GenZine Issue 4: Bodies

NO.4 BODIES

Gender equity discussions & art

We are on Aboriginal Land.

The GenZine Collective would like to acknowledge that this zine was created on the lands of the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung Peoples. We pay our respects to the elders of the Kulin nation - past, present and emerging. We acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded, that this land was stolen and no acknowledgement will give it back or right past wrongs.

We would also like to recognise that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, especially women or gender diverse people in Australia, continue to face social and economic disadvantage. We recognise the pain of genocide, assimilation practices, hate speech and structural disadvantage. We recognise the negative and misleading portrayals of Aboriginal peoples, as well as the omission of their voices, that has been prevalent in mainstream media publications.

We urge you to be aware of the ground you stand on, the air you breathe and the nuances of the world you engage with. We are standing on Aboriginal Land.

Letter From the Editors 4

Fiona Dagnino Alvarez Tostado Heart of the body 6

Lily Nguyen Aunties 7

Jo Doley Ear to the Ground Interview 8

Nicki Edward Appreciate Her 12

Hannah Doyle Soft 14

Nicola Spoor Ear to the Ground Interview

Nicola Spoor A Tight Squeeze 16 19

Charlotte Cameron Bodies: A Series 20 Hannah Veljanovska Dear Body 22

Tynah Pearson Vulvas 23

Isla McKenna jumping in puddles 24

Peter Spring Night at the Beach & Flourish 26

Chandra Altoff Ear to the Ground Interview

Chandra Altoff Heavenly Bodies 28 31

CJ Starc Mes seins sont les miens [my breasts are mine] 32

Moana Mourie The return to love 33

Charliese Allen Victoria Unveiled 35

CONTENTS

Letter from the Editors

A big ol’ hello to anyone who’s stumbled across GenZine Issue 4: BODIES!

GenZine is a Melbourne-based zine exploring gender equity through art and conversation. We believe that living self-reflective lives means examining the structures and ideas that we inherit, including ideas around gender and sexuality.

GenZine delves into the struggles, joys and questions stirred up living in a gendered world. We believe that young people sharing their imaginative & honest approaches to these issues can open up new ways of being and connecting to each other in divided times.

The assembly of Issue 4 saw a few new developments in the GZ community: Our third musketeer Hannah was off vanning up the east coast and repping GenZine at crusty hostels and Hare Krishna farms. We had amazing opportunities to share our work with Good People Act Now (@goodpeopleactnow), Victoria University, and at VicHealth’s Future Reset Summit. We were also able to interview some lovely folks for their perspective on bodies, which you’ll find transcripts of in this issuespecial thanks to Jo, Chandra and Nicola for these thought-provoking offerings.

A massive thanks again to Brimbank City Council, whose grant has made this issue possible. GenZine runs under the auspices of Victoria University, so our deep gratitude to them and to Ali and Chris in particular, for helping us navigate all the nooks and crannies! Much love also to Ashleigh Morris from St Albans Community Centre, and to our endlessly patient graphic designer Aleisha Earp (@aleisha.earp).

As always, we are indebted to our generous, talented contributors: Nicola, Lily (again, you star!), Fiona, Nicki, Hannah D, Charlotte, Isla, Peter, Hannah V, Charliese, Tynah, CJ, Moana and Chandra. Thank you for gracing GenZine’s pages with such dynamic and beautiful bodies!

Yours in resistance, community and love, November 2022

CONTENT WARNING:

Nudity, depictions of genitalia, discussion of eating disorders and body image issues.

EAR TO THE GROUNDBODIESEDITION

JO DOLEY

Academic Jo Doley (they/them) did their PhD on eating disorders and stigma at La Trobe University. They currently lecture in psychology at Victoria University, with a special interest in body image.

WHAT PROMPTED YOU TO GET INTO THIS LINE OF RESEARCH?

I’m trying to be more open about the fact that one of the reasons I’m working in this field is because I had an eating disorder when I was 16, probably through ‘till about my mid20s. The things I saw when I was getting treatment, like lots of old, white, male psychiatrists, made me really want to make a difference and be someone working in the field who maybe understands. I think as well as being on a personal level, it’s also such a widespread issue and people don’t recognise that it can be a real social justice issue as well.

WHAT HAVE YOU FOUND SURPRISING IN THIS WORK?

Learning about the impacts of things like weight stigma on both physical and mental wellbeing - that’s been a real wake-up call. We’ve got a culture where it’s still somewhat acceptable to fat-shame people, and have doctors overlooking physical symptoms due to a person’s weight. There was this experiment which exposed people to negative comments about fatness. They found people’s blood pressure actually increased after being exposed to [fat-shaming] comments. Learning the true impact of people’s negative attitudes, especially towards larger bodies, just blew my mind.

