Authorrising Issue 002
Issue 002:2020 instagram/authorrisng facebook/authorrisngzine twitter/authorrizing email/authorrisingsubmit@gmail.com
This issue isn't for cis-people by
This is an unadulterated effort for th tion' over their 'liberal' values. Cautiously and pro-acvtivly as a socie nounce our stance on keeping the pea always prioritizing those that our soc image:
Werk
testing outside
Cover for Peace :ProCapitol Hill (2017)
the LGBTQIA+ community.
he majority renewing their 'confirma'
ety, as a human beings we need to pro' ace and safety towards and ciety actively neglects - to say loosely.
THE FUTURE IS NOT FEMALE P11 TRANS LIBERATION DOESN'T NEED INCLUSION P17
SCREENSHOTS 'N' MEMES P1,2,15,16,23 &30
P3 AMA
JON P7 CONTENTS John P13 Priyanka P25
AMA 8. HOW ESSENTIAL IS YOUR SILENCE IN SURVIVING IN OUR ESSENTIALIST IDENTITY STRUCTURE?
1. Have you ever apologized, on part of your identity?
I think my privilege as a light-skinned, mixed-race, Black woman allows me to be far less silent than I would have to be if my skin-tone was darker, however I still find for the most part that mainstream (often assimilated) gay community -predominantly cis, white, gay men - is not intersectional at all and I cannot rely on them to bey my ally’s or to have my back. In this way, in order to access gay spaces such as many bars and clubs ,oevents, meetings, support-groups or festivals the silence of my Blackness is required. This is one of the main reasons that I started running Black LGBTQIA+ clubnights, so that I wouldn’t have to go to another “Black-themed” night in a gay bar that was full of white people twerking to Nicki Minage. That’s not my idea of a good time, that’s an intensification of the appropriative, hyper-sexualized violence I live through every day, in what is supposed to be a safe space. Yet over the last five years or so a huge amount of labour and love has gone into bolstering QTIBPOC spaces, spaces that work to honour lesbian, gay and trans Black indigenous and of colour legacies of resistance and pleasure activism. As I get older too and gain more professional agency I am more and more able to speak when I want to, and have even begun using my silence as a mode of self-defence: not everyone deserves access to my story.
Growing up in allwhite or majority-white spaces with all white friends I was constantly making my race palatable. I would be the cute, generous, chubby (not yet thick), unattractive friend., iI It was important that I was never perceived as a threat and I went so far as to put on my Ghanaian accent for their amusement. Although I was not aware of it consciously at the time, I was constantly apologising for my Blackness, my Otherness, my strength and my beauty, constantly, dimming these down in an effort to feel included, to belong in an environment that was never meant to nurture someone like me.
18. How far does intersectional theory represent progressive attitudes toward interconnected-ness? Do you feel it can truly ‘intersect your woes’? OR How are present debates within racial * LGBTQIA circles failing in their intersectionality?
For me, intersectionality only works if, intersecting with black people doesn't mean only mixed-race and light-skinned black people, and it doesn’t mean just straight black people, and it doesn’t mean just able-bodied black people. It only works if all of the marginalised sections of society are welcomed with equal seats at the table, and only if the aims of that table are to dismantle it and think through a world in which we aren’t sectioned-off at all.
15. When did you realise you balanced identities? How, if so, does it fracture the focus of justice for each part of your persons?
When I was about fourteen my older brother, told me that if I ever came out as gay he would not leave me alone with his children for fear that I might “taint” them. I was so shocked I felt as though he had hit me. Being, at the time, my only present Black family member the link that he offered to my Ghanaian family and my Blackness more generally was invaluable to me. All of the queer, gay and lesbian people I knew - many of whom had helped to raise me - where white and it seemed that these were two things that did not mix. I did not even know that there were “out” Black gay people anywhere other than in North America. I felt then that in order to live my queerness I would have to forsake my Blackness and my mixed-race identity would exist as a depoliticised, Othered version of whiteness. Now, over a decade later, it is my white family that I am learning to balance with my identity as a queer Black lesbian, and I am blessed to have a coven of mothers who put in the work to grow with me.
