouraged to write either or both in this workshop.

Who:

This workshop is open to folks who are interested in writing stories (of any genre of fiction or creative nonfiction), whatever your experience level. You do not need to identify as queer or trans to take this workshop, as long as you plan to write queer or trans stories. Folks who identify as queer or trans are particularly invited to participate. This workshop is open to all genders.

When:

The workshop is 6 sessions of 2 hours each. It takes place on these Sundays 10am-12pm: 9/11, 9/18, 10/2, 10/9, 10/16, and 10/23.

All workshop participants (from all Liminal workshops) will be invited to read their work at a show on the evening of 10/28, at Liminal.

Where:

Liminal is located at 3037 38th Avenue in Oakland. Street parking. Near the 57, 54, 14, NX2, and NX3 AC Transit Lines.

Cost:

Fees are sliding scale $150-$320, with 2 spots held for people who are not financially able to contribute. Registration is through Liminal, but it is not up yet. I will post a link when it is.

Access:

The entrance to the space is wheelchair accessible (no stairs, wide flat entranceway), but the bathroom is not.

Note: In order to make this workshop more accessible to folks with chemical sensitivities, please come to the space fragrance free. If you want to learn more about what it means to come to a space fragrance free, here are a few resources:

http://www.eastbaymeditation.org/accessibility/fragrancefree.html
http://www.brownstargirl.org/blog/fragrance-free-femme-of-colour-realness-draft-15
http://eastbaymeditation.org/accessibility/PDF/How-to-Be-Fragrance-Free-.pdf

About the instructor:

Corey Alexander is a feminist queer and trans writer, educator, and community activist, who has been publishing queer and trans erotic stories for the last 15 years under the nom de plume Xan West. Their recent collection, Show Yourself To Me: Queer Kink Erotica, was published in 2015 by Go Deeper Press. Find Corey’s thoughts about the praxis of sex, kink, queerness, power and writing at https://XanWest.WordPress.com.

Tagged: queer, storytelling, trans, writing workshop

Bisexuality and Me: One Trans Experience

 

(Some notes about content: this post speaks openly about queer and trans oppression and in particular talks about intra-community gender border wars and ciscentrism. It also tells a story about my own experiences of internalized queer oppression as a kid, related to a queer hating therapist. It also references my queer kink erotica without sharing excerpts or many details.)

About 25 years ago, when I was a teenager and first questioning my sexuality after a drunk friend made a pass at me at a party, I asked my therapist if she thought I was bisexual. She said that I wasn’t bisexual. I was relieved at the time, though now I get angry just thinking about how unethical and fucked up it was for her to say that.

A couple years later, when I was in college, this girl I had a crush on asked me if I was bisexual, and I said yes before I even really thought about it. It just felt true, even if it caught me off guard to say it out loud before I let myself know it inside. So, I came out as bisexual, went to an LGB youth support group in my college town (It was 1993, before people started using LGBT), found queer community on campus.

The next year, I co-ran a bisexual support group on campus. I wasn’t just out to pretty much everyone I knew (including my family), I was *really* out as bisexual, one of the most visible bisexual students on campus. Co-leading the bisexual group on campus was about finding bisexual community and support for myself, insisting that the B not be silent or silenced in queer community, honing my analysis of the ways bisexual folks are dismissed, erased, hypersexualized, and rejected, and supporting other bisexual students to grapple with bi erasure, biphobia and intra-community bi oppression. It remains one of my most treasured community collaboration memories.

About 19 years ago, I joined the local triangle speakers bureau. We would go around to classrooms and community spaces in groups of four: one cis lesbian, one cis gay man, one cis bisexual, and one cis straight parent of an LGB person. The cisness was never outright stated as a requirement, just assumed. By that point, I identified as transgender, and gender fluid, but often was read as cis, even after I came out to people. They just didn’t get it.

I didn’t fit into the box everyone assumed I should be in as a bisexual person “representing” bisexuals. We would be in a high school classroom, and a student would ask (pretty much every single time) whether I preferred men or women, and I would answer truthfully. (Which is what they said to do in the training we got.) I would say something that is true to this day, that my gender preferences go all over the map, and are mostly about being attracted to queer genders of all sorts, including other trans people. Then one of the cis gay or lesbian people would quickly interject what they thought of as the “right” answer (which was something vague about how bisexuals are attracted to “both genders”). After which my fellow panelists would look at me warily every time I answered a question, or sometimes jump in before I even could say a word, clearly nervous about what might come out of my mouth. It didn’t take long before I quit the speakers bureau, which is likely not a surprise. They wanted the “right” kind of bisexuals, and I clearly was not cis enough to represent bisexuality.

