TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover art by Emily Laughman
The Highly Sensitive Woman by Anonymous, Pg. 1
The Fear Manifesto by Gracie Barton, Pg. 6
Pots and Living in a World That Fetishizes Cure by Ava Borromeo, Pg. 10
Dismantling the Pain Olympics by Isabel Elliot, Pg. 15
An Advocates Guide to History: A Manifesto Journal by A. First, Pg. 19
The Bubbly Girl Manifesto by Grace Francis, Pg. 21
Gentrificaci6n Es Colonizaci6n by Paula Garcia, Pg. 25
LIFE SUCKS by Jessie Gourley, Pg. 29
Man-Sized Man-ifesto by Isaac Jones, Pg. 32
That Night by Taylor Miller, Pg. 37
A Confined Manifesto by Breanna Mccluskey, Pg. 38
Cat on a Leash by Madison Newman, Pg. 39
Against Ableism: Architecture, Time , and Radical Gastronomy by Wes Phillips, Pg. 41
Trans hood = Godhood by Sage Reliford, Pg. 49
Bad Religion, Pg. 50
I Am A Brutally Soft Woman , Who Is Not A Woman , Quite, Pg. 51
Crucify my Womanhood, Pg. 52
No Title by Jules Richter, Pg. 53
The Lamb's Manifesto by Lukas Rhynard, Pg. 55
Boy Cunt by Charlie Ryan, Pg. 62
Feral Bitch Manifesto by Abi Sinclair, Pg. 64
Lesbians as Dreamers by Karina Streeter, Pg. 69
Double A Manifesto by Julia Tenbusch, Pg. 71
Against The Banned Book by Elizabeth White, Pg. 76
Open Your Eyes and Raise Your Voice by Audra Wilson, Pg. 81
Against Amatonormativity by Harper Wood, Pg. 86
Confessions of an Anti-Sorority Girl by Marlo Young, Pg. 90
Editors note, Pg. 95
The Highly Sensitive Woman Manifesto
Anonymous
identify as a highly sensitive person. To me, a highly sensitive person is a person who is unable to ignore unjust situations, who cannot look away from violence, and someone who listens to the hopes, fears, and cries of others. Psychology Today defines a highly sensitive person as an individual who is, "thought to be more disturbed than others by violence, tension, or feelings of being overwhelmed." Remaining sensitive to the tension, suffering, and emotions of not only myself, my loved ones, those around me, and those I have never had the opportunity to meet is my central maxim. I identify as a highly sensitive person. What is disturbing to me is what it means to not identify as a highly sensitive person .
I often come across people in my personal, professional, and educational life that I would identify as not a highly sensitive person. There are also those who I am sure would even go as far as to identify with whatever the opposite of a highly sensitive person is. Often in conversations with others on topics such as the Palestinian Genocide, police brutality, and the loss of reproductive rights in various states across the country, I hear individuals respond honestly that they simply do not care because it does not impact them. I am also often judged by people around me for caring too much about justice work and activism.
More than once I have been called a snowflake or emotional by family members and ex-friends who do not share my highly sensitive status. These non-sensitive people believe they are accomplishing something by remaining unphased and emotionless.
However, beyond recognizing myself as a highly sensitive person, I identify as a highly sensitive woman who is constantly reminded of how sensitive I am. As I am sure many of you are similarly reminded by those around you. The highly sensitive, or emotional, woman is easily scrutinized and slandered as being unable to think straight or make intelligent decisions due to the presence of their emotion. What remains unclear to me is how remaining sensitive and easily disturbed by racism, ableism, homophobia, sexism and all other systems of oppression prevents highly sensitive women from making rational decisions or even simply deserving to being listened to I along with millions of young people are considered snowflakes, sensitive, or too "politically correct" when we take the courageous step of speaking up when we experience obvious oppression and violence.
Alongside younger generations, marginalized groups are accused of being overly emotional or too sensitive when faced with violence and harm that prevents them from living their most authentic and fulfilling lives. They are too emotional while fighting for survival. Black women are accused of being overly emotional when watching their husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers be racially profiled, abused, and killed by police. Trans individuals are accused of being overly emotional when faced with misgendering, transphobia and violence. These issues get turned into simple "politics" instead of the human rights issues that they clearly are.
As a public political face and voice on campus, I find it incredibly difficult to navigate "political" conversations as a highly sensitive woman. I am often faced with individuals who feel passionately about ensuring that I do not have access to reproductive healthcare or feel that Otterbein should not be permitted to teach my degree in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. I know that the inflammatory comments made by conservative students
are made to get a reaction from me and that as a woman I am often viewed as "easy t o offend" before I respond or react. In the name of nonpartisan political activism, I am mean t to remain stoic and well-mannered when faced with conservative talking points and can only inform students of their options when voting. Even worse sometimes, is when they mistake my inability to engage with them as me agreeing with the view they are sharing. As a highly sensitive woman, I know that the emotions that I am feeling during these discussions will not get me far but that does not stop me from feeling them. During these conversations, I am seen as a woman before anything else and that means my emotion will be perceived to work against whatever point I am trying to make. On the contrary, these emotions could communicate a lot of what I am thinking without me having to say it. If I were viewed as respected person with something important to say my emotion should not take away from what I have to say. However, I know that not everyone identifies as a highly sensitive person, especially not conservative men when "debating" a woman they perceive as emotional. This is also something I am sensitive to.
When Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court
Decision in the summer of 2022 I remember feeling a sick excitement. While this decision would mean that it would be possible for individual states to enact laws preventing people from accessing abortion and other necessary reproductive healthcare services, I believed that this would be the spark that would once again ignite white suburban women into not only political activism but also entice them to investigate the structures that allowed this supposed human right to be taken away from us so easily. This activism and investigation did not happen. There were short-lived protests and social media trends and conversations were started. However, I was still told I was overreacting to this violent ruling, and I heard
m any "pro-choice" people voice that nothing was really changing because "not every state
w ill pass abortion bans ." This trust in safe-haven states exposes the cognitive dissonance required when someone does not identify as a highly sensitive person. Many people fight against being sensitive to the individual needs of specific pregnant people even when they identify as "pro-choice", a democrat, a leftist, or a liberal. This cognitive dissonance is commonplace in "political" debates when the humanity and emotion are removed from the conversation.
The Israeli military has caused the death of over 30,000 Palestinian men women and children since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 th , 2023. When the Palestinians who have been wounded in the same time frame are considered the Israeli military has caused the death or injury of over 100,000 Palestinians in just 6 months. This is a genocide. Yet, most conversations surrounding Palestine are shut down by telling young people that we do not understand the entire story. As if anything could justify genocide. Many so-called American "social justice" activists refuse to call for a ceasefire or acknowledge the suffering occurring on the other side of the world. Following the October 7th attack , there was even a social media trend urging everyone to stay off social media to protect their mental health . I have not seen others react as I would have expected when genocide is not only occurring but is being documented in real-time across social media. Instead of reacting angrily or sadly to these atrocities, many people refused to even look or listen and instead scroll on or take a break to "protect their mental health. " Ignoring the Palestinian adults and children who are dying and being orphaned and maimed by Israeli soldiers and missiles to protect their own mental health. I guess this is what happens when a nation refuses to identify as highly sensitive people . It becomes a competition of who can remain the most composed
and least emotional when scrolling past videos documenting genocide. On April 1st, 2024 , seven humanitarian aid workers from the World Central Kitchen (WCK) were strategically targeted by Israeli military missiles after delivering aid to the Gaza Strip in Palestine. These aid workers were traveling in three separate cars and were identified and bombed by an Israeli military drone in again what is being explained away as a "misidentification" of clearly labeled aid vehicles. This was a clear warning to others that aid workers are not safe from the Israeli military and will only further exacerbate the humanitarian issues being experienced in Palestine as aid organizations are already reporting that they will pause operations in Gaza following the attack. Only now are public officials like the president of the United States finally beginning to condemn the actions of the Israeli military. Only when non-Palestinian western martyrs are killed does Joe Biden begin to care. Joe Biden is not a highly sensitive person.
I have come to realize that most people I interact with would not identify as highly sensitive people. On the contrary, many people seem to be participating in an unspoken competition about who can care the least about the wellbeing of others Identifying myself with what it means to be a highly sensitive person, or a highly sensitive woman means recognizing that my emotional reactions will speak for me and that many people will refuse to listen to me because I am sensitive to the oppressive beliefs they hold and the harmful jokes they make. However, this high sensitivity is the only thing keeping me fighting at this point. I know I can trust myself to be sensitive to other people's feelings and needs even if they are not readily apparent to me. I also know that I will always have the urge to continue to educate myself on the experiences and pleas of others
THE FEAR MANIFESTO
by gracie barton
CALLING ALL SCARED GIRLS! MAKE THEM FEAR YOU!
from the beginning to the end, patriarchy teaches women to be afraid. young girls are raised on fear. we walk at night with keys in our fists. we jump at every little noise. we are told to change when family comes over. we do as we're told, always. fear keeps you compliant, keeps you under patriarchy's giant thumb, keeps control out of our hands. we're so blinded and tied up by our fear that we don't have the mental or physical capacity to focus on the injustices being perpetrated around us. but what ifwe took off the blindfold and unbound our hands? in a world where fear is all we know, where the powers that be depend on our inaction and terror, what is more revolutionary than fearlessness? female confidence is an act of defiance. in a society that is constructed to make us afraid, fearlessness is political labor, standing up to everything that keeps women down and throwing in a middle finger for good measure. i refuse to be intimidated by those who refuse to see my
humanity, and i'm calling all women to do the same. it's time to stop letting them scare us; let's start teaching them to be afraid of us. we learn fear of our bodies when we are made afraid because of them. you become afraid of your unknown potential from the first time a man leans out his car window to holler at your nine-year-old body. your body becomes the great temptation, the downfall of upstanding young men, and the bane of an otherwise unseen existence. we fear shame for overexposure so we cover up; we fear ridicule for prudishness so we show more skin. why are we made to be afraid of our own bodies without having done anything to earn such fear? patriarchy and purity culture demand that we hide ourselves, keep everything covered behind cloth and tucked into a corner, but also still be sexy. we are made to constantly worry about whether we're dressing and looking right. to be at peace in your own body is political fearlessness. we as women need to unlearn the shame and fear of our own bodies that has been instilled in us from childhood. we exist in our divine forms to get shit done, not to be the shit getting done. we claim autonomy and authority over our female existence and reject the restlessness of living in a female body. we refuse to be cowed by patriarchy's shaming of our bodies.
we grow up hearing that "the world is no safe place for a lady." i call bullshit; the world is no safe place for anybody trained to fear their own shadow. instead of teaching every child to be respectful and decent, young girls are only taught defense and terror of the unavoidable. we fear other people, what they might or might not do, how what we might or might not do will affect their actions. we limit our experiences out of fear, we stay under the watchful eye of power to stay as safe as we're allowed to be. we fear that which grants us independence. our fear keeps us dependent, in need of a big, strong protector to guide us across the street after dark. we should be teaching vigilance, not fear. our society is sculpted to scare women, and the more we have to rely on those big, strong protectors who hold the power, the further they keep us from power. patriarchy keeps us down as underlings, positioning itself above us in the pecking order and making us need it to stay safe in our world. i say we stop relying on patriarchy and its foot soldiers to be our protectors. i say we lean on each other, instead . let's start making a network of strong women to depend upon-we make much better protectors than those at the top of the food chain.
we spend years molding ourselves to be the perfect model of womanhood, trying to stay within society's borders so that we don't get burned. we have to straddle the line between looking good but not too good, being assertive but not too assertive, being feminine but not too feminine. the standards for women are intentionally impossible to reach because our fear and worry of getting it wrong keeps us occupied while we get stepped on by power. our preoccupation with holding back to maintain perfection scares us away from being our most free self, the one that is unafraid of the world and unafraid of standing up to power. women fear the uninhibited self. a life lived in fear of what you are and what you're doing wrong prevents a life lived in love of your true self. our conditioned selves are trained to tread carefully, defer to power, and fear all unknowns, but what of our uninhibited selves? who are we when we're no longer weighed down by our lifetime of fear? our fear keeps us from being the strong women that we truly are. power needs you to be too scared to be your uninhibited self so you can't get in the way. i strongly believe that we should get in the way. nothing in the world will change until we break free and embrace the uninhibited woman.