2. How has your sexuality been framed within your racial make-up? Being mixed-race and light-skinned, I find that I am often fetishized by Black and other people sexually, especially by cis Black men. I am and have been since childhood subject to an extraordinary amount of catcalling and street harassment. I find that as a mixed-race person I am expected to have all of the “exoticness” -, curves and high-sexual drive that Bblack women are stereotyped for -, but also to be more demure, passive, submissive and compliant romantically than these stereotypes. I am expected to be less political and less “angry” about racism and racial gendered violence: to be both the Madonna and the “Whore”.. Many of these tropes are circumvented within queer relationships (as opposed to straight relationships with cis men), I feel free-er to be myself, a human enriched by my Blackness and by my white family, yet not defined by my mixedness. Part of light-skinned privilege also means that it’s I think it is also more socially acceptable for me to be queer than if I was fully Black, especially because I have two families from such different cultural backgrounds meaning that I am more likely to have at least some family members who are not homophobic. As it happens I have been extremely lucky and both sides of my family are supportive of with my sexuality. Being mixed-race and “femme” presenting also means that I do not experience as much homophobia as if I dressed in a more androgynous way because I often pass for straight. Of course I have to work harder to be “visible” within queer communities which comes with its own difficulties and frustrations. 9. Which identity limits you the most politically? This is a really interesting question and I have to confess that I don’t know if it’s possible to separate them out. My racial identity is so interlinked with my queer identity, especially as I date within Black and brown spaces so it’s rare that I have to encounter racist ignorance in my own relationships anymore. Having said that I definitely feel that I am more limited as a Black woman than I am as a queer woman – the LGBT movement has had so much more affective political change than the racial justice movement in my opinion -, but this another factor of this is gain I think has a lot to do with the fact that I often unintentionally can pass for straight, so I am not immediately perceived as a threat by the cis-people with the most of the power.
I wish that people would ask what it is like being mixed-race in Black spaces that can at times feel essentialist and exclusionary and often 16. What do you hold a lot of un-discussed pain and wish people would even hatred aroundresentment toask to help ward mixed-race people, as well as collectively i un-interrogated privilege and bias magine outside of from mixed and light-skinned folx the essentialist in their turn. Historically mixedidentity of ‘the race people represent all kinds of other’? violences:, from plantation rape, to colonial slavers taking second wives on the continent who’s “mulatto” children would sometimes go on to work in the slave trade themselves. These hierarchies are re-enacted through representation politics and palatability today, and it still doesn’t feel possible a lot of the time to have an open and compassionate conversation with one another as allies or co-conspirators, as members of Black community There is a huge amount of pain and anger and injustice that is laid at the feet of mixed race children both rightly and sometimes un-rightlyless fairly. I wish that sometimes people would ask what that feels like, how we navigate that, how wesome of us try to offset the privileges we are afforded due to our proximity to whiteness or to use them to make spaces for our darker skinned family. I wish that people would ask us for help, for support and solidarity, for access, and I wish that people would think with us, about futures in which we exist within Black families without constant references to the white blood within us that “taints” our blackness and how that means that we will never truly belong. The following interview took place with Ama in the summer of 2017
HAVE
JON
I find YOU EVER APOLologising to ap lf myse part OGIZED, ON PART OF on , lf se to my others, or daily YOUR IDENTITY? almost on a ty ti en my up of my id n ve ve gi years, I ha ng ci du in ybasis. For et xi going to an d rts of me an self-care by please pa g in ss re pp scomfort to su di , of ts e en at st ving a ha nt environm t ta ed for no in a cons is g og in ol be g ap g I in ed, accept ing at doin that happen or for fail d . ar th kw wi aw do others. When g pearin thing to time, for ap le I wanted no ab gh er g ou ng in en ra be od st t go r no with a I to others fo small talk wants first. apologising my d g te in ar tt st pu ve d I’ rte , pa ar ly a st to I’ve Recent g able to go em, because are me. for not bein sc to please th s ly nd al ie re fr my s men just ci suit e apologise to a it wh ar le to we crowds of d not being ab an ty, because r st fo ot m nn mu to my cause I ca be g, in I apologise dd to e tive’s we . I apologis to our rela causes in me me at ca th y gs et in xi th wish the an use I just . myself, beca to me easier
written in 2017
2. How has your People have always assumed and labelled me sexuality been as gay, even though I never have. I have always been femme, and have struggled immenseframed within your racial ly accepting that, and tried so hard, and failed, to hide it. However, to some degree make-up -Why has it not? OR I think being femme was almost intrinsic in my racial make-up. My male Burmese relaHow has your tives always stood in juxtaposition with the sexuality been masc macho egomaniac idea of a man the West framed withhad placed upon me. My uncles wear skirts in your racial (longyi – a Burmese traditional garment) and make-up? value the power of meditation, prayers and pondering upon your feelings – standing in complete opposition to the white Western men I interacted with. Thus, I always knew my masculinity stood in opposition to the other boys I knew – and that made my identity queer, even before it became about desire.