It took me a few years of insistently identifying as both bi and trans before I realized that if I continued to use the word bisexual to describe my sexuality, people wouldn’t understand what I meant. Even other bisexual people. Or at least the ones who were cis. Most cis bisexual folks talked and wrote about bisexuality in a way that erased my existence. They couldn’t even imagine that there might be bisexual folks who might be attracted to more than two genders, much less the existence of a wide range of trans and non-binary bisexuals. They weren’t the only cis people in queer communities doing this kind of erasure and rejection and participation in gender border wars. That was widespread across LGB communities. But bisexual community was supposed to be my community, so it hit me in my softer spots.

I realized that identifying as bisexual might resist bisexual erasure in queer community but it would continue to add to trans erasure in bisexual community, because people were working from a deeply embedded cis framework when they thought about bisexuality, and that was not changing any time soon, despite my personal efforts. After years of struggling to claim bisexuality, and years of being very out and supporting other bisexual folks in queer community, it hurt so much to know that identifying as bisexual would erase my transness to people, and would erase transness in general, particularly genderqueer and other non-binary identities (though we didn’t use the term non-binary in the late 90s). I felt pushed out, like I was being rejected from bisexual community because of my gender and the shape of my desire, a shape that didn’t fit the molds created in a ciscentric framework.

That’s when I started using the word queer pretty much exclusively. (I did not hear the term pansexual til about 5 years later, and then it was used to refer to kink communities that were deeply heteronormative and mostly straight with a smattering of bisexual women and did not feel nearly queer enough for me. So as an identity label it did not appeal.) Queer felt big enough to hold me in all my complexity, and connected enough to LGBT communities. Queer was a politic and an identity all at once, and that spoke to me. Queer made sense. Not because I didn’t think of myself as bisexual, but because I was too hurt by the way bisexual politics and culture worked in queer communities, too hurt by the way that if I identified as bisexual, no one could hold my transness. (Not all bisexual culture, that’s why I kept trying for so long, because it seemed like there were some folks in bi communities who were wanting things to change too. For example, the magazine Anything That Moves worked really hard to reframe bisexuality in a larger way that was explicitly trans-inclusive. But they were working against the grain, and folded not long after they began those efforts.)

Identifying as queer and trans felt like it held more possibilities of being seen and recognized and finding my people, and that was what I really needed right then. I still do.

I called my erotica collection Show Yourself To Me because it is all about the ways that sex and kink can feel like the best, most intense and sharp kind of recognition that you both ache for and are scared to death of and get off so hard on, all at once. I’ve spent the last fifteen years writing about the kinds of sex and BDSM that are possible when you are seen as who you are, in all of your complexity. And I call it queer erotica because it centers the kind of queers I make community with, the kinds of queers I have been and the kinds of queers I have fallen in love with, partnered with, fucked, and desired.

Many of the characters are trans and non-binary, and they play with folks who are a range of genders. I am especially fond of writing trans and genderqueer characters that play with other trans and genderqueer characters. There are a number of group scenes that involve folks with many different genders (definitely more than two). This book is about the kind of queerness I have embraced in my life, the kind that has held my transness in its many permutations and found them all hot. The kind of queer desire and love and glorious recognition that I had hoped bisexuality could hold for me, had ached for bisexuality to encompass.

Do I think of it as a bisexual erotica collection in my own mind? Yes. As much as anything can be. Many of these characters desire, love, partner with, play with, and fuck characters with multiple genders. Are they mostly trans and non-binary characters on both ends of things? Yep, they sure are, though not all of them.

Is a story about a trans butch dominant who plays with his gender fluid submissive partner as first a girl and then a boy a bisexual story? Is a story about a cis queer man who participates in a group scene with a dyke boy, a cis queer man, and two trans men a bisexual story? Is a mènage story between two queer trans men (who are exes) and a cis queer femme (who is one of the trans men character’s current submissive partner) a bisexual story? Is a story that includes a queer trans man getting gang banged by trans men, cis men, and dykes a bisexual story? Is a story centering a leather family that includes two cis dykes, a trans femme dyke, a genderqueer, a cis queer man, and a femme trans man who all play with each other and hold kink space for each other as they play with others a bisexual story?

It all depends on your framework. On how you conceive of bisexuality. On whether your default for bisexual is a cis bisexual person. On whether your default for who a bisexual person is attracted to is cis people. On whether you can open up your concept of bisexuality enough for it to hold stories and lives and people that are relentlessly insistently deeply queer and trans and genderqueer.

To be clear: I don’t think that bisexuality is inherently transphobic. And I don’t think bisexuality needs to be or automatically is built on a cis framework. I spent several years resisting that framework in bisexual community, trying to change it, before I began to focus on finding community with people that could hold my gender. I think it is very possible to have a concept of bisexuality and bisexual community that does include trans people, including non-binary trans people. And there are definitely some awesome vocal bisexual people who talk about bisexuality this way, who don’t work from a ciscentric framework.  But the unfortunate current reality (of my experience) is that many bisexual folks, when they talk bisexual politics or create bisexual culture, are still very much working from a cis framework that erases trans folks, particularly non-binary trans folks like me. Not just as potential partners, but as potential folks who are also bisexual.