I made these collages as a way to express how it feels to live with POTS and how isolating it can feel. As someone who was socialized as a woman, it was hard to get this diagnosis because of the fact that I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) in my chart. I felt like doctors looked at me like I was crazy or that I was making this up. Now that some of my chronic health problems have been diagnosed, I have gotten prescription after prescription shoved down my throat. Doctors look at each individual symptom rather than the whole picture. As a society, we have been conditioned to think that if you are outside of the "norm" then you need to be fixed. So then what happens when I've been diagnosed with multiple physical and mental illnesses that have no cure? Well I'm brainwashed to think that I'm a freak or a burden or unworthy of being on this planet because of the way I am. I'm also outside of the "norm" simply because I am not straight. What happens when my homophobic family members find out I'll never have a husband? Well I must be a sinner and a disgrace then. FUCK THAT! The way our society views queer and disabled people is horrid. WE DON'T NEED TO BE FIXED!!!
"SUGGESTIONS" DON'T HELP US
Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) is a condition that causes a number of symptoms when you transition from lying down to standing up, such as a fast heart rate, dizziness and fatigue. While there's no cure, several treatments and lifestyle changes can help manage the symptoms of POTS (The Cleveland Clinic)
I decided to interview some of my peers who identify as queer and have POTS as a way to bring in more voices because
THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL
RE SICK DTIRE
Dismantling the Pain Olympics
By Isabel Elliot
I am tired. I am tired every morning, every day, every evening, every night. And I know you are too. How could you not be? We run towards tiredness every day: wake up, go to school, go to work, attend our organizations, go to our second job, do our hobbies, hang out with our friends, eat somewhere in between, exercise if we can, try to sleep at night, and do it all over again. Over and over forever until we retire or die. We are more than tired: we are overwhelmed, we are burned out, we are stretched thin, we are sick and stressed and broken. WHY? Why are we here? And why can't we stop? Whether we realize it or not, we are trapped in a culture that superficially rewards the grind, all while sneakily driving us further and further into tiredness. We are trapped in the Pain Olympics.
The Pain Olympics
We all know the Pain Olympics. We run them every time we hear someone complain about getting six hours of sleep last night, and respond with "well, I only got five!" We run them every time we are told or tell someone "when you enter the real world, things are going to be even harder." We run them every time we say yes to a responsibility when we should say no. The Pain Olympics are a creation of a capitalist culture that thrives off our work, and they are insidious. They want to be played, and they promise great rewards for doing so: money, status, personal satisfaction. They tell you that by playing you prove your strength and capability. But at the end of the day they are liars and cheats because they run on making you forget that they are a race towards pain. You "win" by being the most exhausted, the most overwhelmed, the most sick and hurt. Worse, the authorities in your
life have bought into it entirely. Your bosses, professors, and parents act as referees, pushing you to run farther and farther so that you may churn out more and more. And in doing so you break your body and spirit.
Burnout Cycle
The human body runs on cycles of stress. We encounter a stressor, we fight or freeze or flee, the threat disappears, and we return to baseline. At least, that's how it's supposed to · happen. But when we are in the thick of the Pain Olympics, we forget to return to baseline. We forget there is a baseline. All we know is the stress of the grind as our bodies get stuck in inflammation, constantly producing stress hormones to try to help us keep up. We become convinced this cycle is normal, and even enforce it among others! We think we are okay, that this is a sustainable way to live. This is not okay! We are not okay! We need to rest, desperately, repeatedly, consistently, NOW. We MUST leave behind the Pain Olympics. We must break free!
It's Not Your Fault, But it IS Your Problem
Capitalism is a bitch. If we didn't have to work for money to survive, I believe this problem wouldn't exist, or at the very least wouldn't be so prevalent. The Pain Olympics are
not a natural creation: they are held up by the standards of a 5-day work week, an 8 hour
work day, an expectation of overtime and giving it your all. They are the result of a society that functions on its most oppressed being most tired, because when you are exhausted, you
cannot fight back against the oppression. The powerful benefit from your tiredness, and they will not help you out of it. The painful truth, then, is this: no one is going to save you. The hopeful truth is: you are the only one who decides whether you break free. Do not
misinterpret me: I am not saying it is easy. It is not easy to go against the crowd, to start imagining a work/life balance, to value yourself over all else. It is so difficult that many people feel uncomfortable and shameful even taking a break, much less stopping for an extended time to rest. But we HAVE TO, because the consequences of our endless grind are so much worse.
Rest or Die
I cannot stress this enough: the Pain Olympics are KILLERS. Stress kills. We know this. Science knows this! Once our chronic stress triggers an autoimmune condition, chronic fatigue, heart disease, we CANNOT GO BACK. We only have one body: start acting like it! I do not say this to scare or defeat you, but we are often so afraid of being unproductive that we do not, cannot, comprehend that productivity also has its costs. And it does! The Pain Olympics are a public health crisis, ruining the bodies of all, but most harmed are those who are poor, disabled, Black, queer, immigrant, and female. Ifwe of those groups want to survive, much less thrive, we must turn the tide! We will no longer ignore our bodies telling us to stop. We will no longer give into the idea that our worth comes from our work. We will no longer let power dictate when, where, and how often we rest. Most importantly, we will not give into despair. We are not hopeless. We will rest!
Laziness Isn't Real
Getting out of the Pain Olympics can feel so wrong. Everyone we know is still running, and ifwe are not, then who are we? What are we worth? Are we still even human? Yes. YES! We know in our hearts we were not born into this world to work and die! We were born to dance, to sing, to sleep, to eat and drink and make merry! We are
here to love and be loved! Shed the shame! Stop the work! Break the cycle! Dream a new world! We are human BEINGS, not human DOINGS. We are enough. Say it to yourself. Enough. You are enough; you have done enough. Everything that we are is enough enough enough. We are enough when we say no to the grind, when we chase the balance and the healing we deserve, when we work when you please and rest when we wish. We are not what we can give. We never have been, and we never will be. We will not listen to the Pain Olympics' lies. Laziness is not real in a culture where high energy is not required.
Rejuvenate!
Now, here, at the most technologically advanced our species has ever been, we are working harder than ever. Why? There is enough food, enough water, enough time on this earth for us all. We can afford to fill our time with leisure and creation, but the systems of pain we have built would seek to stop us. And so we will discard them, like so many other obsolete ways in this world. We will dream a new way. And it starts with me. It starts with you. It starts when you say no to that task, that overtime, that one more thing. It starts when y ou treat yourself with kindness and grace, when you laugh with your friends, when you take a nap for no other reason than you need and want one. It starts when you stop parading how stressed and tired you are as though it's something to be proud of, and start idolizing a calm, rested life. This is the way we turn the tide. This is how we ensure that one day soon we will praise the gap year , the summer off, the travel leave , the time spent not working. We praise the slow life. We go towards it-not at a run, but at a walk. At a crawl. Hand in hand , we move towards rest, towards energy, stopping along the way to breathe, and to be.
An Advocate'sGuide to History
A Manifesto Journal by A . First
Advocacy without background is nearly worthless. How canyou understand what you are fighting for without doing the research? You must go beyond the bare minimum to educate yourself on the past NOT just the current events. I'm not saying you need to be • historian to access history History is the world; it is the backstory that shapes our existence.
Informed advocacycannot be done without the research We can't sit around expecting someone to do it for us, we can't rely on the media, and we sure as hell can't dictate the past Even though people have tried, more on that later. Many people look at the failures of the past, without taking • glance at the good that camefrom those movements . To create pr09ress, we must look at all sides of the scenario Imagine the work we do now being discounted just because one intersect ion is missing, especially • movement that has not been yet created. How is that fair? We have to learn to walk before we canrun, this doesn't mean to be queer you have to learn all of queer history , but it doesn't hurt. Just because we are queer doesn't mean we can speak on behalf of past and present queer people. We don't know their experiences without looking at the resources we have available .
First wave feminism paved the way for us, finally at fourth wave we are having more representation, but we must meet them to where society was during their time Sure, people o f color weren't included then, and that absolutely sucks, but they paved the way for some women and eventually with the rise of third wave, wave, allowed for intersectioanlity with race. Just because first wave didn't have racial inclusivity doesn't mean that it wasn't • valid and vital movement
Without the suffragetteswould we have intersectionality? White men historic.lly pitted the suffragettesagainst Black people since Black men received the right to vote before women, the patriarchyfuels yet another narrative full of hate. But suffragettesfighting for the women's right to vote inherently created way for future waves of feminism to occur. It took two more waves for intersectionality to be coined. Progress takes time.
We asked our teachers why we have to learn history in school, they told us to learn from the past. However, most of the world doesn't heed that warning or notion. It angers me. How many mistakes could have been prevented by learning from history? Especially within the politic.I spheres, so much needless suffering because of conflicts. I am so sick of telling people to take history seriously, sounding like• broken record. Part of it is finding those dangerous patterns and preventing them from occuring, but with the unwillingnessslook back plays into our own society downfall Should this really be • shock to people?? The signs have been there the whole time, if only we'd notice.
Systematically,we have these problems within our school systems, news, general access to information, and an underappreciationof social sciences. When people say that going to college is what makes us liberals and advocates they don't think that it's because we have always had this fire in us, it just rises from an ember to • roaring fire. Many of us have been fighting this fi9ht one way or another since various developmental ages I first discovered feminism as • toddler throu9h • dream with my late grandmother. I was three when that fire began to 9row. I want to encourage everyone's fire to flourish, using esing the tools we already have at our dispos.1 to persevere, to set this oppressive system ablaze and write our own history
Vse the history to our advantage we can learn how to break down these patriarchalhierarchis, the hypermasculinity, racism, censorship, ableism... we can be better. We will rise from the ashes over and over, no matter what History won't go down without • fi9ht. When we don't learn anf protect history, all it takes is two generations to change the books to • point where people don't realize it . We will not be eradicated.
The Bubbly Girl Manifesto
By Grace Francis
I think it's telling that as I go to write this, I'm trying to think of the very best thing to say. I've been here before: if I don't think of this very best thing, there's justification for my assumed stupidity. I've been here before.
I'm in the third grade
I'm getting pretty tired of hearing the word "innocent" in regards to myself. I'm getting pretty tired of telling people that I'm nine years old so innocence makes sense. I'm getting pretty tired of people not noticing that the fact that I'm having thoughts about what being nine years old means at age nine probably does not mean that I'm as dumb as they think.
I'm in the sixth grade.
I'm "a little too much sometimes." I'm still innocent, but now that innocence is a bit louder and has a more distinct laugh. I'm a bit too vocal about everything that I do and like. I'm a bit too vocal about everything I dislike. I'm not entirely sure why people think it's a bad thing that I spend a lot of time being outwardly happy. I'd ask them, but that would be a little too much.
I'm in the ninth grade.
"You're so pretty" is a common response to my words, as if they simply passed right through their recipient. The first time I hear this I say "thank you" because I'm not fully sure what that has to do with what I just said. The laugh that I elicit from my friend tells me all I need to know.
I'm in the eleventh grade.
I notice that my friends don't have the same expectations for me that they do for each other. I notice that my friends are a bit shocked when I try at my classes and
get simi l ar grades to them . I notice that my friends are even more shocked when I don't try at the same classes they don't try at and still get good grades. I notice that they mention the things I mess up at. The "predictable" things . I notice that I start trying not to notice everything.
I'm a sophomore in colleg·e.
"I don't think they're going to like having you as a student very much." "Why?"
"You're just really bubbly."
I think I was meant to be a cheerleader, and I think I'd be good at it. I think I was born to enthusiastically lead summer camp singalongs. I think I look good in fun earrings and patterned skirts. I think some of the smartest people I have ever met, myself included, get louder when they talk about the things that excite them.