6. What are the similar histories of conflict/ oppression and dis-infringement between your political ident(y)ies? The main repeating thread that comes up over and over again throughout my political identities is the issue of being othered and e x o t i c i z e d . In any new interactions, my heritage is something that gets questioned almost immediately – people struggle to place my ethnicity and my accent in a pre-conceived box. I love my cultural heritage and love talking about it, but what usually follows my answer is a heavy exoticization filled with assumptions about my being, with very little curiosity to actually know more about me and my identities. I’m an “interesting mix” that no one has ever heard of, but they don’t know and they don’t care to know what that entails. Similarly, people have claimed my sexuality and gender expression to be “edgy” – simply because they don’t understand it, because it does not fit into the binary straight/gay, male/female, that we’re brainwashed into. I have always been made to feel different due to my political identities, and even in attempts of appreciation, the result is usually assumptions, oversimplifications and exoticization of my being turning me into a fascinating artefact belonging in a museum.
WHICH IDENTITY HAS INFORMED YOUR PERSPECTIVE OF YOURSELF MORE? When looking at how I perceive myself, I think it’s important to understand that my perception will always be biased and influenced by how I’m perceived by others. As hard as I try to repeat to myself the motto “don’t care about what others think, be yourself” everyday we are faced, especially as QTIPOCs, with others’ judgements, assumptions and perceived ideas. Thus, when looking at a perspective of myself, I need to recognise how my identity has been, and is, largely shaped by others’ perception of my identity. And in this my ethnic background, gender expression and sexuality come in place in different ways at different times. Thinking of how I was perceived and how I perceived myself growing up, I definitely think I was always associated with oddity and othering. I grew up in a small town in Italy, which was very conservative and very catholic. I grew up in a mixed race family, one of the very few ones in the entire town, following the Baha’i religion, an Iranian religion where the main goal is unity of humanity, and expressing my gender in a way that was very antithetical to the one of Western masculinity. Thus, when looking at which identity has informed my perspective of myself more, I find it impossible to discern all my different identities and the weight they carry according to the context. I’ve had interactions with gay men where my Asian identity was erased, and they imagined me as a dreamy Mediterranean Italian guy – which I was constantly reminded I was NOT in Italy. I’ve also had interactions where gay men immediately attached this image of submissive Asian guy looking for their white saviour. Despite my efforts to present myself in a holistic way, where my mixed race identity and my queerness are able to express their thousands of facets, others have reduced me way too often to a racial and/or sexual stereotype. The perspective I have of myself, and my identities, are constantly challenged by others’ expectations and assumptions; however, every day I find myself discovering new meanings and new aspects of my queerness and of my mixed race identity. My perception and my identity are on a constant flux, which can be draining and challenging but… so, so beautiful.
WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE OTHERED BY MARGINAL COMMUNITIES, (in context of the mainstream gay community for example)? Instances of racism, transphobia, fatphobia and several other systematic offensive behaviours within the gay community are becoming more and more known. There is so much focus on certain aspects of the gay liberation (for instance same-sex marriage and civil partnerships), that other extremely important issues, which cause vulnerable and marginalised members of the community to feel further alienated, are completely ignored. Asian men are by far the least popular racial group in dating apps, and discriminatory phrases are especially common in gay apps (no Asians / no rice no spice) – this is usually done under the excuse of “preference” whereas it actually hides a racist behaviour. Not feeling wanted in a community that’s meant to be understanding due to the struggle it has faced is hard to accept. More and more QTIPOCs (Queer, Trans, Intersex people of colour) communities are luckily coming together, and I have personally never felt as accepted and comfortable as I do around other QTIPOCs – however not everyone has the privilege to access those spaces, and it’s necessary to keep criticizing and attempting to change attitudes within the mainstream gay community.
HOW ESSENTIAL IS YOUR SILENCE IN SURVIVING IN FOR MY PERSONAL SELF-CARE, MY SILENCE OUR ESSENTIALIST IDENTITY STRUCTURE? IS ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL.
I find myself compromising complexities in my identity to avoid harassment, or to avoid prolonging harassment, on a daily basis. Jokes and stereotypes about Asian people are unfortunately so common, and I’ve had acquaintances and friends make some in front of me on several occasions – and I found myself staying silent, because it’s easier to feel my heartbeat racing and my hands sweating and keep my thoughts within me than to start argument and end up being even more hurt and being accused of being “too sensitive” and not to take jokes so seriously. I have also found myself staying silent when Asian acquaintances complained about European immigrants and admitting they voted for Brexit – because it’s easier to stay silent about the fact that I am a European immigrant myself. I find myself constantly debating on whether to speak out or remain silent - which one will hurt me more? Will my energy and time invested in this argument be worth it?
Silence is unfortunately essential for our survival as marginalised individuals, but it’s important to remember that remaining silent for our self-care can be political in itself.
ILLUSTRATION BY DEIDRE OLSEN
Have you ever apologized, on part of your identity? I don’t think I have ever apologized on part of identity. I have apologized for offending people (usually White) for something that I have said but I don’t do that anymore. Which identity do you rank/prioritise over the other? Why? I definitely identify as Latinx before I do, Queer. I think I prioritise my Latinidad over any other identity because I have the language and more experience expressing myself as a Latino. 8. How essential is your silence in surviving in our essentialist identity structure?
Sometimes silence is consent and that’s when you need to speak up. But most of the time I find that it’s healthier to stay silent in certain environments, especially when you know that people are not listening to you. I save my energy for moments when my interruptions are most effective and I am in a safe place. Identities being more privileged over others- is this constant and in which environment is this most prevalent?
From a very young age I learned to code-switch between a Guatemalan accent and Mexican accent depending the people I was around. It was just a way for me to go unnoticed and as a kid to not be made fun of. Now I realize that there is social hierarchy based on race and color. This system also applies within the Latino community. In the Southwestern United States, brown people are automatically identified as Mexican and, in my opinion have more privilege than Central Americans in many cases.
The opportunities of ‘exposure’ of marginalised identities, have they improved your navigation of our journey to equality or further simulated your character categorisation into a system that Ulises the profits of ‘diversified pain’? I think about the use of my identity in my artwork a lot. Is my work only being taken into account because of my biography? My past trauma? There has been a shift in my work in past few years. Instead of making work about people’s perceptions of who I am, I now think of it as a way to reclaim my own identity. Sure, maybe our ‘diversified pain’ gets our foot in the door but what we do with our exposure once we are in the room in most important. I am always thinking of ways to offer other opportunities through the ones that I am granted.
What is it like to be othered by marginal communities, (in context of the mainstream gay community for example)? Being othered by mainstream gay (white) communities has been eye opening. Not fitting into the corporate idea of what a gay person should be has made me realize the complexities of the LGBTQIA community. It has also made find people that are like me and share my experience. I have made amazing brown, queer, latinx people in the last few years. I am now surrounded by new friends, some that I consider family, that have become a much needed support system.
JONH
Transgender liberati inclusion into the c structure. It means
ion does not mean current binary gender breaking it.