PROUDEST MOMENT?

For my PhD, I helped develop a set of guidelines about how to talk about eating disorders within the

community. There are particular ways that people talk about eating disorders, where they focus on weight and highlighting some of the more shocking symptoms. That can simplify what’s really a complex illness. The guidelines that we came up with are similar to material on how to safely discuss suicide as an issue - treating it seriously and highlighting what the real problems are in the safest way possible. We also wanted to emphasise recovery and help-seeking, because if we’re just emphasising the bad parts, that’s not really gonna give people a lot of hope. I actually found out that these guidelines have been used by an organisation in the US - The National Eating Disorders Association. They share them with people when they’re about to give a presentation about eating disorders. That made me really happy.

HOW HAS YOUR RESEARCH CHANGED OVER TIME?

I started out having that very unidimensional view of body image and not thinking about intersectionality a lot. But as I’ve gone on, I’ve become more interested in the groups that we haven’t really researched a lot. A lot of the research looks at how body image affects straight, white, cis-gendered, able-bodied women and the challenging thing has been to understand how it affects different groups, whether that’s focusing on cultural backgrounds, sexual orientation or gender identity. Appearance standards can impact people very differently depending

on what they look like, the kind of people that they’re surrounded by, and the values and culture they’ve grown up with.

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO FOLKS STRUGGLING WITH THEIR OWN RELATIONSHIP WITH THEIR BODY?

First of all, I think it’s important to get help. Places like The Butterfly Foundation and Eating Disorders

Victoria are really good ones in Australia that do great work. Some people don’t think that they’re unwell enough to get help, but quite often they are, so it doesn’t hurt to talk to someone about it.

Be mindful of what you’re interacting with on social media. Engaging with people online who are body-positive or who make you feel good about your body, or even finding stuff that’s totally unrelated to appearance, can be really helpful.

If you have people in your social or family circle doing things like promoting diet culture, my advice would be to not engage with it as much as possible. Keep remembering that your weight, size, appearance doesn’t define who you are. Try making a list of qualities you like about yourself that are completely unrelated to your physical appearance.

And dress for enjoyment. Sometimes body image researchers or clinicians get hesitant talking about clothing because of the association with poor body image, but I think [clothing is]

a really wonderful way people can express themselves.

HOW HAS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR OWN BODY CHANGED?

I don’t know if it’s ever going to necessarily be 100% positive, but I think it’s quite neutral. Being bodypositive isn’t necessarily achievable for everyone. I think you can just get through with a more neutral attitude- it’s not realistic to feel 100% good all the time. You can just try not to feel so bad that it’s impacting other areas of your life. That kind of neutrality is really helpful for me.

WHAT ARE THE NEXT STEPS IN YOUR PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL JOURNEY?

I’m hoping to continue some of the work in body image and get funding to see if we can run some intervention programmes that are specific to sexual minority women. I’ll also be continuing some stuff on trans and non-binary body image in the future too. In academia, we don’t always have the resources to get our research out to the broader public in a way that makes sense, so I’m hoping I can get my findings out to the general public because I think that’s a real area of need.

On my own body image journey, I guess I hope I just keep going how I’ve been going. I’ve been feeling pretty neutral over the past few years so I’m hoping that I can keep going with that.

EAR TO THE GROUNDBODIESEDITION

NICOLA SPOOR

26-year-old Social Work student Nicola (she/her) wanted to contribute to this GenZine issue in particular. Her past experiences with eating disorders and body dysmorphia have prompted her to use her voice and share her thoughts with us.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR BODY?

I would say my relationship with my body is quite a love/hate one and a very complex one. It’s hard. I feel like I flip between having a really good relationship with my body and then having a really bad one.

I think that also comes from having society’s image of a ‘perfect body’ constantly displayed everywhere I look. It’s been a constant battle between me wanting to be something that I’m not, and then accepting that I’m not ever going to be that and being okay with it, but then going back again. So there’s moments where I feel really empowered, and then there are moments where I feel really shit. It’s just very back and forth.

WHEN DO YOU FEEL MOST CONNECTED TO YOUR BODY?

I’ll be really honest; I don’t think I’ve ever felt connected to my body. Which is quite sad, honestly. But yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever felt a connection with my body fully or even really had good feelings towards my own body. I tend to avoid it like it’s the plague sometimes, and I know that’s not a healthy thing for me so it is something that I’m really trying to undo. There are all of these learnt behaviours and impressions and opinions that I have of myself and it’s really hard to undo all of that. I do hope that one day I can feel connected to my body.