I think that I'd like to live in a world where being feminine and aligning myself with things perceived as such doesn't lead to being questioned whenever I say anything. Female -identifying people are expected to be happy at all convenient times, but when that joy occurs on their own terms, they lose all of their credibility in the eyes of others . I can't count how many times I've had to repeat my ideas because I didn't voice them the way that people think I should have. I never used to let people walk all over me until I got the idea that that's what people with personalities like mine are supposed to do. Bubbly girls are never supposed to have a mind of their own. To them, bubbly girls don't have minds.
I use the word "bubbly" very intentionally. Bubbly is often swapped for other terms depending on who it's directed at. If someone is trying to be nice to you (perhaps following up a classic "you're so pretty") they call you bubbly. If they're going for a jab that they think you'll find funny, they call you ditzy. If they think they're smarter than you and probably also most other people, they'll say that you
just lack some common sense.
Bubbly is my favorite, though. Bubbly is often the term directed at feminine presenting people, and is always an attack on that very femininity. Sometimes, bubbly is supposed to be a compliment, tied into what dominant society views as the "ideal woman." This woman never bites back, she never bites in the first place. She just smiles and smiles and presents herself as an object to be loved and laughed at in equal measure. Society takes this woman and tries to see her in every bubbly girl that they meet. They're shocked to find out that she doesn't take a liking to this. They're shocked to find out that this person who they rely on to showcase joy doesn't feel joy because of them.
People are constantly surprised to find joy and femininity in the same space. Bubbly girls are revered for their light in the same way that they are destroyed for it. The brightness that people aligned with femininity showcase is only accepted when it is by the terms of patriarchal structures, and it is never equated with intellectual brightness. To be happy and to be feminine is to be at the hands of people who constantly want to take from you. Joy for people aligned with femininity is a form of political labor for these exact reasons.
When masculine people demonstrate an outgoing personality, they are deemed as "cute" or "lovable." The rise of the "golden retriever boy" in popular culture has furthered the belittling of bubbly girls; this boy, although compared to an animal, is allowed to embrace his joy through a lens that takes into account more humanity than bubbly girls have ever been allowed. This boy is not even referred to as bubbly for fear of embodying a feminine term. He is endearing and sought after and will be listened to when he speaks.
He will be listened to when he speaks. I could type this shit in 75 point font and still would be considered stupid for doing so. I'd be expected to play it off as a joke because I'd also be expected to not know any better. Well, let me tell you:
I know better. e all know better.
Bubbly girls do not feel joy because of dominant society. We do not feel joy because we want validation. We do not feel joy, even, because we feel that we're welcome to do so. We choose to feel joy in the face of a world that wants to deprive femininity of it. You can either be happy or feminine, there is no other way. I choose to be ecstatic when I want to because I know that there are many people who do not want us to. And we really can do it when we want to, because our happiness does not exist conditionally.
I will smile because I like to, I will laugh because feminine laughter has every right to fill up a room. We cannot let people pop us the way that they want to. I am ready to float on the breeze and up into the sky that embraces me. Oh the power and beauty of our bubbles. Oh the way I know that they cannot take this from me. Oh the joy I feel in my femininity.
Gentrificacion Es Colonizacion
Paula Garcia
White capitalist mindset thrives on the disruption and the destabilization of other countries for their own benefit.
Latinos in the United States make up 19 .1 % of the population, which makes them the bigges minority group in the US. The Latino population has grown in every comer of the nation. Latinos have always here for centuries since the Spanish came to what is now the United States. We have become immigrants and continue to fight for our existence.
Florida is home to 4.6 million people that are not born in the United States, three quarters are from Latin America. Governor Ron Desantis passed an anti-immigrant law, SB 1718, that criminalizes people as "human traffickers" who knowingly cross the state line with people who are undocumented. This bill is targeting undocumented immigrants in over a dozen policies that are preventing them from feeling safe in their own homes. It is disrupting people's lives, and it is jeopardizing Florida's economy, something DeSantis did not acknowledge. Agriculture is one of Florida's major industries, 772,000 undocumented immigrants are farmworkers. Many undocumented immigrants were worried and realized living in Florida was not safe anymore. After the farmworkers began to flee, lawmakers started to realize that they kicked out the people who feed them. Florida went into panic and lawmakers were trying to convince workers to stay and continue their labor duties. Lawmakers do not care about us unless it directly affects their lives. Aside from agriculture, Latinos are the very backbone of the food industry, walk into the back of a restaurant and you will see a room full of Latinos. We are essential for your survival; we work the jobs you have deemed hard labor. We can exhaust ourselves for your pleasure, we must bend ourselves backward to keep you satisfied. We come to your country to work in hopes
we will find a better life. We migrated here for a better life, that is all we have ever wanted. But instead, we are greeted with hate and prejudice. We are only welcome if it benefits you, even then we will never be equals.
Once you come here, you become this other thing that then becomes racialized. Gringo, go home.
A growing number of wealthy white Americans have moved to Puerto Rico following COVID-19 and Hurricane Maria. They wanted to take advantage of their significantly low tax rates and have increased the cost of living for the natives. Because of this 43% of the population is living below the poverty line. Governor Pedro Pierluisi passed an act which gave tax breaks and stimulant checks to rich people to move into the island. His act 60 excluded Puerto Ricans, which has kicked people out of their neighborhoods and raised house prices. Locals protested and urged the government to act. Many activists and locals fear that Puerto Rico will no longer be Puerto Rico, the rate at which gentrifiers move in is rising and many fear that it will not end well.
White tourists in Sinaloa, Mexico have complained about the local Bandas that play on the beaches. For people in Mazatlan, this is tradition, this is how people make money, this is their culture. People all over Mexico come to Mazatlan to hear them play, playing loud music on the beach is synonymous with Mazatlan culture. There is a big local community that lives and depends on playing music on beaches. White tourists have complained about the loud noise to hotel management and have tried multiple attacks to stop them from playing. White tourists have banned Bandas from playing, they have gotten them arrested, they have put restrictions on beaches. A curfew of 7 p.m. has been set and Bandas are not allowed to play passed that time.
They have been arresting Bandas if they see them playing past the curfew. The people of Mazatlan have protested because their way of life is being gentrified, white tourists are trying to change their culture, their community, and their environment. Why do you feel the need to change their culture into your boring white shit that you are used to, why can't you appreciate how beautiful their culture is? Noise has become political and being loud in your own country is resistance. We will defend our culture because that is who we are. We will resist your attempts to silence us and we will continue to fight for our culture and our traditions.
This is a call for action. We have taken your shit for way too long. We have a long history that we constantly have to carry. We feel the weight on our shoulders, we see the glass ceiling that prevents us from ever wanting more. The oppression we face varies from all aspects of our lives , education, workforce, healthcare, and institutions. This is a call for blood, we want you out. You come into our countries to destroy everything around you. You come to escape your fucked up economy just to fuck up ours. We go to the US to work, and you come to us to colonize all over again. What you are doing is not gentrification; it is colonization. You come to work from home and make money but never think about contributing to our economies. You stop resources from coming to the natives because your mansion is in the way. You are trying to erase our culture, our traditions, our way of living. Your eyes are clouded with ignorance if you do not think this is your attend at erasing us from history.
We as Latinos continue to fight for existence, for a seat at the table. We make your ignorant world go around and around. Florida almost became a ghost town because you did not realize we fucking feed you. We do not have rest; we cannot even describe the feeling. My ancestors have fought and continue to fight for equality, for equity. They were never granted rest because living
Que Viva La Raza!
was simply existing every day. Our culture is who we are, it is what we know. It is our pride and joy, where many of us find peace. We find happiness in our family, food, language, music, art, and ways of finding unity. We have fought to have our own land to have something that is ours and we cannot let you take that away from us. We will continue to fight for what belongs to us.
This is a call to action to those reading this, Latinos deserve to be freed from the gentrifiers that consider themselves to be superior From the oppressors that continue to put us down, from those who continue to not see us as humans. We will continue to make worlds and dream big ; we will continue to break generational cycles. Stay aware of what is going on around you , spread the information you hear. Many Latin American countries are continuously being gentrified every day, knowing, and acknowledging it is the start, but it is not the solution.
People think we are the ones polluting America when we are the backbone .
El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido.
LIFE
SUCKS
I WISH IT WERE DIFFERENT
I WISH IT WERE EASIER TO CHANGE
I WISH WE WEREN'T SO DEPENDENT ON A SYSTEM THAT IS DESIGNED TO WEAR US OUT
I KNOW I AM VICTIM AND IT FEELS IMPOSSIBLE TO GET OUT OF IT BECAUSE I AM ALREADY SO TIRED ALL THE TIME
I, AND EVERYONE ELSE THAT IS FORCED TO COMPLY, COULD HAVE MORE TIME FOR OURSELVES AND FOR THINGS WE LOVE
LIKE CHANGE
LIKE JOY
IT'S HARD TO FIND JOY WHEN WE DON'T HAVE THE MONEY OR TIME OR ENERGY OR EVEN THE CAPACITY TO TAKE IT IN AND SAVOR IT
FOR THOSE OF US WHO LIVE WITH CHRONIC PAIN, IT'S EVEN HARDER TO GET OUT FROM UNDER THE PRESSURE BECAUSE WE ARE UNDER SO MUCH MORE
MORE PRESSURE TO BE NORMAL AND PRETEND LIKE EVERYTHING IS FINE WHEN IT ALMOST NEVER IS
I THINK ABOUT PEOPLE LIKE ME WHO HIDE IT ON THE DAILY AND HAVE BECOME SO GOOD AT IT THAT NO ONE WOULD KNOW THEY ARE ALWAYS SUFFERING BECAUSE THEY CAN'T GET TREATMENT OR IT'S NEAR IMPOSSIBLE TO GET TREATMENT
I WISH MY BODY WASN'T IN SO MUCH PAIN
I COULD KEEP DOING THE THINGS I LOVE WITHOUT WONDERING WHEN IT'S GOING TO HURT OR GO THROUGH A WORKDAY WITHOUT DREADING THE TASKS THAT WILL CAUSE ME PAIN
I COULD WORRY LESS ABOUT IF IT'S MAKING THINGS WORSE FOR ME THELONGERITGOESUNTREATED
I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO BE AFRAID OF GOING TO THE DOCTOR JUST BECAUSE I AM A WOMAN AND MAY NOT BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY BELIEVE WOMEN
WOMEN AND AFAB PEOPLE SHOULD NOT HAVE TO TRY SO HARD TO HAVE THEIR PAIN UNDERSTOOD AND TAKEN CARE OF
HEALTHCARE IS A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT
LEAVING PAIN AND ILLNESS UNTREATED IS KILLING PEOPLE WHO DO NOT DESERVE TO DIE
MORE THAN THAT, THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS IN THIS COUNTRY AND IN THIS WORLD THAT GO UNTREATED
WE CAN SAY AS MUCH AS WE WANT, BLAST PEOPLE WHO DESERVE TO BE BLASTED, BUT THEY NEVER LISTEN TO US BECAUSE THEY THINK WE DON'T MATIER
THEY LEAVE THE ROCKS UNTURNED THAT WE DEMAND TO BE OVERTURNED AND SEEN FOR WHAT THEY ARE
THEY SHAME US FOR NOT GOING TO VOTE AND THEN MAKE US FEEL LIKE OUR VOICES DON'T MEAN ANYTHING, LIKE SPEAKING UP ABOUT WHAT I'M PASSIONATE ABOUT WILL NOT AFFECT ANYTHING
I KNOW THAT SPEAKING UP DOES MATIER IN THE LONG RUN BUT I WISH I DIDN'T HAVE TO WONDER IF I AM DOING ENOUGH
I WISH I DIDN'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT WHETHER I AM SPEAKING UP ENOUGH ABOUT THE GENOCIDE THAT WON'T STOP BECAUSE THERE SHOULDN'T BE A GENOCIDE IN THE FIRST PLACE
PEOPLE ARE DYING AND I CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT IT BECAUSE NO ONE THAT SHOULD CARE SEEMS TO UNDERSTAND THE WEIGHT OF WHAT THEY'RE DOING
OUT OF SIGHT OUT OF MIND, RIGHT?