Words: Landyn Pan
Media, neo-liberal po sional well-intention ebrating transgender of inclusion: inclusi bathrooms, inclusion clusion on TV of very gender people While these may affirm certain trans people who identify within the gender binary, much of the politics and advocacy surrounding trans people provide only short solutions that ignore the bigger picture of what continually harms us in the first place: rigid gender binary.
oliticians and occaned allies love celprogress in terms ion in gendered into Greek Life,iny cis-passing transEven when non-binary identities are discussed on TV, the complexity and diverse possible meanings of this label are greatly oversimplified and nothing is said to honor, celebrate or encourage its beautiful process of continual redevelopment. I’m non-binary and transmasculine, which means while I’m a masculine person who was female-assigned at birth and has undergone the physical transition to masculinize my body, I don’t identify with men and don’t see myself as part of that gender. My gender is its own category. As someone who has lived consciously through at least four gender identities so far, I will never feel truly free in a society where such a violent gender binary exists. Being non-binary means being an automatic deviant. It means there are not enough words in the English language to fully describe varieties of identities and presentations, making it difficult for people to conceptualize non-binary without referencing the binary. Non-binary to those outside of the trans community is interpreted almost only as either a half female, half male, gender neutral split, or neither male nor female. It means erasure inside and outside the trans community as your identity gets ignored, misinterpreted, and misunderstood daily.
Even when I wanted to buy into the gender binary, the binary bit me back. Prior to discovering my non-binary identity, I lived for three years as a binary trans man. To be able to transition meant escaping from oppressive female gender roles and expectations that didn’t fit me, only to be trapped by yet another set of toxic rules. The increasing frustration by the new policing of my gender, including by other trans men, made me re-evaluate. Not surprisingly, it was overwhelmingly white trans men who were most visible and vocal to me. They both received and gave praise to those who embodied white, western masculinity. The gap was made clearer by the racialization of my gender. Stereotypes have us believe that Asian men are feminine and Asian people, especially women, are quiet and docile. These too were cast onto me making it so I was often ignored in what was supposed to be my own community. Several other Asian Pacific Islander trans men had confided in me their struggle to be seen as masculine enough according to the rules of our white dominated society or their fear of fitting into the Asian man’s stereotype too well if they display too much of their feminine interests and tastes. Being nonwhite, skinny and refusing to sell myself to hypermasculine culture, I did not fit into the mold of what was deemed an ideal trans man. I began to heavily distance myself from not just the community, but the identity itself. I’ve never related with cisgender men, and now trans men were strangers too. My gender today, an experience generated through a combination of my Asian
race, my queerness and my transness, is no one else’s but my own. And it is the most authentic and free I’ve felt in terms of gender in a long time. But, even with this small point of empowerment, I still can’t help but feel boxed in by the world around me. The existence of the gender binary means that if I am read as a man, no matter what my identity is, I have to adhere to only one acceptable form of masculinity. I’m lumped together with too many kinds of men and masculine people I have no shared experience or thought-process with. So when cis people ask what trans people need to feel safer and better, get this: I don’t want your validation. I don’t want to be “included” in your already-existing faulty systems that murders trans people and hurts cisgender people. I want you to deconstruct the current model of gender in our society and change it.
words found originally: Transgender liberation doesn't need Inclusion - Landyn Pan http://www.thepantheronline.com/opinions/transgender-liberation-doesnt-need-inclusion
How are present debates within racial *LGBTQIA circles failing in their intersectionality ? TW:R*PE
Priyanka
As intersectionality becomes less of a tool to critique ourselves and more of a label, it inevitably becomes an aesthetic. I come back to the nath example again and again because I think this trend exemplifies the mindset that is very easy and popular to have, which is that visibility equals liberation. Taken one step further, visibility begins to equal intersectionality, to the point where if a tweet visibly lists all the different marginalization’s one can think of, that is considered liberation activism. I think this was especially prominent on International Womens’ Day where it was easier to share or like posts containing these listed identities than to show up at the strike4decrim sex worker marches or go on a hunger strike for Yarls Wood, which
JON
In my experience with QTIPOC activism online, feminism has been absorbed into identity politics and itself become an identity rather than a lens through which to view things. Systems which do not benefit women or liberation in the long run, such as women CEOs, many aspects of BDSM culture, makeup culture and skincare culture (to name a few) are all deemed feminist because of the ‘choice’ to partake in the them. In particular a lot of non black POC bastardise Kimberle Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality to benefit them. Its no longer a tool to examine who is the most vulnerable to violence (specifically black women in courts as in Krenshaw’s original paper), but another identity to be ‘good’ or ‘bad’ at. This comes at the expense of black women, where shallow ‘activism’ such as posting selfies wearing a bindi (which itself is highly politicized in terms of privilege) is prioritized over groundwork to liberate black women.