This kind of erasure of my own reality as a genderqueer person who is attracted to and partners with folks who are a myriad of queer genders is what cuts deep and continues to leave lasting aches in my queer heart. I experience this kind of erasure and ciscentrism around bisexuality pretty much every day that I engage with queer social media and queer culture. And it makes me incredibly sad.

So, do I think of myself as bisexual, 25 years after I first started wondering if I was? Yup, I still do, inside. Do I call myself bisexual out in the world? No, I gave that up about 17 years ago. Because bisexual community and culture broke my heart, pushed me out, and still erases people like me. Because calling myself queer means that more people understand what I mean when I describe myself. Because I do not want to collaborate in my own erasure as a non-binary trans person who primarily partners with other trans people and is attracted to a wide spectrum of queer genders.

Tagged: bisexual community, bisexuality, ciscentrism, erotica, exclusion, gender, gender border wars, genderqueer, queer, Show Yourself To Me, trans

Reading at Perverts Put Out in SF 6/23/16

I am very pleased to be reading my queer kink erotica at the Pride edition of Perverts Put Out, which is part of the 2016 National Queer Arts Festival!

When: Thursday June 23, 2013. Doors open at 7pm. Reading starts at 8pm.

Where: The Center for Sex and Culture in SF. 1349 Mission St. between 9th and 10th

What: Perverts Put Out! is San Francisco’s long-running pansexual performance series. Join an all-gender, all-orientation celebration of lust and love! Performers include Greta Christina, Sherilyn Connelly, Gina DeVries, Daphne Gottlieb, horehound stillpoint, Naamen Tilahun, and Xan West, with your fabulous hosts Simon Sheppard and Dr. Carol Queen.

Cost: $10-25 sliding scale

I will be reading from my recent collection of queer kink erotica, Show Yourself to Me. I plan to read from “What I Need,” a piece filled with D/s, edgeplay, rough sex, pain play, bootplay, breathplay and bloodsports. What more could you want?

Here is an excerpt from the story:

I push you to your knees, take out my cock, and ram it down your throat. Fuck the niceties. I need to be deep inside you right away, and I am there, feeling your throat convulse around me, growling, telling you to choke on my cock, to take it for me. I have my hands wrapped in your hair and I fuck your face, watching you work to take my dick, reveling in the sight of tears in your eyes. I take your breath with my cock—your nose stuck in my belly, my dick down your throat—and watch you struggle, your eyes huge, tears rolling down your cheeks. I pull back just a bit to free your breath and yank up my shirt as I take your breath again, my cock blocking your throat. I don’t pull up my shirt often. I’m the kind of trans stone butch that usually fucks with all my clothes on, but I want to feel your tears on my skin. My hunger for that is stronger than my need to be completely covered, at least right in this moment, and I know how you see me.

My stomach is jammed against your nose, allowing you no air. I savor it, the control I have over you in this moment, and wrap my hands into your hair, pulling it as I feel you gasp around my cock. Then I let you breathe again, pulling out for a moment to slap you across the face with my dick, watching your mouth form the words, “Thank you, Sir.”

I slap you in earnest, hard on the face, with my cock, then the back of my hand, repeatedly, each time upping the intensity. I thrust into your throat, feeling you choke on my cock, telling you to take it for me, be good for me. I groan and grip your hair tightly, ramming your mouth onto me, closing my eyes, savoring the feel of being deep inside you. I work my boot between your legs and grind it into you, meeting your eyes and watching them fill with pain, my dick muffling any noise you might make. I ride your throat hard, my boot grinding in time with my strokes, fresh tears falling on my fat belly and making my cock even harder.

I hope to see you at Perverts Put Out, if you are in the Bay next week.

Tagged: erotica readings, Perverts Put Out, Pride, queer, readings, Show Yourself To Me, What I Need

Links of the week, Orlando edition

I usually post links once a week, of things that I have read that I am recommending to others. Here are some pieces about the massacre in Orlando that I would like to share. I am centering queer and trans Latinx voices. I have read them over the course of many days and would not recommend reading them all at once. I hope you will take care of yourself in reading.

Justin Torres in praise of Latin night at the queer club.

“People talk about liberation as if it’s some kind of permanent state, as if you get liberated and that’s it, you get some rights and that’s it, you get some acknowledgment and that’s it, happy now? But you’re going back down into the muck of it every day; this world constricts. You know what the opposite of Latin Night at the Queer Club is? Another Day in Straight White America. So when you walk into the club, if you’re lucky, it feels expansive. “Safe space” is a cliche, overused and exhausted in our discourse, but the fact remains that a sense of safety transforms the body, transforms the spirit. So many of us walk through the world without it. So when you walk through the door and it’s a salsa beat, and brown bodies, queer bodies, all writhing in some fake smoke and strobing lights, no matter how cool, how detached, how over-it you think you are, Latin Night at the Queer Club breaks your cool. You can’t help but smile, this is for you, for us.”