I WISH I DIDN'T HAVE TO THINK ABOUT WHAT I'M MISSING BY NOT PAYING AS CLOSE ATTENTION TO THE WORLD BECAUSE WHAT OTHER INJUSTICES IS MY COUNTRY HELPING TO PERPETUATE THAT I'M NOT SEEING?
WE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO WORK THIS HARD TO PRESERVE OURSELVES AND OTHER HUMAN LIVES
I WISH I DIDN'T HAVE TO WONDER WHY PEOPLE, WHY POLITICIANS, CARE ABOUT OTHER HUMAN BEINGS SO MUCH THAT THEY ARE KILLING THEM
I WISH I DIDN'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT MY TRANS FRIENDS, ONES I KNOW AND ONES I DON'T, AND THEIR SURVIVAL
WHY DO SOME PEOPLE NEED PERMISSION TO EXIST AND OTHERS DON'T? WHY DO OLD WHITE PEOPLE HAVE THE SAY IN WHO DOES AND DOESN'T? WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP VOTING THEM IN?
I WISH PEOPLE WOULD RECOGNIZE THAT ABORTION IS NOT TAKING A LIFE
IT'S SAVING ONE
POLITICIANS WOULD RATHER THAT HUMANS HAVING BABIES RISK EVERYfHING AND MORE FOR A CHILD THEY CAN'T AFFORD
THIS HURTS CHILDREN MORE THAN ABORTING THEM BEFORE THEY EVER KNOW THEY'RE ALIVE
IF YOU WANT PEOPLE TO HAVE KIDS, WAIT TIL THEY'RE WELL ENOUGH TO TAKE CARE OF THEM
IT'S NOT YOUR CHOICE TO MAKE SO TAKE YOUR HANDS AWAY FROM OUR BODIES
GROWUP
FIGURE OUT WHY YOU CARE SO MUCH ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE DOING THINGS YOU ARE AFRAID OF
I'M TIRED OF EXISTING IN A WORLD THAT DOESN'T CARE ABOUT ANYONE
LIFE SUCKS
SO LET'S FUCKING TRY TO MAKE IT BETTER
STOP THE GENOCIDE
STOP HURTING TRANS PEOPLE STOP BANNING ABORTION
STOP MAKING LIFE SUCK FOR PEOPLE WHO AREN'T YOU
BY JESSIE GOURLEY
Man-Sized Man-ifesto
By Isaac Jones
It is t i me for fem i n i ne men to realize we are SISTERS IN ARMS!
The phallus exists 011 the level of disco11rse as the dominant signifier and, though the phallus and penis are 11ot the same, the penis is a kind of rod, a scepter, evidence of the man's place at the apex of the symbolic order If it is as Jill Johnston, Andrea Dworkin, and Radicallesbia ns say--that women are defined in relation to men, that women are those who get fucked by men--then feminine men are women. As we are repeatedly and incessantly fucked by men in all areas of our life and in all spaces that we go.
Intercourse happens beyond the body!
Penetration o ccurs beyond the insertive act! The phallus exists to fuck us all!
The feminine man exists like the lesbian in a liminal space. W hereas lesb ia ns are a liens to th e patriarchal order, feminine men seek asylum within it. We will EVER b allow ·ed a c e s s . Weare the order' foot soldiers. Desperately, we fuck to possess, we adopt the b ellicose strategy of maleness, capitulate to the essential de s ire. We possess because we are afraid to be the lone ly castrato, we fuck t o occupy and annex the woman, we fuck for the g l ory of maleness. We fuck to be gl o rified.
We fuck because we know no other way to be. We are disallowed access to patriarchy except in its violent reproduction. We are not men, quite. We are patriarchy's fairies, faggots, and freaks! We will NEVER be incorporated into the hegemonic order! In our attempts to gain entry we perpetuate a regime that oppresses us and our sisters.
We must renegotiate our being!
We must sever ties to our manhood!
WE MUST EMBRACE OURSELVES AS WOMEN!
Preface
I turn our thinking to PJ Harvey's "Man-S ize" (1993). The narrative of the song follows a woman who enters the spaceof man b means of becoming. In becoming Man-Sized, she discard s her femininity. he skins herself ets her hair ablaze, eats her former sisters: all to assume the powe r of patriarchy.
I locate this becoming in feminine men. I have already queered woman as a term that name s one who is "counter" to man. Queer beings are thus included in this umbrella, but this marufesto 1s primarily addres ed to our sisters who are not yet aware of their status as sue
Thi is a manifesto of UNBECOMING or DISBECOMI NG
"I'll measure time I'll measure height/ I'll calculate my birth right/ Good Lord I'm big I'm heading on/ Man-sized got my leather boots on ... "
We must divest ourselves of our birthright and exist as allies to our si sters W h at 1 the n. ture of our birthright? In white uprcmaci st-cis- hctcro - capitali t - patriarch y, the man' birth nght 1 • calculus of dominati on and terror. We have a penis, arc pronounced men, and fall in line via our 1 lizanon. To be a man, you mu t possess a woman and therefore pos se s all women That is •o ur birthright.
We die inside, beside, and above women, in an act of martyrdom . As martyr w e mm.it our birthright to ideology . We naturalize it, reify it, and attempt to nter the canon of saintho o d . Biology, theology, philosophy, psychoanalysi : the predominant conception · f our gender bin, are products of this ideology. Again and again, we retrofit these di cour with patriar chy, h lding fast as liberation movements fight to topple it structur s. We believe the e id logical cons truce to be objective, statements of fact, self- evident, and thu unquestionable . W ithout u s: th fcm.inin , othcred, and incongruous man, none of it would not survive.
When we fuck women, demean women, cheat women, hate women, rape women, kill women, we commit atrocities on women as a class!
We are women because we are not men. We are women because woman is anything man is not, anything counter to men, anything counter - intuitive, anything that counterpoints, anything counter. We are women because to patriarchy, we are not men, try as we might.
We've got to get man-sized. We've got to get man-sized because we have never been man-sized because our performance is a masquerade. Our performance and in t eres t must depart from patr iar chy.
Our survival as men, however, is dependent o n our proximity t o patriarchy . Our swollen dicks are pleasured b y it, a s we b e come mansized . Our pleasure, the reason for possession , is to b e c ome m ansized.
We must work to dismantl e these systems o f d om inatio n .
We must work to make visibl e th es e ideolo gies.
We must imagine sex beyond po ssess io n .
We must interrogate our pl eas ur e.
We must be otherwise.
We must!
"Got my girl and she's a wow / I cast my iron knickers down/ Mansized no need to shout/ Can you hear, can you hear me no w ... "
Effeminate
1: having feminine quali ties untypical of a man: not manly i n appearan ce or manner 2 : marked by an unbecoming delicacy or overre.fin ement
Wh e n w
u c h with themselves. T h ey are "mamas' n a n cie s. T h es e m e n are non -donun a n t, unassertive , b o ·s, ' issies, v irgin pu sics wimp s, que e r s, timid idiosy ncr ati c , clea nly c o w ar dl y, unc o nfid ent, in effe ctu al , un a m bitious. The fem inin e is not a static condition ; it is a choice , orientation, and disposition.
We work to suppress it: we kill her to kill it , we fuck her to fucR it, to possess it, to occupy and invade ourselves , t o beco me man-sized.
The goal our work as sisters is to embr ace the m uch of the feminine. To keep our skins, to grow our ha ir, to consider other forms of sustenance. We commit to th e reor ientation of our being , to be untypical , unmanly, a s woman : as counter.
"My babe looking cool and neat/ I'm pr etty sure good en ough to eat/ I'm man-sized no need to shout/ Let it all, let it all hang out ... "
In co n siderin g our sisters we m ust d e p rogra m o u r 1ninds fr m t h e m ode l of male as predator a nd fe m a le not mere ly p rey bu t stoc k We im agin e h er cattle and ourselves s butche r : with eac h plung a nd each thru t we co n s um e h er, co n tro l h er . S h e is n ot
· t o a t . We all ca me from women. Women are not the great unknown or the means of castration. We need not occupy them, invade them, possess them They are our mother a nd o u r sisters. We come from them and to them we will return . The Earth is our mother like th e p erson wh o bore us.
If we view woman as a part of ourselves and unite ourselves with the feminine within, we commit to an embodied praxis with the potential to dismantle patriarchy.
Recall: we are patriarchy's foot-soldiers. We are their police. We are their dogs. We are their butchers. We are their peons.
Desperately we seek approval such that we may be a part.
LET US ENVISION A WORLD FOR US APART!
That Night
You told me you love me that night. That night we reconnected.
Reconnected after years.
After sixteen years of knowing you.
You told me you love me that night.
That night you put your hands on me.
You whispered you love me as you slid your hands all over me.
All over me as I lay there frozen.
Drunk and Frozen.
Frozen as I passed out that night.
That morning you told you me had been wanting this for years .
For years it felt like I was laying there.
Laying there screaming inside to get out.
To get away from you.
You who had touched me.
Touched me when I didn't want it.
I never wanted it.
Never from you
But you did it anyway because you told me you love me.
By Taylor Miler
to define is to confine
by Breanna Mccluskey
boundaries labels definitions no matter the facilitative environments they may temporarily create - they confine us. limit hinder obstruct.
we cannot allow these restrictions to remain on our minds bodies spirits.
know yourself outside of these constructions we create for ourselves and others. grow flourish be
no space can hold you
Cat on a Leash Manifesto
by Madison Newman
In her poetry collection Nothing is Okay, contemporary poet Rachel Wiley compares existing as a femme queer woman to walking a cat on a leash. She calls the action, and the identity by comparison, "awkward" yet harmless. However, she notes the key difference between the two is that a cat on a leash is clearly visible, unlike queerness, which is an invisible component to one's identity.
Members of the LGBTQ+ community are always battling erasure as society attempts to bury us or sweep up off to the ide. To be proud of one's identity includes the push to be seen , heard and celebrated. If queerness is a component of an identity that cannot be seen plainly from the outside, Femme queerness makes the invisible, paradoxically, harder to see. THE FEMME IS RENDERED INVISIBLE.
Femme queer women in queer spaces struggle with being perceived (or perce1vmg ourselves) as "imposters". THE FEMME IS NOT AN IMPOSTER.The fact that you choose to question our queerness when we inform you of it does not make it any less present. We are not imposters just because we can "pass as straight"-this "passing" is the patriarchal gender binary's fault, not ours. We are shapeshifters that can use our powers for good, to propel towards social betterment and promote anti-oppression.
This passing is grounds for others to second-guess Femme identities on the b asis of patriarchal expectations. WE GET TO DEFINE FOROURSELVESWHO ARE AND WHO Af'(.I;) WHAT WELIKE. Femme is not an invitation to convince us that we,
not a coded elicitation that we are "down for a threesome" or a suggestion that we are simply "ex perimental", and therefore exist in a mythological, fetishized, invalid space. THEff EMMEIS
NOT CONFUSED. It is not an invitation to suggest that our queerness is a phase that will pass us by because we are not committing to what society's very narrow-minded view of queerness " should " look like.
This enjoyment of Femme activities and expressions also does not mark us as any less queer than we identify ourselves as. Stereotypically, being a queer woman comes hand-in-hand with the rejection of the Femme, but this is a conception which must be overturned. The concept of not " looking gay" attracts extra unwanted attention from both cis/het people and LGBTQ+ people who are skeptical that our identity is what we say it is when it is revealed. Toe extra headto-toe scan when our queerness is brought up lets us know everything we need to know.
We know we look fabulous.
THE FEMME DOES NOT BEG FOR ANALYSIS. Our presence does not insist on extra attention. Our expressions are not traitorous. We are not your project, your secret your porn category. We arc not a more palatable, binary, watered-down queerness. Our validity is not up for debate. Our existence is just that-existence.
OURCORDS AREFRAYED AND READYTO IFwe ARECATS O LEASHES, SNAP. OUR CLAWS AREOUT.
Let us exist in peace.