are actions that are more difficult to make visible on social media. The other pressing example that comes to mind is the #MeToo campaign, which centered white ideas about rapeability in its understanding of victimhood, but was readily embraced by communities. Listing that ‘women of colour, trans women, sex workers’ should be included in #MeToo is not intersectionality, but using intersectionality as a tool to examine who gets to be a victim and who does not under misogynoir would be more effective for changing rape laws to actually benefit black women, and thus all women. I’m often disappointed by conversations on social media around intersectionality and don’t engage, although maybe I should.
Which identity limits you the most politically? I don’t think this question can be answered directly because no one’s identities are discrete components. My brownness is queer, my queerness is Brahmin, my Brahminism is Tamil, my Tamil is mixed, etc. I think I feel more limited by the essentialization of these identities. Language around identity has obviously been developed because in material ways, they are real. But they are also constructs and I feel like in the circles I’m in, a lot of effort is put into reinforcing rather than deconstructing these identities. I don’t think it is an effective long term strategy and I think its stifling because naturally, any essentialization of an identity will reflect the dominant version of it. For example, North Indian hegemony and casteism in ‘woke’ brown spaces which are centered around uplifting brownness but rarely centered around deconstructing brownness as a racial limbo aspiring to whiteness.
Are one of your identities rendered irrelevant or costing to the liberation of the other? This depends on what ‘the liberation’ is. There have been anti caste and anti racism liberation movements going on within the diaspora and South Asia far bigger, more powerful and more radical than anything I’m connected to for a long time. There are also younger, more prominent diasporic groups undertaking what they call activism but I think is more like social networking, which has value but I don’t think is necessarily activism. These groups also tend to be split by queerness vs. straightness. In some sense, my Tamilness is irrelevant because of anti Tamil sentiment, and because of my perceived monoracialness. In other senses, my Tamilness is extremely relevant to everything I have because it carries my Brahmin heritage and privilege. Ultimately, as often as my Tamil heritage is misread or unseen, I think its incredibly myopic to feel Woe Is Me about it, because what I get from that is light skin and Brahmin privilege in any liberation space. I think my lesbianism/queerness is a different story. I don’t know enough about my heritage to know how my ethnicities or caste interlink with my lesbianism yet. Again, any reading I’ve done so far is rarely Tamil focused. In my very narrow experience with attempting to be involved with liberation with straight brown people versus queer brown people, with straight brown people there’s an unspoken reliance on heterosexuality for a means of liberation. For example the much desired idea that if brown men could be liberated to the point of not prioritising white women, that would be a significant step forward for us. And of course, brown men should certainly examine their ‘preferences’, but this idea is centred around a heterosexual vision of a brown nuclear family as opposed to a white one. Brown lesbianism/queerness disrupts brown conceptions of gender (which are typically hyper feminine for women or hyper masculine for men in attempts to make up for
a deficit of whiteness) in a way that is uncomfortable for straight brown liberation spaces. Brown lesbianism says that brown women might prioritise each other beyond sisterhood and into sexual desire, which is a threat to brown expectations (often perpetuated by brown martyr women themselves) about brown women growing up to be desexualised mothers and family caretakers ie instruments for brown patriarchy. My brown lesbianism is definitely not welcome in straight brown spaces, and I haven’t attempted to be welcome in years. I suppose this again narrows down how much contact I can have with my ethnic identities.
What don’t people ask that you wish they would to in order to collectively imagine outside of the essentialist identity of ‘the other’? How do you, if you do, benefit from this space?
