Links of the week 5/25/16

Here are some of the awesome things I have read this past week, my recommendations to you.

This nuanced, complex conversation between four non-binary folks (Meredith Talusan, Jacob Tobia, Tiq Milan, and Nico Fonseca) about gender, bodies, & the concept of “born in the wrong body” is brilliant and everyone should read it.

“Growing up as a fat queer person, my body has always been something I should not be allowed to identify with, love, or accept. Being trans meant that too. The more I wanted to explore my body, and push the socially imposed boundaries of presentation, the more I was encouraged to explore a hypermasculinity in order to validate myself, my identities and my journey. For me, coming into myself is to unapologetically let myself be what I want to — the radical self-determination and to reclaim the agency over my body, my hair, my voice, and my skin.”

Lin Miguel Miranda’s speech at the U Penn graduation, which you must watch if you have not seen it. While you are at it, take a look at Reina Gosset’s speech at Hampshire College graduation, too.

This week has been full of reading about writing and mental illness, and I am so grateful for that.

Kristine Willis tweeted at length about being bipolar and how it intersected with her writing and publishing experience. Those tweets are worth a read, as is this post of hers about coming out of a depressive episode.

“I’m having to pull the words from somewhere deep and almost forgotten and, at times, it hurts to do so. But I’m getting them out and that feels like something. Something significant. It feels like hope.”

There is also this storify by Kate Elliott with tips for how to write while depressed.

And Veronica Roth wrote about her experiences with anxiety and writing and in particular, medication.

“I was never the kind of person who was even open to the suggestion of antidepressants– I thought that was a sign of weakness, something other people needed, not me. I was strong. I would fight it on my own.

(Right?)

I’ll never forget what my therapist said to me the day I finally raised the subject of brain chemicals to her. It was pretty simple, just, “you don’t have to fight so hard.” Meaning: you don’t have to go it alone, do it without help. You don’t have to try to be so strong.

I burst into tears. She had released me, somehow, from the obligation of working so hard just to get out of bed, and put on clothes, and interact with other people.”

This interview with Vivek Shraya is amazing and you should read it.

“The first time I learned about transness, I was in my early/mid twenties. I remember wishing that I had been presented with the option when I was younger. It felt like a ship that had sailed.

After a solid decade of experiencing daily genderphobia and homophobia that I experienced in school, my early twenties was also a period of time when I was very focused on adopting masculinity. I often talk about how it was my mother’s love that prevented me from killing myself as a teenager, which is true, but choosing to live was an act of surrendering to masculinity. I even told myself that becoming a man could be a kind of fun challenge.

But the longer I have lived, the more painful the enforcement of masculinity has felt, especially as I have developed friendships with people who have been eager to celebrate me for who I am. So in a lot of ways, I see my transition as more of a “de-transition,” trying to undo the work I did to survive.”

This madness and oppression guide from the Icarus Project is worth a look.

This advice column on how to have hot nasty hookup sex as a QTPOC.

“So the short version is: I don’t think we can fuck as QTPOC in our tender, resilient, complex bodies the way the white bois in Queer As Folk do. I think we can have all kinds of public and non committed kinky sex, but not if we try and fit ourselves inside their model of anonymous sex. I think we’d all be dreaming our way closer to the decolonial rebellious sex our hearts want if we located ourselves here, in these miraculous scarred bodies. As not burden or broken, but as the gifts we have.”

This tumblr that’s focused on offering resources that counter queer & trans oppression: “The messages we need to tell us that who we are is important, magnificent, and necessary.”