Against Ableism: Architecture, Time, and Rad i cal Gastronomy
By Wes Phillips
Our time is not now.
Our time may never be now.
Our time is the future,
In our utopia,
Where societal structures do not masquerade
And brutalize
The infinite plurality of human bodies
Outside the crushing ideal of an ableist world
At the same t ime , we are connected to a history of v i o l e ncea range of in accessibility.
Among the forms of inaccessibility pervading society, ma ny are e mb edd ed in fund a m e mal a rch it ecture and des ign
In doors, steps, si dewalks , transportation.
In signs legible to only certain eyes, in seats for only ce r t ain fo rms, i n bath rooms meant fo r certain sizes.
In every door frame is an assumption Every structure is a relation.
A glass's purpose is its relation to a handthe way it holds and manipulates the glass in space.
Built with such a relation in mind, what does a staircase say? A staircase assumes a form of mobility: "able-bodied" legs. The structures of our society cater to and assume a certain bodily ideal and norm.
Our disability is not an inherent disadvantage. It is the result of a rigid norm - reinforced through oppressive structures - which benefits ideal bodies. From this, diverse bodies are erased, culled, or marginalized to reproduce the bodily norm.
However, we are not on the outside. We are not on the margins.
We are a gothic presence haunting the mistaken solidity of normativity.
We exist and resist within the dissonance of our bodies with societal structures. Our dissonance is an impetus to terraform, making an accessible world through our insistent force. In the d i ssonance we search for harmony, and that harmonic imagination is the futurity we exis t with, the forward-thinking consciousness outside of the present.
The physical ableist architecture must crumble. We will blow open doorwa ys , widen halls, and grind down staircases.
We will topple the tyrannical verticality of workspaces that are not accommodat ing or accessible for the needs and non-mechanistic qualities of our bodies We scoff at the pseudo-progress ive demand for walkable cities without any consideration for the plurality of ways bodies move.
The oppression of the intertwined nature of architecture and geography must be dismantled; it is not enough to have clusters of accessibility Proximity to medical care must be accessible, and the inaccessible distances of supposed accessible transportation only indicate a failure in efforts for accessibility.
In the basements and cellars of society, We will be poltergeists
Dredging-
Creating light in the inaccessible Spaces will be co-opted to serve our community, our rest, and meditation on our dissonance in these spaces.
When we must, and we often must, we will level buildings and become arch itects of our own Des ign and architecture are undeniably a site for our activism. Through des ign w e expand the scope of legibility, of humanity, so the true vastness of the human body is comprehe nsi b le in its reflect ion . We strive for universal design and accessible design - while also challenging no rm ative no tions of who falls under the " un iversal" category - engaging in design that is constantly in flu x because our bod ies are constantly in flux. With this fluid understanding, we also assert a temporality that is in flux, sto pping and st arting, slowing and accelerating with the contortions and fluidity of our bodily r el ati o ns.
We assert crip time.
The weaponization of time to abuse our bodies can no longer co n t i n ue . Our bodies are broken and erased by the constriction of mechanistic time. With our disability -cente r ed and crip t ime, time bends t o our will. We will shape society into alignment w i th our experiences of this te m poralit y Not o n ly does time stop, start, slow, and accelerate in accordance to our needs, but it also sh atters, b r eaks , wa r ps back in on itself, and rearranges itself The traditional temporal sequences of our liv es are i ncompat i ble with normativity. Maturation and aging look entirely different for disabled bodies. We may never reach the same milestones or landmarks of these processes.
The daily steps for normative functioning are all out of order and peaking randomly.
This pervades our lives and foundational periods like our educational experiences, which itself accentuates crip time with a different rate of maturation than peers where some feel stunted and others feel forced to mature rapidly to survive. We also speak and listen within a different, fluctuat ing temporality . The issue is not with a stutterer when they are ignored because of norma ti ve discomfort w i th their unique relation to time regarding speaking and listening, when someone lis t e n s t o ho w th e y speak instead of what they say. This is a systemic and oppressive norm
Our utopia requires room for this accessible form of temporality. Im m e rsin g ours e lves in it means we listen to our bodies Some days our bodies need to slow down , rejec tin g the mechanistic temporality for our care work, communal care, and attention to our subjective health.
Some days, our bodies need to stop at moments where we are usua lly fo r ced into ca pitalist productivity. We reject linear, progressive time that positions us as broken and coerces us to o ri e nt o urselves toward illusory cures or a "better" future predicated on the (false) desirabil i ty of normat ive bo di es .
We reject this twisted form of futurity. Our utopia cures the ills of so ci ety Our futurity is rooted In our Inability to reach actualization in this present world , where cult ural structures reflect the reality of our bodies. Indeed, the normative progressive linear temporality will be liquified and subsequently manipulated by our bodies and needs Our movement follows the needs of our bodies, not the needs of a system that possesses us.
Each bodily coercion Is abuse.
We commit our bodies to rest.
Comprehending our utopian vision of space and time leads us to deconstruct many harmful constructs and cultures, and a fundamental crux of our survival which often gets overlooked i n critical deconstructions of culture impacts non - normative bodies profoundly : food culture Our bodies and relationship to time imagine a new relationship to food Incompatibility with cap ital i st product ivity and mechanistic time means the ableist system leaves many of us in a perpetual sta t e o f food i nsecur i ty, living off the bare minimum granted for survival, while construct i ng barr iers t o acces sin g food
Autoimmune disorders, such as diabetes or celiac disease, necessitate no n-n ormative relati o ns to fo o d that are incompatible with the rigid normative sense of allotted time for ea ting or post-eating care. Breaking from mechanical scripts also means we crave a deep connect ion to culinary cr aft that goes beyond sustenance for the next phase of production. We understand diet not as a way to achieve a trending type of body, and not as a way to reach a health standar d, but as a relationship in opposition t o a consumptive regimen (three meals a day - maybe skip breakfast to get to work) to continue producing. Our culinary Interests are po sitio n ed in a temp o rality that is va stl y differentWe cannot abide by the mechanical; our relation to food is present oriented for the recurring perpetual needs and desires of our subject i ve bod i esconsider the diabetic and how needs must be responded to in accordance to the natural fluctuation of the body's blood sugarand future orientedwe must be keenly aware of eating needs ahead of time
with the weight of food insecurity and the perpetuity of fluctuation
This requires bodies to slow down and break up the temporal markers of the day in illegible ways The ways we interact with food in the present act as prophecies for utopian food relations in the future. We interact w i th food as our bodies need and crave it. We are not truly feeding ourselves when we abide by societal consumption standards and the discriminatory demands of medicalized diets which attempt to restrict the varieties of bodily relation to food. We feed an ideal figure instead, an oppressive void .
Alienating ourselves from food, alienates ourselves from our bodies.
Food culture reflects the type of bodies a culture desires, and the ableist bod i ly idea l s of our fo od culture do not reflect the healthy and beautiful plurality of bodies with unique re lations to food.
Being against ableism is to be against the way certain bodies are co nsi de r ed dysfuncti o nal or dreadful due to we ight or non - normative relationships to food. To be aga inst pe opl e' s unique relationship to food at various sizes is to constrain relation to the deluded ide al. An actualized relation with food emphasizes access to food, the ability to curate diets to bod i ly needs and desires, i nteracting with food in the same fluctuating and intimate manner that our bod ies behave, an d no t imposing rigid structure on the crafting of this relation
We assert that we know what l s b est for o ur b o di e s
Metrics and food labels have utility for subjective cu ration, but the us e of t hem as a standard enforces the same type of constraint as mechanistic time. Food is a conversat ion ; a bod i ly r e action followed by an edible reaction and so on Food studies is activism . We desire an erotic connection to ou r foo d, counteracting the industrial food production which severs food from any history or attempts a pretentious masquerade
(false commercial notions of connection to land or elucidations of a misconstrued version of farm to table which attempts to give goods an appealing history; it simulates nostalgia in a culture whose taste is often developed from nostalgic associations, but we seek new relations and not these idealized notions of "better" past relations to food, glorifying peasant life) of its unethical, industrial, exploitative nature.
Our culinary skill explores the diverse tastes which coincide with the plurality of our bodies, and we explore new culinary frontiers which capture the colors of our salivation on an even p l ane ith our connection to the food; culinary exploration entails a display of distinct se nsory experiences. Disabled bodies cook and eat and taste in non-normative ways. Resistance r es ides in the conglomeration of nonnormative bodies eating together.
We are what we eat,
We are how we eat.
Food and Bodies
Are erotic entities-
We advocate for a radical gastronomy.
In imagining and creating imaginative spaces for our utopia with other disabled bodies , we create a microcosm of our utopia. Our world building of devoted futurity is a constant, perpetual form of resistance because of the againstness of our existence. Architecture, time, and food are currently cultural superconstructs which contradict our disabled bodies to the end of utter illegibility
We are like a UFO's brief spark
Of world building dreams, And we grasp the potentialities in this Otherness.
We identify with the imaginative aspirations where the unattainability of the cosmic (our utopia) entangles with the normative, foreshadowing our universal terraforming.
Transhood = Godhood
Cis people must think before they dare to renounce my very existence when I have been closer to transcendence than any of them will ever be. Be not afraid to break off my flesh and grow drunken from the velvety taste of my blood that your heart desires. For if this trans body of mine is akin to biblical seraphim, a creature of biblical beauty that no one can truly bear to witness then it is only with touch, that you will recognize my womanhood, for not even a blind person can dare to challenge me with the judgment of their gaze. I am far from abominable; I am only holy. For if I am a woman of my own creation aren't I too no different than God, for he too creates being untouched by the cruelty of humanity? My womanhood is a thing of religion, a practice I've devoted myself to creating and investing in this goddess version of myself, akin to how believers of Christ have fabricated the existence of God himself into the world simply with their actions and minds. That is why I feel so theoretical as if my femininity and very existence as a woman is solely based and built upon the imagination and willingness of those around me, to believe in the woman, I have made myself to be. My womanhood was created, forged, and built in the minds of those who care to see me, and I truly fear without them I would simply as a woman cease to exist. I constantly feel like I am a leader of a cult as I purposely surround myself with believers who feed into what feels like a delusion of mine that I am a woman. Nevertheless, I feel the most feminal whenever I am nude within the solitude of my sanctum. There is a certain unique beauty I feel when I can see myself fully. It is only clothed that I quickly lose the sensation of femininity. Most girls at my age are ashamed if not repulsed with their own bodies as they hide from mirrors, but I am not such a girl. I cherish the intimate time spent whenever I can see myself in ways nobody could dare deny. It is strange staring at my body while I worship freshly shaved ebony skin with rich mango butter and how I can form breasts and thighs into this foreign body of mine with the palms of my veiny masculine hands. I am deeply intrigued with what lies underneath my clothes that I hardly recognize that it's me who I am staring at because I've begun to see the blessings of my crucified manhood as I expel a sinful part of my body. I watch as my hand traces across the bridge of my broad shoulders, and the longer I stare they begin to soften, and I realize I am no different than any cis woman . Every trans woman especially those with melanin, must find a temple-hood within your body and know that you are heavenly guarded by the watchful eye of Hermaphroditus, the first divine of transcendence. I, daughter of Gaia, and Aphrodite and descendant of Hermaphroditus, implore you to Find fellowship within your trans kin, for there exists a level of godhood that cis people would never be able to comprehend akin to Cherubim as they dare to renounce our very existence, yet it is you, who exist in the threshold of humanity and transcendence. for you, are a being of your own creation, forever in a state of Godhood because divinity is a thing that is begging to be believed.
