Queer Joy Hunting Have you been longing for queer joy throughout the pandemic? You’re not alone By Jaime Woo
This year, I went hunting for joy. That feeling of joy can be elusive, even in more ‘normal’ times. The definition of ‘normal’ is up to you: while the pandemic comes to mind first, it’s arguable that we haven’t experienced a recognizable form of normal since 2016 – yet it’s the pandemic that has most sharply curtailed familiar joys. I’ve missed working from my favourite table at a coffee shop. And watching Netflix can’t replace the collective feeling that comes from sitting in a cinema, laughing and crying and gasping simultaneously with others. My body has been grounded for too long, whether it be 38,000 feet in the air on a plane or 15 feet on a bouldering wall.
MARCH / APRIL 2021
Thankfully, we haven’t completely abandoned joy, having found it in other and often unexpected places. I revived my love of baking, gambled with keeping plants alive, and discovered the pleasure of reading during the daytime while walking in laps around my neighbourhood. I deepened my love of jazz by listening to the biographies of the greats, marvelling at how so many packed so much impact within such a short time. But what I’ve longed for most, specifically, is queer joy. I’ve seen joy defined as positive experiences related to feelings of freedom, safety and ease; for me, then, queer joy is that exhilarating feeling that comes from being able to express our queerness clearly and with force. It is a state of both attitude and space, and, sadly, for many of us, the ways we found queer joy have been temporarily shuttered. I’ve missed hanging with my friends at Drag Race screenings. I miss the energy, and sometimes I will transport myself back to Disgraceland where Vicky Lix, Selena Vyle and Hillary Yaas of the House of Lix would stomp the house down. I follow their (physically distanced) adventures through Instagram and their Squirrel Talk podcast, and it’s a nice little amuse-bouche for when we can meet again. 24
IN MAGAZINE
One thing I’ve learned during this pandemic, though, is that you cannot just try to transfer experiences from in-person to online. Zoom calls, with their staccato audio delivery, are a great example. We’ve adjusted our speech patterns to match Zoom, and I’ve found you lose the join that can come from piling onto one another, voices on top of voices. Instead, we must adapt to change, as so many drag performers have expertly done. Something I’ve learned to appreciate more this past year has been the pleasure of nonsense. We live in deeply serious and troubling times, and to give yourself a moment of nonsense isn’t gluttonous – rather, it is a breath of fresh air so you can recharge before reentering the waters. The spelling bee I watched on the Speakeasy Twitch channel was a great example of the joy of nonsense. Two teams of local drag performers competed to answer words correctly, and nothing mattered in all the best ways. The host, the stunning Bom Bae, wore bobby pins for eyelashes, one of which would later be used to help fix a technical difficulty. And there were technical difficulties: the sound didn’t work, people cut in and out, at one point the feed had to be replaced with a Simpsons-esque “please stand by” card. You’d be forgiven for thinking the audience would be frustrated, or irritated. Instead, it was the complete opposite. Every glitch was a recognition that we’re all human, and that we are all in this together. After all, a glitch only matters if the audience thinks it matters. The pandemic has taught us that while we like to think we are in control of our lives, life will go in the direction it wants. We can either sneer at how things aren’t going as we expected, or we can try to transform what we can into something joyful. When technical difficulties happened, the audience jumped into the chat to discuss