HOW HAS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR BODY CHANGED OVER THE YEARS?

I think one of the biggest learnings for me in relation to bodies was when I had weight loss surgery at the age of twenty, which is very young. And the mentality was, ‘This will make me lose weight. I will be really skinny. I will finally be a pretty, skinny girl and all my problems with my body will go away.’

And the reality was that that isn’t true. Yes, I did lose a lot of weight and I’m very grateful for that, healthwise. But I just found other reasons to not like myself. It wasn’t necessarily my weight now, it was my acne, my stretch marks, or the hair on my legs.

That was a wake-up call that it’s not necessarily about how big I am, it’s that I need to learn to accept and love myself. That experience helped me realise that it isn’t the physical work that I need to do. It’s that internal work of being able to accept that I’m not going to look like you, or them, or like anyone that I see online and that’s okay because that’s not what I should be striving to be.

WHEN HAVE YOU FOUND IT DIFFICULT TO APPRECIATE YOUR BODY?

This is actually something I’ve recently been experiencing. During COVID, I put on a little bit more weight - just enough to go up one dress size. I kept trying to squeeze myself into my old clothing. Realising that I had put on weight again after

so long set off this panic mode in my brain where I almost instantly reverted back to my sixteen-yearold self, thinking, ‘Oh my God, what have you done?’ From one dress size! It was so shocking for me that putting on a little bit of weight was enough for me to undo years of work and instantly go back to that toxic headspace.

However, because of the 5 or 6 years of experience that I’ve had postsurgery, I could bring these extreme thoughts down to something that’s realistic and a bit more manageable, like, ‘Hang on, you’re just fluctuating a bit.’ So you do get triggered by things and then it all comes back and you’ve got to deal with all of those thoughts and feelings again. I think it’s about understanding your body and that you will fluctuate with your sizings and such. There is no solution - it’s more about management. That experience of going up a size was a real awakening for me to go, ‘Well, I really need to learn how to manage this properly because I cannot keep having breakdowns every time I put on a little bit of weight.’

WHAT PART OF YOURS AND/OR OTHERS’ BODIES DO YOU FIND MOST INTERESTING?

I like hips. Well, mine kill me these days, but I think because they’re such a central point of the human body. It’s sort of right where the legs start and the torso ends. There’s also so many shapes and sizes.

Recently I’ve really understood just how incredible the human body is, and just how resilient it is and everything that it can do. It’s just amazing. It has the ability to heal itself, and it gives you warnings when things aren’t right - it’s just such an amazing thing, and I think it’s often taken for granted just how lucky we are to have a human body. I think the human body is a lot more capable than the human mind will allow you to believe.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF IN THREE WORDS?

Work in progress. ANY PARTING WORDS FOR READERS?

If you’re having a tough time loving yourself or you feel disconnected from your own body, just try to be as kind to yourself as you can. It’s okay to not fit into those ideals that the world creates for us. And if you are younger and developing, it’s okay.

I know it’s hard, but it’s okay and it does get better. Give yourself the time to grow and meet those people that you will connect with. It might just take a bit longer than you were hoping for.

Interviewed by Emily Bartush (she/they)

Dear Body,

I know you hold oceans of wisdom, And lakes of experience, But I have merely floated my boat across your waters.

I have not yet taken the dive under, To your depths and darkness.

I am scared.

I am scared of not understanding the messages you send me, Of getting lost and not knowing which way is up, Of being smothered, dark and cold.

But I know that you will always hold me, like you always have, And float me back to myself.

jumping in puddles

when I was about six and my dad about forty he would sit down beside my bed clear his throat yet again and begin to read Alan Marshall’s children’s classic I Can Jump Puddles.

I learned the first few pages very well: it’s western Victoria in the early 1900s and young Alan has polio –legs twisted, misshapen trunk, hobbling along on crutches over dead dreams of riding horses. my dad’s soft, mellifluous voice paving its path through the night like a heartbeat until

at the same point every night he’d stop. and at the same point every night I’d turn my six-year-old head watch him stare at a spot on the page shoulders shaking fat, wet tears clearing tracks on his cheeks throat closed up as he tried and failed to read how little Alan’s mother, on the advice of a doctor, would lay him out on a table and try to press his twisted legs straight:

‘My mother would place her two hands upon my raised knees then, with her eyes tightly closed so that her tears were held back by her clenched lids, she would lean her weight upon my legs … When the sinews beneath my knees began to drag and stretch I would scream loudly, my eyes wide open, my gaze on the horses above the mantelpiece… “Oh! horses, horses, horses …” ’

I Can Jump Puddles, Alan Marshall

wet, sorrowful gasps from my father as night after night tear after tear went south. my pokey pink bedroom the hallowed ground on which his composure died.

occasionally, he’d laugh at himself a sniffly, self-deprecating chuckle as he closed the book stumped by chapter two again.