Bad Religion
Feminine urge to dislodge the cage of cracked ribs and rid myself of all this masculine blasphemy, to shove anointed fingers down my throat and pull from its, Adam's apple, for I rather starve than be a man. Feminine urge to crucify my manhood as it has no place in this heavenly temple of mine. How dare you judge me for I do not settle because it is what I think I deserve, but it is all I have. To be a trans woman is a beckoning bargain, for what is a trans woman without her disciples, even if they cast abominable filth onto me, at least I'm gazed upon, at least I'm desired even if it's by men with glossy eyes and wet teeth. Sleeping with men has always felt like communion, as they break me down and drain me dry before they devour me whole, leaving me in a state of nothingness. I feel the coven of womanhood has forsaken me, like a well-kept vow I will never know, leaving me no choice but to seek salvation between the legs of any nice man who dares to perceive me. To be the object of someone's perversion is the closest I've come to being seen. To be a trans woman is to be a figment of the imagination, a forever contradiction at battle with reality and I will never be a teenage girl and evermore a grown woman. I hate how my body betrays me, how I can't wait to mutilate the parts of my body that deny my womanhood. No more will I sacrifice myself for man's sins, fo r I am an unforgiving god that demands recognition not because of the blessing I've given, but because of who I am. I am a woman of my own goddamn creation. I'm so God damn sick of playing this capitalist game as I market myself with flattering pictures trying to capture as much of my essence as possible on these dating apps. Yet it never works, it's never enough, am I just not pretty enough without sharing my nude body to get past a talking stage? All I ever am is a damn fetish. All I've ever been is a· damn race for these damn tranny chasers to run after. Imagine being acknowledged but never seen, to be bold and broken. There exists a time I used to yearn for the devotion of man, for my womanhood to be nothing but of my creation, and like any god I require disciples to rem ain real, so in a sense, there exists a Godhood in transness. Yet now I've completely lost myself in the process of answering the calls of man's sin while twisting and deforming this angelic biblically beautiful body of mine. I made myself their alter of lust as they adorn my body with their perverted desires beyond the comprehension of my own Godhood, for I am an atheist who prays to a goddess that I've created out of the minds of my loved ones and I have felt I've strayed far from the flock and I wish to seek deliverance within divine femininity. I feel even lying with cis men is an act of blasphemy to the goddess inside of me, for my trans body be more sacred than any echoing church, yet I fear cis woman no different than a worshipper fears god and that women will see my attempt at womanhood as a mockery, for I have already sacrificed my being to my male devotees all under the sovereignty of femininity.
I Am A Brutally Soft Woman, Who
Is Not A Woman, Quite.
There's nothing quite profound or poetic about what I'm about to say. I am exhausted from breaking and being bold. I take all this pain because it is the only definite way, I know I'm alive. Still, I know I'm too God-awfully beautiful to be sexualized in ways that betray the true complexity of my inner and outer, seen and unknown beautiful self. It's the most disturbing thing to stare in the mirror at the masterpiece of performative humanity that I've plucked and picked clean and shaved of any imperfections to be ignored. My resilience is an act of betrayal, for my body refuses to connect with me leaving me in a state of mindful dissociation, a forever constant contradiction of my gender identity. I am the priest of a onewoman cult, forever preaching the gospel truth that the goddess that I am and the woman that stands before you are real, but I can no longer convince anyone let alone myself. I can't be expected to uphold my faith in my womanliood when I only preach that I'm a real woman to the body of one, for these temple walls are etched with the manhood of Adam's apple denying any validity of this goddess's womanhood. I've become the atheist goddess who's grown yearning and bitter, because truly what makes them so God damn special? Why must white queerness scream so loud as it sits with such ignorant entitlement upon the necks of trans people of color, silencing and suffocating the distant cries of deceased black bodies? Oh god, how I wish there was more representation for women who look like me, for all I have whenever I search dark skin trans women is a list of articles on the murders of yet another trans woman of color. I fear furthering my transition medically because I am unsure what I may look like, and I worry if I do, I'll end up one day looking just as the women who look like me did when they were beaten to death. For my body is this foreign thing of nature, as I only exist in the perception of sexuality and never humanity, let alone womanhood. I honestly don't feel womanly or human, and more so like a being made blank for your objectification. Slut, hole, pretty, princess, bitch, beautiful are just a collection of adjectives thrown at me from the moment I claimed my girlhood. Men are more interested in the quality of my head and less in the content it possesses. I am not gorgeous beyond comprehension but instead beautiful beyond recognition. I am soft and gentle without reason despite the atrocities I've faced and no matter how rough this world has been to me I fear just as the fleshy supple human I am, I will forever be soft, inside and out. I am a false prophet, a mere falling angel begging to be under the mercy of someone in an attempt to have purpose again. Because truly if godliness is lovelessness wouldn't you seek refuge in the religion of love? Some Christians would argue it is this sin of my queerness that is to blame for my stoic suffering, however, I would argue it's many other things, but the dirt of the sins of man from the fall was already embedded within my talons. So fallen angel I shall stay, forever more on earth as it is in heaven, amen.
Crucify my Womanhoad
Why did I think breaking down is the thing that makes me soft and gentle, bringing me closer to womanhood when there exists nothing soft about breaking down? I've become sharpened and jagged like broken glass, hurting everyone I try to love. I will never be a woman for I am, but only my mother's daughter, forged in roughness and self-hate. My biology defies me as that harsh manhood I tried so desperately to castrate from myself is unable to be compassionate and gentle like a cis woman would be. Today I made her cry, my goddess, the blueprint of my womanhood. How dare I hurt her, how could I have been so cruel after all that she's done and been through? Why can't I be gentle, yet I love with a heavy-hearted hand. She sees her child, but I just see a creature unable to softly share love, listen to how I growl and screech and click like a creature devoiced of language, forever in a state of onomatopoeic sufferance. I am a mortster; no, I am a man. No prayer, no surgery, nor chemical treatments could purge this anger put there by the cruelty of the world. Why do I keep hurting the ones I love? To make matters worse it's always unbeknownst to me until it's too late, the damage is done, and they are planning on leaving. He left not because I fell short of not being enough but instead because I was a cruel man. She left because I was always, cruel, and I should have known. I don't care if they should have told me, and I cannot blame myself for not knowing I was hurting them. They are gone now and soon will she and I will have to face judgment day in the mirror alone and denounce my sins just as any good human would do. hurting someone witbout knowing it is the worst sin I've ever committed, and I will always punish seven layers of penitence for eternity because it's what I deserve. I will forever blame myself for the hurt caused by me and the hurt given to me because everyone deserves forgiveness, but not me. I am an abominable, blasphemous, cruel man. I will never ever be a woman, for I am only but a wolf in sheep wool that has played doe for far too long and that has forgotten his wet fangs and glossy front-facing eyes. I should be grateful death doesn't take her now, for all I've done is be cruel to her for reason unjustified. What a privilege it is to have an annoyance by her presence because one day it will be silent, and no more will there exist the holy Trinity and all what will be left is the daughter and this tired spirit. I wish anyone could mutilate, maul and distort this monstrosity, this manhood, inhumanity out of me. I so desperately need to be rid of the sin of man, from which was cast onto me from the moment of birth when I lost a part of my chromosome, I've been in a state of grieving. Can someone, anyone, please pray for me, make me whole, make me pure, make me a woman? Rekindle my connection to motherhood from once when I shared breath, blood, and bread with her. God be no man, for to be a man is to be devoid of creation, leaving you in a state of destruction.
TW: brief mention of suicide and sexual assault
No Title
Proud
Oh, you're proud ofme?
Proud of me for the A the A that I got on that test that I took one day after she tried to die in our room Proud Oh, be so fucking proud of me
Resilient
Oh, how you say I'm resilient
Resilient for going to work going to work the morning after he touched my body in places my own hands had not Resilient Oh, I'm so fucking resilient
Brave
You seem to think I'm brave
Brave because I still went to class after telling a mother that that her daughter had emptied her pill bottle into herself brave for not crying not crying when a tube kept her breathing and I went to class
Yeah, you think I'm so fucking brave
Jules Richter
Strong ?
No I'm not fu cking strong
I'm not fuck ing strong for slowly killing myself just just to k eep someone else alive but I'm strong I'm strong I'm strong because I still have a 3.8 GPA I'm strong fuck you Fuck you im not strong I'm tired.
I'm not resilient im angry Why aren't you angry?
Not resilient Angry Angry Angry I'm sorry that my body cannot have this much trauma and be a capitalist I'm not sorry I'm not sorry fuck you im not sorry
Proud
Oh, y ou're not proud of me anymore?
Not proud because my dog died and I didn't go to class I didn't go to class angry angry you're angry because I have a sick body and sick bodies can't work can't work oh you're not fucking proud?
Well your pride tried to kill me
MY FLEECE IS ONLY AS VVHITE AS YOU ALLOW IT TOBE. MY HANDS ONLY AS CLEAN AS YOURS REMAIN. AND YOU HAVE STAINED THEM BOTH . RED , AS BLOOD.
I am not an artist. At least, not visually But being assigned a manifesto while playing Cult of the Lamb, a video game with an undercurrent about fighting back against oppressors and forming a community of support, the idea of a comic centered around a sacrificial lamb felt entirely right. The manifesto's text is entirely my own prose, while the imagery of the art itself draws upon the image of the lamb within the video game and slight religious imagery - the shepherd, the halo, the devil's horns, all combined into one creature who has had enough There is no other manifesto I could have written that properly expresses what I've put to the page with this one.
The sacrificial lamb, typically, is docile and complacent, raised only to die at the hands of others. I much prefer the idea of the lamb fighting back, raising the weapon used against its ancestors to dismantle the systems of power that led it to slaughter in the first place. The lamb, as queer allegory, as racial allegory, as the minority, is a part of the flock - and as I've learned quite intensely both this semester and the few before - there is no more solid flock than a group of very angry queer people. Especially queer people with no regard for respectability politics - hence the bloody hands, bloody fleece imagery. We cannot be peaceful and pure if our oppressors have been so brutal.
And, yes, I guess this means Tammy Birk and Suzanne Ashworth are Jesus, if we roll with the religious metaphor. Every flock needs its shepherd.
Lukas Rhynard
I AM A TRANSGENDER MAN AND I SCREAM BEFORE YOU, MY BROTHERS AND ALL OTHERS: TOXIC MASCULINITY IN TRANSGENDER MEN GOES UNCHECKED! THE TOXICALLY MASCULINE TRANSGENDER MAN WILL STEP ON THE BACKS OF HIS BROTHERS AND LOVERS TO STAKE A CLAIM TO MANHOOD, TO MASCULINITY BECAUSE IN THE EYES OF PATRIARCHY, MASCULINITY IS VIOLENCE. VIOLENCE IS POWER. POWER IS MASCULINE. AND THESE FOOLISH, ABUSIVE MEN WILL CHASE IT WITH ALL THEY CAN TO FEEL VALID. IN THE EYES OF THESE MEN, POWER CAN BE BOUGHT FOR NO FINANICAL COST BY FOLLOWING CISNORMATIVE, PATRIARCHAL, VIOLENT MASCULINITY, HARASSING AND ABUSING THEIR LOVED ONES. MAN WILL STEP ON THE BACK OF OTHER MEN SO HE CAN PROVE HE IS FURTHEST FROM THE PUSSY DESPITE HAVING ONE ATTACHED TO HIM. HE WILL THROW THE GENITAL WORDS AROUND LIKE THEY ARE A JOKE, LIKE THEY ARE SO ABOVE THE IDEA OF HAVING A VAGINA DESPITE CARRYING ONE BETWEEN THEIR LEGS. I WARN YOU BEFORE YOU CHOOSE TO EXPLOIT AND ABUSE OTHERS, NO AMOUNT OF EXTERNAL BLOOD WILL ABSOLVE YOU OF THAT WHICH YOU CARRY WITHIN. YOUR HATRED OF THE FEMME AND THE WOMAN AND THE UNMASCULINE WILL KILL YOU SLOW. CHASING THE PATRIARCHAL IDEALS OF A MAN WILL NOT GAIN YOU ACCEPTANCE NOR VALUE, YOU WILL ONLY HURT THOSE YOU CLAIM TO LOVE . YOU WILL HURT YOUR BROTHERS AND YOUR SISTERS AND YOUR SIBLINGS AND ALL THOSE AROUND YOU. YOU WILL CREATE A MOCKERY OUT OF YOURSELF AND WHAT A MAN IS CAPABLE OF BEING. YOU WILL REALIZE HOW WRONG YOU WERE FOR WANTING TO HARM OTHERS FOR YOUR PERSONAL GAIN AND IT WILL KILL YOU SLOW. I HOPE YOU ARE INTELLIGENT AND LOVING ENOUGH TO REPENT BUT I WILL NEVER EXPECT IT OF YOU NOR FORGIVE YOU. FIX YOUR GODDAMN SELF AND FREE YOUR DELUDED MIND. YOU MAY STEREOTYPE AND FETISHIZE AND INFANTILIZE THE TRANSGENDER MEN THAT YOU DEEM FEMININE AND WEAKER THAN YOU BUT THEY WILL ALWAYS BE STRONGER THAN YOU FOR CARVING OUT THEIR OWN FORM OF MASCULINITY INSTEAD OF CHASING THE FALSE, UNHEALTHY IDEA OF THE CISGENDER MASCULINE MAN. THE MAN THAT YOU CALL A BOY TO DIMINISH HIM AND HIS MANHOOD WILL BE STRONGER AS A BOY THAN YOU ARE AS A MAN.