Christopher Soto’s poem “All the dead boys look like me”

This article by Miriam Zoila Perez on when the one place that feels like home is invaded.

“I’m queer and I’m Latina and whenever there is a queer Latin night at a local bar or club, I’m there. With bells on. Just four days ago, on Thursday night, I was out celebrating the 10th annual D.C. Latino pride at a big gay club in the city. My friends and I, some Latina and other queer folks of color out to celebrate with us, spent hours dancing our hearts out. A few times throughout the night, I leaned into my friend Ayari’s ear and shout-whispered over the music, huge grin on my face, “This is my version of heaven.”

It’s hard to explain just how beautiful it feels to be surrounded by queer Latinxs, listening to the music of our childhoods, dancing the dances we learned at family parties, but doing it in beautiful transversive queer pairings. Nothing gives me more joy than seeing two queer Latina women dancing salsa, one of them leading the other even though she probably had to teach herself that role. Or two gay Latino men dancing close and sexy to a bachata rhythm. The lyrics may not be about our love, but in those moments we reclaim it wholeheartedly.”

This article about a new image of Latina superhero La Boriqueña standing with Orlando.

“The image below was made by illustrator Dennis Calero, under Miranda-Rodriguez’s art direction. It depicts La Boriqueña flying through the air with a massive rainbow-patterned Puerto Rican flag waving behind her.

Beneath her are the words, “Unidos con Orlando” — which translates from Spanish to “united with Orlando.”

‘I love art that has a political purpose behind it,’ Miranda-Rodriguez said in a phone interview with Mic on Wednesday. ‘I look at this incident as a hate crime against Puerto Ricans and the LGBTQ community … [and] the very fact that La Boriqueña exists makes her political.’”

Jack Aponte on .

“But we who are born with the bloody birthright of being American have a choice about what we take from the tragedy in Orlando and where we go from here. Our so-called political leaders spout the expected lines about radical Islam, but Latinx and Black queer and trans folks and our allies are choosing a different path. Queer and trans people I’ve spoken to, queer and trans organizations, and Latinx and Black folks are gathering together for comfort, community and solidarity as we grieve and mourn the dead.

In my experience, we’re not gathering because we’re more afraid of homophobic or transphobic violence than we were before Saturday night’s atrocity. The fear that I’ve heard most of my friends and community express is the fear of the violence that the US government may well cynically and hypocritically enact in the names of Latinx and Black queer and trans folks who, on any other day, would at best be ignored by most of these politicians.”

This video in which queer and trans Latinx activists explain how America contributed to Orlando massacre

On why it matters that it was Latin night at Pulse, by John Paul Brammer

“They killed us while we were holding our drinks and dancing bachata. They killed us while we were smiling, while we were slapping each other on the asses and calling each other “perra” and “guapa.” They killed us where we meet each other, where we ask where our families are from, and where we crack playful jokes about Mexico or Puerto Rico or Venezuela. They killed us in our sanctuary, where we are at our most free. Not just free to be queer. Not just free to be Latino. But free to be both at the same time. That’s where they killed us.”

This comic by Terry Blas

This post on Autostraddle by Mey Rude that shares the words of queer Latinxs about the massacre.

“Here are just a few of the many, many LGBTQ Latinxs in our community who are speaking up and speaking out to make sure that queer Latinxs are not erased.”

Louie A. Ortiz-Fonseca on why it is critically important not to erase that queer Latinxs, especially queer Puerto Ricans, were targeted in this massacre.

“Yes, this tragedy has impacted our entire queer community. And yes, in these critical times we must find every bridge that connects all of our oppressions, but we must do this without reinforcing erasure of Puerto Ricans, a community that continues to be colonized by the U.S. Puerto Ricans continue to be migrants in their own country, and while many of us are not fleeing the island because of violent dictatorship, some come to the mainland seeking solace and refuge from an island that has been and continues to be pillaged by white supremacy.

The larger queer community must be willing to come to terms with the fact that this attack was fueled by much more than homophobia. This attack was fueled by the same anti-blackness and disregard of black and brown bodies that continues to exist in the fabric of every rainbow flag swinging in every gayborhood in this country.”

The tumblr, Escuchame for Orlando

“a place for queer Latinxs to come together and let our voices be heard about the massacre in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. This is an anonymous space because whether you’re out to the whole world, or just to yourself, you deserve to be heard.”

Tagged: grief, Latin night, massacre, Orlando, poetry, Pulse, queer, queer Latinx, trans, trans Latinx, violence