QTopics Zine Issue 1: Expectations by Qtopics

QTopics Zine

Q-Topics Zine

Issue no. 1: Expectations Minimalist Comic by Nadu B. ......................................3 The Expectation of Manhood by Ashley Messer ............4 Untitled by Nadu B. .....................................................5 “You Don’t Have Boobs” by Raghav............................6 No Expectations by Raghav ........................................7 Or a Girlfriend by Nadu B. ...........................................8 We’re tired of this shit by Raghav ..............................11 What Are You Into, a Grindr Essay by Raghav .........12 GENDERWRECKED by Heather R and Ryan Rose ........14 Rise and Fall by Nadu B. ...........................................18 Burning Too Brightly by Ryan Rose ............................24 2

Minimalist Comic #1 By Nadu B

The Expectation of Manhood By Ashley Messer I grew up with everyone expecting me to be a man. I myself expected myself to be a man. This is fine, if you’re a man. When you think you’re a man but you’re not a man, you adapt a mental phantom limb of manhood. It’s not there, but you expect it to be. And each day your mental phantom limb’s fist closes tighter. Each day the mental nails dig deeper. Until you let go. And you wonder what to expect next. 4

My mother’s face changed when I told her the friend I went to Santa Cruz was my friend, who was gay. She had assumed he was my boyfriend, and had probably told family friends that he was. Her voice was disappointed. She said “he’s gay?” 5

“You don’t have boobs” - unsent messages to a curious straight guy By Raghav

No expectations

Conversation wi a queer straig guy on OkCupid 6

ith ght -

By Raghav 7

Or A Girlfriend By Nadu B.

A few weeks before I left the U.S to teach abroad, I was donating blood. The

guy taking my blood, upon finding out I was moving to Thailand told me, “you might get a boyfriend there.” I should have added “or a girlfriend” but at that moment I didn’t want risk diverting the conversation to my sexuality. Enough experiences have taught me to predict these breaks and pauses that occur when I casually mention dating anyone other than a man. But why should this elicit a break? Why is it a disruption to clarify my options in partners to the blood truck guy? I could have further added, “or a genderqueer partner” but I’m sure this would change the rhythm of the conversation that at the moment, I didn’t want to break.

Thought Experiment: If I mentioned to a straight man that he may meet a

boyfriend abroad, it wouldn’t seem disruptive for him to correct my assumption. In this case, if anything, it would again seem disruptive of me for assuming a person was outside the default of heteronormativity. That’s the thing- weaving queer identity into casual conversation is not the same as weaving straight identity into it. Straight identity doesn’t need to be weaved in, it’s the constant background noise that queer and genderqueer people need to talk over, even in simple ways like saying “or a girlfriend”.

I am lucky that in most cases this disruption doesn’t come with any real dan-

ger. It does however come with the risk of all conversation being de-railed and redirected to the topic of my sexuality. The derailment ranges from a stream of curious questions, to people rudely implying that being bisexual is a edgy “lifestyle” that will pass, to invasive sexual questions. Whatever topic we were on before evaporates and the people who re-direct the conversation to my sexuality think it was me who re-directed it. This doesn’t always happen, but it happens often enough that I have to weigh the possible consequences when I talk to strangers.

Thought Experiment #2: You could potentially compare this to any other fac-

et of identity, like if I mention that I’m Russian people may re-direct the conversation to ask about that. The difference is the questions strangers ask about my sexuality get far more invasive than the small talk they make about my cultural background.

When I was couch-surfing in Seattle a few years ago my host (a straight

guy) after finding out that I date people of various genders, talked about it for the duration of my stay. Once he uncovered this facet about me, he was incapable

of talking about anything else. In hindsight I think I should’ve asked him jokingly to explain his straightness to me with a stream of questions. He had a well-meaning curiosity, but it was odd to be reduced to my bisexuality, to talk about nothing else. I see it for what is is- a symptom of a larger societal issue. Heteronormativity is the default and people are curious about anything that veers from that default. Weaving my queerness into conversation comes with the risk that the conversation will become a spotlight on my sexuality.

Why should it be a problem to weave in these corrections into conver-

sations? People assume I am straight all the time, but I don’t always correct them. If I weaved it in more often- if we all weaved it in more often (when safe) would it be more normalized? In the way that it is no longer an unthinkable shock to be openly gay (as it was a few decades ago) could queerness become an alternate default, side by side with heteronormativity? Maybe instead of using gendered words liked boyfriend/girlfriend, words like “partner” will become more common. But as much as I’d like to think that society is accepting new defaults, it’s still in many contexts a disruption of varying degrees to be openly queer. It’s a minor thing to deal with, but it’s in the back of my mind whenever I consider saying “or a girlfriend”.

Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re tired of this shit eer/ u q o w t een w t e b n o i r fluid sat e r d e n v e n g o / c y A nbinar o n / e hit s m s i m h e t f s f n o tr a tired e r a o h w humans

av h g a R y B

What Are You Into

A Grindr Essay By Raghav

GENDERWRECKED (A game where you can kiss the sun and the sun is trans and so are you)

Heather R. an Ryan Rose

http://heather.flowers/genderwrecked 15

Rise And Fall The legacy of t.A.T.u. False hope and stalled progress in Russia

By Nadu B.

Two teenage girls in love, steal a train and drive off into the frozen tundra to escape their homophobic families. It’s easy to see how a music video like this would accrue a huge fanbase of young LGTBQ people. Russian-lesbian-pop-duo, t.A.T.u was iconic at the time it existed and interestingly, Russia’s policies toward LGTBQ people would not have allowed t.A.T.u to exist before or after the early 2000’s. In the brief golden age that being openly queer wasn’t illegal, t.A.T.u made an international impact. t.A.T.u represented a lesbian couple and centered its biggest hits around queer identity and queer struggle. The name “t.A.T.u” was an abbreviation of ‘this girl loves that girl’ in Russian. Years later it would be uncovered that the duo’s public identity was a carefully designed, ongoing publicity stunt. But before we get to the fall, lets go back to early t.A.T.u history. Yulia Volkova and Lena Katina were brought togater afterauditioning to be in a band. The idea of a lesbian duo existed before

they even auditioned. Their beginnings weren’t organic but nevertheless the music videos they produced felt very real to many LGTBQ fans. Their early music videos centered around the struggles of being young and queer. Their first big hit, Nas Ne Dagonyat (in English, Not Gonna Get Us) followed a plot line of two girls running away on an empty train to be together. A later hit, Ya Shoshla S’Uma included lyrics, translated from Russian “they say they need to cure us” a reference to an overwhelmingly common viewpoint in Russia of queer identity as an illness. In the music video they sing, “I need her” and kiss in the rain to the disapproval of forlorn looking family members. Their music videos, though sexualized (school girl uniforms were part of their iconic image) were sympathetic to queer struggle, one that much of their fan base related to. During concerts they often played “The Game of Abnormal Sexuality” in which they’d ask audience mem19

t.A.T.u in concert in Ukraine, 2001 Image taken from youtube

bers to join them on stage. Predictably, the game involved asking girls to kiss girls and boys to kiss boys. Whoever was “brave enough” to play the game received a gift or a beer. The exposure they gave to queer identity in Russia was a huge factor of their fame. Then came the fall. After becoming internationally famous, appearing at the 20

MTV awards, representing Russia for Eurovision, performing countless concerts where they would kiss and ask audience members to kiss, the members of t.A.T.u distanced themselves from their image as a couple, claiming they were just close friends (despite saying otherwise in earlier interviews). Over time they revealed that their manager, Ivan Shapovalov effectively created their false image to attract attention. As the band went on a hiatus, Yulia became pregnant and Lena married her boyfriend. Any hope of them reuniting faded and the fiction of the lesbian, power-couple was dispelled. To add insult to injury, Yulia Volkova, the more outspoken member of the duo who had often led the Game of Abnormal Sexuality, revealed in a televised interview that she would condemn her son if he were gay, explaining that men must be “manly” and that their

Yulia Volkova on the left and Lena Katina on the right.

purpose is to “procreate”. Unsurprisingly, the Russian audience applauded her statement. Lena Katina however, continues to publicly support marriage equality and denounces Russia’s anti-gay propaganda law. The image that queer youths all over the world admired was revealed to be a large-scale, queer-baiting farce. This context changes everything about their image- the school girl outfits, the making out on stage, the provocative

dancing. When done by two teenage girls unafraid to express their queer identity, the image is powerful and refreshing. But knowing that a manager named Ivan chose their outfits, their personas, and directed them to kiss on stage makes this whole ordeal a lot more sleazy. It’s obvious in hindsight that much of their fame came with an element of grimey fetishization (for being lesbian, and being underage). What does this mean for the huge

t.A.T.u members call audience members to the stage for the Game of Abnormal Sexuality

Coordinating the Game of Abnormal Sexuality

queer t.A.T.u fan base that existed and continues to exist? Do we separate the staged identity from the actors who performed it? Do we separate the fetishized elements from the parts of their image that resonated with the queer struggle? I want to love the messages of their music videos and concerts as a fiction and nothing else. Like separating actors from the characters they play, I want to enjoy the image of early 2000’s t.A.T.u as an entity separate from Yulia Volkova and Lena Katina. Russia has produced so little queer media, and with the current political situation is unlikely to produce more any time soon. Everything about t.A.T.u’s public image would be illegal now, under the grounds that it influences children to “deny traditional family values”. I hold onto them as a fiction and a relic of a lived period when people in Russia could publicly express queer identity, real or fake.

The full concert (in Russian) can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFc7zG95LFU&t=2518s

Burning Too Brightly By Ryan Rose

gendervamp.itch.io