I DEMAND THE DISMANTLING OF PATRIARCHAL MASCULINITY FOR ALL! TO ALL THAT HEAR ME, I CALL ON YOU! I CALL ON YOU TO START CHALLENGING THE TOXIC MEN, CIS OR TRANS, IN YOUR LIVES! I CALL ON YOU TO SHAKE THEM BACK! I CALL ON YOU TO BREAK THEM BACK! NOT WITH THE VIOLENCE THAT THEY HAVE ENACTED AGAINST YOU BUT WITH YOUR WORDS, WITH YOUR DEMANDS FOR JUSTICE AND YOUR DEMANDS FOR ACCOUNTABILITY! WITH YOUR INTOLERANCE OF THEIR ABUSE! WITH YOUR BEAUTIFUL, PERSONAL SELF EXPRESSION! THEY CANNOT STEAL YOUR JOYOUS, PERFECT TRANSSEXUALITY! THEY CANNOT STEAL YOUR GLORIOUS, HUMAN SELF! TAKE TO THE STREETS, TAKE TO THE SKYSCRAPERS, TAKE TO THE HOMES AND KNOCK THESE MEN FROM THEIR PEDESTALS. KNOCK DOWN THEIR TOWERS, FOR THE PHALLUS IS NOT A MASCULINE STANDARD! WE REJECT CISNORMATIVITY AND THE RAVENOUS TRANSPHOBIC OPPRESSION IT CAUSES! WE REJECT TOXIC MASCULINITY AND THE WAY IT POISONS OUR MEN AND THE WAY ITS FUMES COERCE OTHERS! WE BUILD OUR OWN MASCULINITIES AND FEMININITIES AND EVERYTHING ELSE!
I AM PROUD TO BE A BOY WITH A CUNT! I AM PROUD TO MAKE MY OWN IDEA OF MANHOOD!! AM PROUD TO CHOOSE TO BE KIND AND LOVING! I AM PROUD TO BE GENDER NON-CONFORMING BECAUSE I WILL NEVER CONFORM TO WHAT I AM TOLD I MUST BE AT THE THREAT OF VIOLENCE! MY TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY IS MADE UP OF MY LOVERS AND MY FRIENDS AND MY ANCESTORS AND WE ARE STRONGEST TOGETHER! WE ARE STRONGEST WHEN WE ARE KIND AND LOVING AND SU PP ORTIVE AND ACCOUNTABLE TO EACH OTHER! WE WILL GROW WITH EACH OTHER! WE WILL LEARN WITH EACH OTHER! WE WILL BUILD WITH EACH OTHER! WE WILL LO VE WITH EACH OTHER! WE WILL CREATE OUR OWN BEAUTIFUL, TRANSSEXUAL, NON BI NARY WORLD! AND WE MUST ROOT OUT THAT WHICH PLAGUES US AND OPPRES SE S US IF WE ARE TO CREATE AND HAVE AND CHERISH THIS WORLD!
THIS BOY IS THE PROUD OWNER OF A CUNT, HIS CUNT.
A CUNT THAT YOU CANNOT POKE, PROD, NOR FUCK. A CUNT THAT YOU CANNOT RIP, TEAR, NOR ABUSE.
I WILL FLOURISH AND I WILL THRIVE AND I WILL FILL THE CRACKS YOU ATTEMPT TO GIVE ME WITH MY TRUE, TRANSGENDER, TRANSSEXUAL, BOY CUNT SELF.
SENSITIVE AND SOFT, DREAMING AND DEFENDING, THE TRANSSEXUALS WILL LIVE FOREVER!
Feral Bitch Manifesto
Abi Sinclair
Enough of binaries.
Enough of good and evil,
Peaceful protestors versus too-noisy militant complainers.
Enough of the separation of love and hate .
The fight for justice does not take one form, will not be won by dismantling the system one way . The systems that oppress us label us as one thing - Other. The systems that oppress us live in the binary of worthy or other, white or other, male or other, cis or other - you get the point. All that is "Other" is unhuman and to be unhuman is to be allowed to be treated in inhumane w ays.
There is debate on the best ways to dismantle oppression:
• Sit down and talk it out. Teach your parents, siblings, aunts, uncles to be openminded. Be civil. Keep your voice level. Change the world through love or
• Be all teeth and claws and screams. Set the world on fire, we have to start over. If they aren't with us , they're against us. Hate the oppressors and their systems. Change the world through any means necessary.
A mistake is being made by both the lovers and the haters . A mistake is being made by even dividing us world-changers into these categories. The lovers hate the oppressive systems too. The haters love those who find themselves othered too. You do not seek to change the world because you are happy with it. You do not take to destroy those who harm if you do not love someone who has been harmed, even (or especially) if the person harmed is yourself. To set up
peace = love = good versus destruction = hate = bad is to create another false binary that robs us of humanness just like the binaries the oppressive systems have built themselves upon.
No more "or". I won't hear it. I can't hear it. I refuse the word. "Or" is the oppressors' word used to create these systems that kill us. I will no longer use it. "And" is the only thing I care about. We love the world and we hate it - both motivate change. We will sit down and talk politely and we will rage. We will learn and teach and grow and bum and tear and it will all get the project of world-bettering done.
I will embrace all of those who have been othered.
I will build safe spaces where we can all breathe and rest.
I will build safe spaces where those who want to learn can come to learn.
I will go out into unsafe spaces and find those who are willing to talk and we will talk and perhaps we both will learn something and change.
I will take your hand, interlock our fingers, watch a shooting star cross the sky, and w e will both wish for a better future.
I will better the future by outpouring my love now into those who need it, want it, deserv e it.
I will care for everyone, including myself, until my heart gives out because I love humanity. We are so kind, so creative, so interesting, so old and so new. We have done so much, discovered so much, and there is still more to do.
I am convinced there was lo,e , is love , will be love . I love you, whoever you are, if you're looking to change the world too. And there was rage , is rage , will be rage until no one and everyone is "other", until the only category we live under is "us".
I will fight until everyone is recognized as human and our unique selves are celebrated rather than degraded.
I will no longer beg to be seen as human.
I will be the feral bitch people paint me as when I push back against the systems the way I knowhow.
I will no longer beg to be heard by those who refuse to listen.
I will not waste energy attempting to educate those who do not want to be educated.
I will not be kind to those who want me and the ones I love dead.
I can do all of this. I can love and hate and so can you. We need both in order to change the world. We must use love to nourish ourselves, to bring people to knowledge, to create a world where all are safe. We must hate and rage to dismantle the current systems. Destruction is part of creation, we have to make space for something new.
Do not be fools. The one percent, bourgeoise, lawmaking, cis, straight, white men, and those who follow them like loyal lapdogs do not care about anyone but themselves and this makes them unworthy of my love , your love , our love . Binary thinking serves the oppressive systems that allow a white, male, able-bodied, capitalist ruling class to exist. If you must name a group of people as love less and hate -filled, it should be those who watch people starve, kill themselves, live with no shelter, all while stuffing their bellies, homes, and wallets with so much excess they can send themselves to space when they get bored.
Do not be a lapdog, convinced that if you bark only when ordered to and perfect puppydog eyes you will get enough table scraps to live off of.
Do not be the lapdog that cowers and watches the owner beat a fellow dog while believing that would never happen to you because you are well-behaved.
If you are one who can change the world through your peace, if that is your avenue, be the archangel of protection and justice. Bring the divine light into the darkness. Heal and enlighten. Spread knowledge, even and especially knowledge forbidden, like Prometheus bringing fire. Extend a hand and bring people into the light. Free the lapdogs of their abusive owners and help them transform themselves into something autonomous, better.
If you are one who rages, join the pack of feral bitches Be the feral bitch who won't stand for a hand raised against her, who does not cower but instead lunges forward to force the attacker back. We are the teeth and claws of the revolution and we are damn good at finding those whose hands are bloody from battering us with the weapon of Law.
If you will not walk into the light, if you ignore the call of the archangels, if you insist on perpetuating the harm of the oppressive systems, be afraid. Hiding in the shade of these systems will not protect you. I can smell a bigot from a mile away, pinpoint your heartbeat in the dark, and strike. There is nowhere you can run to escape the changing of the world. If you stand against us world-changers, be afraid. I will rip the throat out of the oppressive systems and take the body back to the pack so we can feast. We destroy to create room for peace, to save ourselves, to save each other, to save humanity, to save this planet. You get to choose whether or not you go down with these systems. Once I start shredding, there is no escape from my teeth.
I love myself so I will not accept violence against me.
I love others so I will nourish their lives by ripping chunks out of racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, and classism even if it means removing chunks of me.
I will teach the lapdogs to bite back.
I don't care how you help change the world as long as it gets the job done. I do not tell others how to do their activism as long as they are getting the work of dismantling oppressive
systems done. Do me the same courtesy. Do not tell me to be tame. That is what the oppressive systems want, that is what the oppressors ask of me. I did not work so hard to remove the collar and the leash of the systems to be re-leashed by well-to-do keyboard warriors who rather me be silent than do any actual work.
If you try to tame me, be afraid.
If you tell me to be silent, be afraid.
If you stand in my way, be afraid.
If you harm those I love , be afraid.
If you refuse to listen, be afraid.
If you refuse to learn, be afraid.
If you refuse to let go of racism, homophobia, sexism, capitalism, transphobia, ableism, be afraid.
If you refuse to change with the world, be afraid.
Be afraid. Be afraid!
Be Afraid!
BE AFRAID!
BE AFRAID! This feral bitch isn't backing down.
LET'S THINK OF LESBIANS AS DREAMERS!
T he le sbian as a dreamer WORLD B UILDS
T he lesbian as a dreamer CHOO SES
There is LITTLE CHOIC E in h e teronormative spa ces I N PATRIARCH Y. L es bians find another way to take dre ams outside of the confines of patriarchy. L es bia ns ar e outside of Dworkin' s model of intercourse - le s bians queer their environment, their spaces, A N D th eir intentions.
By being in the spaces engulfed in patriarchy their p rese nc e ultimat el y qu eers it. Lesbians take th e term " fucking" and EXPLODE i t int o new dim e n s ions .
Dworkin's word "fucking" means male poss e ss io n o ver a femal e body ; l es bia ns turn the word into an intimate t e nderness. It NO LO NGE R m e ans a d ee p d es ir e for control; it is willing to forgo the tight grip to explain our selves
Lesbians dreaming as a way of PROTES T
Lesbians dreaming in terms of th e conscio us and unconscious
LESBIANS ARE INHERENT DREAMERS!
WHAT DREAM ING AS A LESBIAN LOOI(S LII(E!
We love ourselves in a cosmos of daydreams
We create spaces that were never meant for us
We anno un ce ourselves as people who identify with and for wome n
We talk to our pa rtners, friend s, a nd people w e tr ust about sex
We hold workshops for people to get what w e w ere never given
We demand sex education as ed uca tional and fea rless
We walk through stre ets with th eir partner free of regret
We fin d safety in non queer spaces
We kno w what queer eroti cism looks like
We dismantle the ca tego ri es m ost women are placed into
We take ourselves to spaces on purpose
We dive into books full of our favorite thinkers and authors
We dream as we hold onto memories once forgotten
We allow our bodi es t o be a site of m emory
We hold the dream within the body
We do things differently AND
We think d ifferen tly
WE ARE THE L ES BIAN D REAMERS!