I don’t think he was ever embarrassed perhaps surprised at himself at all this emotion sitting so ready beneath the surface.

I never learned what happened to Alan; we never got that far. instead, I learned to sit with my father in the sorrow to love his tears and my own and be not afraid of a man so moved by the world.

NightattheBeach

Flourish uses plant and flower imagery to explore the concept of the body, especially the genitals and the beauty of that area. I find it empowering that like flowers, that area comes in all shapes and forms.

EAR TO THE GROUNDBODIESEDITION

CHANDRA ALTOFF

Nursing student Chandra (they/them/ he) is a proud Indigenous queer person. They’ve navigated ADHD, eating disorders and have shared a snippet of their journey with us.

WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO CONTRIBUTE TO THIS ISSUE OF GENZINE?

I just find the prompts really helpful for thinking about things. When you’re looking at the prompts, it’s like, ‘Okay, why do I feel this way?’ And it starts to get deeper and make more sense. It’s nice being involved and having a reason to do creative stuff.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF IN THREE WORDS??

Bit of everything. Childish. Dreamer. Jack-of-all-trades.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR BODY IN THREE WORDS?

Soft. Strong. Sturdy.

WHAT’S YOUR EARLIEST MEMORY OF NOTICING YOUR OWN BODY?

Probably kindergarten. I was always bigger than all the other kids and kids notice, so you sort of figure it out that way. You don’t really see yourself, but you see how other people see you. Primary school was a very long time ago, so hopefully things are a bit better now, but they had public weigh-ins for students during P.E, and I would be told I weigh too much for my height.

WHAT’S YOUR EARLIEST MEMORY OF NOTICING OTHER PEOPLE’S BODIES?

Probably Grade 6, so heading into puberty, at around 12. Everybody

looked different and it was sort of like becoming aware of that. This was definitely associated with the realisation of ‘I’m attracted to that’, or, ‘I’m not attracted to that’. It was the time of getting all this information and just sitting with it.

HOW WOULD YOU SAY YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR BODY HAS CHANGED OVER THE YEARS?

It’s always been very up and down. I’ve always been a bigger person and I’ve gone through all this eating disorder stuff as well. I think at some point you get so sick of your own bullshit, you do a big overhaul. For example, eight years ago I lost like eighty kilos relatively quickly. I was going to the gym and I started seeing someone that was quite conservative and that also ties in to how I was experiencing gender at the time. He was very negative and would tell me that he didn’t like the way I looked, but I put out, so, you know. But I was also wanting to fit into that box and to feel like my body was at a ‘normal’ size, so I enjoyed feeling like I could fit in.

When the eating disorder came back, I moved between phases of disordered eating. Food became unsafe, sensually, and I decided it was time to go inwards again and get more comfortable in my body, get strong again. It’s gone up and down though, and COVID didn’t help - that really sort of threw me into a hole, and I’m still trying to climb out of it, but I’ve got a much more solid idea of how I want to be now.

WHEN DO YOU FEEL MOST CONNECTED WITH YOUR BODY?

At the gym. Especially when I’m lifting something heavy or moving something heavy, and I feel all these muscles that I didn’t realise were there. Then afterwards I’m like, ‘Why does that hurt? What was I doing that made that happen?’. I like that connection. It really helps, being able to step back and be like, ‘Yes, I’m strong’.

Especially with the gender stuff, I was like, “Ok, I know how I want to look. I know that top surgery is my goal and I want this kind of body; how do I make it happen?” I found a really great personal trainer now who works with a lot of queer people and has helped build people up ready for top surgery, helped them build the bodies that they want.

WHEN DO YOU FIND IT MOST DIFFICULT TO APPRECIATE YOUR BODY?

When it doesn’t behave how I want it to. Like if it hurts in a strange way or feels a way that I haven’t told it to. It’s the feeling of being let down. Like, ‘You should be stronger than this.’ Mostly I don’t ever feel entirely comfortable anyway. Almost as though I have to prove my worth. I’m always just a little bit uncomfortable.

WHAT PART OF YOURS AND/OR OTHERS’ BODIES DO YOU FIND MOST INTERESTING AND WHY?

In terms of other people, I always find people’s arms really interesting. I like how they move and how they keep them because I know I get the T-rex arms sometimes and I don’t know what to do with them. Biceps are just really great too. Arms also get to do all the hugging and the supporting and that kind of stuff.

WHAT

HAVE YOU FOUND TO BE MOST HELPFUL IN YOUR JOURNEY TO APPRECIATE YOUR BODY?

I think it’s finding people who are okay with me as I already am. I mean, there’s somebody I’m kind of seeing at the moment who will call me beautiful when I look like a mess. So it’s nice to have someone who doesn’t look at me negatively, which is the way I look at myself from the inside out.

You start to know how you feel within yourself as you get older and stuff doesn’t hurt the way it did when I was younger.

Interviewed by Emily Bartush (she/they)

MES SEINS SONT LES MIENS [MY BREASTS ARE MINE]

“Mes seins sont les miens” depicts my transgender non-binary body, which is often misgendered as womanly. I employ embroidery, a typically feminine medium, to highlight how my body is usually perceived, challenging us to not take for granted aesthetics and binary constructions. Trans bodies are all so diverse, and mine is one of limitless trans bodies.

THE RETURN TO LOVE

My incomplete musings on relationship anarchy and polyamoryfreeing our bodies and hearts from capitalism.

It feels right to finally take down the fences, we built around ourselves and others in the name of love and safety. No barbed wire to keep lovers out, No white pickets to keep lovers in. To begin to return to the days of the Commons.

When love and responsibility was not private and individual. When communities would meet, to both gather sustenance and to celebrate together.

Instead of forests and village greens, our Commons are group chats, house parties and queer discos.

But, we still meet in the name of connection, survival and freedom. After centuries of locked up hearts, neglected bodies and switched on minds, we revel in the ecstasy of letting go of sharp thoughts and melting into a community of love.

By Moana Mourie (she/her)

Yet, we know that even freedom needs roles and responsibilities to keep the love flowing and the community strong. We navigate tender connections using the constellations and ongoing conversations.

We dance together, we love together and we grieve together.

For our joy is experienced as one body and so is our pain. We rush to protect and heal the part of us most in need.

Our bodies are both the drop and the sea. We ebb and flow with the tides of our collective dreams and strifes.

Our lives not bound together by metal rings, but weaved into a tapestry of vibrant colour and stories.

Stronger as one, than as knotted strings swaying separately

In this web of communion, my heart feels free. Free to express, free to connect. Free from the slippery, heaviness of the escalators of expectation.

Freedom isn’t just fought for in dark and twisted mazes that never seem to end. Freedom is rekindled when bodies and hearts meet in the space of love. When we release each other from solitary towers and archaic vows, And let ourselves be planted in the Commons. With enough space for each of us to grow and reach the light. We each share our own melody, we listen deeply to the harmonies, so we know when and where to grow. We will soon be a meadow of wild flowers, witnessing eachother flow through the seasons.

And yet, clocks and coins breathe down our necks.

Draining our capacity to give and receive. We carve out moments for ourselves and loved ones

In the stone face of never ending work. I didn’t realise I was moulded to be a cog in their machine.

But now I step back and see their masterpiece Framed in gold and shining in vibrant strokes But when I look behind its face of perfection All I see is blood, the blood of centuries. And when I look down, I see my own hands stained in red.

This crimson rope binds even us who were told we were free.

And we try everyday to prove them wrong To show them clocks and coins did not change us Did not rearrange our humanity.

That we are still the animals that dance, sing and share

That tell never ending stories and paint symbols into the history of the earth So, we dance even though muscles are aching, we sing even though our voices are shaking and we share even when it’s been taken.

I wonder though, in my pursuit of remembrance and restoration, and in my sculpting of new paths through these ancient ways, do my moments of bliss and reconnection come from of the pockets of those Less fortunate than me

In a system where to climb up a step of the ladder Is to push ten others down Is my return to love, A revolutionary act or just another badge of my privilege?

I don’t know the answers yet, But I know to do nothing, To blindly follow the paved highways, Is to continue riding the production line Until I am of no use to this system. And climbing the ladder to the very top Whatever my intentions can only cause more pain.

I must travel beyond the modern wastelands, and find my ways back to the seeds and roots that hold the mysteries of this earth. Take down the fences, Gather all those who remember, those who wish to love in freedom, who dream of freedom for all beings, so we can regenerate as one.

If you’re even slightly curious about contributing to GenZine, please consider sending something in for our next issue! We love hearing from new folks and would be happy to have a chat should you have any questions.

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