By Karina Streeter
Double A Manifesto
Julia Tenbusch
There exists a very clear roadmap of what my life is meant to look like. By now, I'm supposed to have had sex, probably several years ago, probably within the next four years. I'm supposed to have gotten drunk by now. I am supposed to have had one or two partners by now, and I am supposed to be searching for another one with which to experiment with, as I'm in college, or to commit the rest of my life to. Ifl experiment with them, it can't last after graduation. I'm supposed to graduate, and then get a "serious" job. I am supposed to graduate with a partner, and they are supposed to propose to me. It's supposed to be with a ring with a massive diamond with my parents there and my cousins there and God there. I am supposed to say yes, and we should be married by 25, or before 30. I'm supposed to get fucked by this person. I'm supposed to get pregnant by this person. And it should by 30 or before 40. I am supposed to, prior to this, but simultaneous to being fucked, acquire a house with a backyard. I am supposed to see my family on holidays. I am supposed to see my friends in the summer, on select weekends, and on Christmas cards. They are supposed to have their own families with their own partners in their own houses with their own backyards. We are all supposed to drive to work and back home and to the kids' practices and back home and to the kids' games and back home and to checkups and to grandma's and to aunt so-and-so's and to uncle john's and back home. I am supposed to have three kids and a dog and it will be exhausting but it will pay off. My days are supposed to be consumed in work at work and work at home. I am supposed to see only my coworkers and my partner and my kids every day. I am supposed to be the neurotic, bubbly, serious, hustling, high-maintenance, loving, disciplinarian wife and mother. I am not supposed to be taken seriously, but I am supposed to have dinner on the table. I am supposed to sleep with my partner every night. I am supposed to have begrudging sex with them, and beg off with headaches every other time they have the energy to propos e the act. We are supposed to have quick quiet vaginal sex so we don't alert the children the dog or God. I am supposed to do my makeup every day, even and especially as my skin begins to sag and thin. I am supposed to remain well-dressed but not frumpy or too young, as I watch my partner bald and develop a beer belly. You know how they like their beer. I'm supposed to host my friends and family. I am supposed to lose my friend to cancer. I am supposed to cry at my father's funeral. I am supposed to watch my partner walk my children down the aisle. I am supposed to be a matriarch. I am supposed to create the life that I want and create the community that I will spend the rest of my life interacting with and managing. In my old age, I am supposed to take care of my partner, who is unappreciative and refuses my help. I am supposed to live in close quarters with their degradation, wake up to it and fall asleep to it. I am supposed to be infantilized, become helpless, and remain helpless. I am supposed to cash in on the care I have presumably given to the family I've created, and I'm supposed to rely on them to take care ofme, but I shouldn't impose on them too much. I should die quietly and humbly, and no one should have anything bad to say about me. The people at my funeral will know me as mother, aunt, perhaps friend. They will not have known vast swathes ofmy life: it will all die
with me. I will remain mother-aunt-friend. I'm supposed to be grieved politely, and remembered in forgotten recipes or abstract references to situations I was involved in.
I don't want this. I know it's not all there is, but it's all I know. Sure, the partner can be someone else in some capacity. Sure, not everyone has kids. Sure, some people get to live interesting lives and die young. But what does any of it look like for an asexual, aromantic person? Who do you know that has never had a partner? Who do you know that never wants one? Who do you know who is old and "alone?" Are they allowed to be happy? How many people have you assured that they will find someone? How many times have you said, "There is someone for everyone"? How much time have you spent in your life considering baby names or songs to play at your wedding or doodling last names and hearts? How many people have you told that "they just haven't found the right person yet"?
II I want to graduate. I want to find a job I find interesting. I want to live close to my friends, and I want them to be the family that I've created. I don't want them to have to choose between a partner and maintaining friendships. I don't want to give birth. I don't want to raise children that are mine. I don't want my mother to sit home alone and worry for me. I don't want to confuse and disappoint my family every time they ask me ifl have a boyfriend, and, at my emphatic no, gradually expand their question to girlfriend, and then partner. I want a roommate. I want to cook for them. I want to come home to them, sit on the couch with a blanket and ice cream, backlit. I want to grow old single and happy. I don't know anyone whose life I want to replicatethey're all married, or previously married, or want to be married, or should have been married. They all have kids or live quiet lives or are disconnected from others and mentioned as an afterthought as though their childlessness sets them in a different class of people. I want cats, but I don't know ifl can stand to be a Cat Lady. I want a house with a backyard, and I want someone to sell it to me without a partner and plans for children. I want it to be normal and believable when I respond to my doctor, that no, I have not been sexually active. I don't want to be continuously asked if there's a possibility that I may be pregnant when I'm in the ER for a broken foot. I want to identify with a character. I want to engage with topics that make me squeamish because I choose to, not because they are so entrenched in everything that I can't avoid them. I want companionship, and I don't want to mourn the loss ofit years in advance. I want to be taken care of, and I don't want to mourn the loss of that either. My single-ness is not a tragedy, and I'm tired of it being treated as if it were. Even I have fallen victim to that grief, feeling the loss of familiar paths so deeply as to be physical. Mourning the absence of the possibility of feeling romantic love, which is apparently the most wonderful thing in the world that I and others like me have been precluded from through no fault of our own. I have pre-emptively mourned the loss ofmy friends to their own lives and partners and children and dogs, moving away for jobs or grad school, leaving me scrambling to maintain contact or continuously find other connections. A lifetime without a map or any examples, lived in opposition to everything I've ever known, largely left undeveloped even in the face of queering relationships and traditional institutions, is daunting.
I'm tired ofcoming last. I'm tired of being an afterthought. I'm tired of fighting others tooth and nail to bring them to where I've been for years and peaceably exist. I'm tired of finding only religious paths for the life I intend to live. I shouldn't be forced to romanticize the nunnery.
I'm tired of being disappointed by institutions who never intended to include me, but I'm more tired of being disappointed in those institutions who are adamant that they won't disappoint me. The institutions I'm most often disappointed in are those spaces who claim to be "enlightened" somehow. I will say here what I have said before, more than a few times: asexuality is Queer. Aromanticism is Queer. Even now "aromanticism" sits underlined as misspelled or grammatically incorrect. Queerness does not begin and end with a physical act, and a physical act can never be the opposite of a physical act - heterosexual sex and gay sex, for as much as I've heard otherwise, are not so different. The opposite of an action is the inaction. But the inaction is so often left undiscussed because the action is what makes us all human. The action is a favorite topic of conversation and jokes. The action is in media, on minds, in bedrooms, in bathrooms, in car sales, in how far the seats recline. The action is in health class, in books for book reports , in overheard school bus bravado. The action creates a universal in-group that others must pass the initiation ritual to join and gain respect and recognition. What challenges heterosexual sex more than the absolute absence of it, of the very possibility for it? What else can be so queer? What else is such a radical usage of agency of one's own body than going against an entire culture of partnered sexuality? Would it be queering sex more to lay back and think of the revolution? Would it be queering heterosexual standards for love more to be swept up in the flood of societal pressure and succumb to a life of contaimnent, lies, and paranoia for being found out? Is it Queer to conform, or to live authentically? Because I'm not sure if some people who champion Queering culture kno w the answer to that.
It is queer of me to be a virgin in adulthood.
Who is telling me I shouldn't be?
It is queer of me to renounce romantic relationships in order to preserve myself and my would-be partners.
Who is telling me it isn't?
It is queer of me to maintain agency of my life and my body.
How many people have been punished for with-holding sex once?
It is queer of me to live as a figure removed from the institution of sex. Whose sexual object am I obligated to be?
It is queer of me to live as a figure removed from the institution of romance.
Who is entitled to me as a caretaker?
I do not choose to be asexual or aromantic. I have lived it nineteen years. My capacity to feel romantic love or sexual attraction should not preclude me from respect. Virginity, for as much as people are aware that it is a social construct, has no bearing on a person's greater experiences, maturity, or capabilities. I am not a
bashful, virginal, out of touch doll stumbling blindly about the world simply because no one has been inside of me. It is actually absurd, in a philosophical sense and the sense of the vernacular, that so much emphasis is placed on whether a person has shown another their genitalia. But, no, I just don't understand. But I will when I meet the right person. Which is somehow an inevitability. It is absolutely hard to see asexuality and aromanticism in the ways that I do for people who have never had cause to question the institutions of sex and love in their entirety, and I realize that. But it is not as hard as people pretend it is. It is a valiant endeavor to challenge all institutions of sexuality and how normative they are. Too many people remove themselves from the conversation or responsibility of understanding asexuality and aromanticism because they feel the labels don't fit them, that the asexual is an Other who may or may not be blowing things out of proportion or is out of touch or is a baby gay going through a phase. Do not do this. Not only is there direct harm to the aromantic and asexual communities in a willful inattention and ignorance, but it is harmful to you as well. It is important to negotiate sexuality for yourself. It is important to recognize the ways in which you conform to allo and amatonormativity. It is important to realize that an absence of romance or sexuality is possible in all areas, and it can help raise questions about why allo and amatonormative culture is the way that it is. How pervasive it is. I have heard too many times that asexuality and aromanticism are new labels, or new areas of study, or new phenomena. That there's no oppression or struggle that a person who may identify with these labels or identify with their experiences must face. This is patently untrue, and a signifier of how ubiquitous allo and amatonormativity is. People have been institutionalized for a lack of sexuality. People have been harmed and killed for withholding sexuality, regardless of if they were willing one day or another. People have been and continue to be treated medically for a lack of sexuality. People are shamed for a lack of sexuality. People are forced into painful relationships. People are coerced and convinced and begged and blamed into sex.
Asexuality and Aromanticism have commonly remained invisible for these reasons: that something is wrong with the people who admit to them, or that those people find ways to hide it. In our capitalist allo and amatonormative culture, for asexuality and aromanticism to be celebrated, recognized as normal, accepted, the entire system would collapse. To reference the Combahee River Collective, if aro-ace people were free, nonnal, or celebrated, it would mean that everyone of every sexuality would have to be free, since our freedom and acknowledgement would necessitate the destruction of allo and amatonormativity in all its forms and functions. I firmly believe that in a non-capitalist system where the nuclear family is not standard, where heteronormativity, allonormativity, and amatononnativity were dissolved, sexuality labels would cease to exist or have meaning-all relationships to sexuality would fundamentally change, and no one would care who does and doesn't have sex, or how much sex a person does or doesn't have. I think that love and sex are sold to us as a cure-all, as a way to distract the masses into contentment, buying things, or dividing ourselves, and that's why they're as ever-present as they seem to be. Of course, I'm sure sex is fun and intimate, as sure as I am that it's also sweaty, awkward, and not the rapturous experience of divinity and power and submission and singing doves as it's sold as. But what do I know.
I'm not calling to abolish sex and sexuality and the power that people find in it. I want there not to be anything wrong with not fucking. I want there not to be anything wrong with fucking. I want to try things without it meaning anything. I don't want to have to be the paragon of the virtuous asexual with no libido or understanding of sex and sexuality. I don't want to justify my experiences or encounters with sexuality to those who feel entitled to them in order to decide if I am what I say I am. In many ways, asexuals are pigeonholed into sexlessness more by others than by themselves - the constant interrogation of their pasts presents and futures causes a paranoia of being found out or judged for experimentation. I just want to be on equal footing. I want to be a real adult. I want to be a happy adult. I'm tired of needing to have all of the answers when others decide my existence isn't enough. I'm tired of being the one to build my future in moments, justifying my "lifestyle," when I myself haven't even seen what I want, when I've seen so little that I can only imagine abstract feelings and fears in my future. I'm tired of being the monolith for people to measure others against, to have people sigh in relieved understanding at my generalized lectures and later snidely relay a story of a life they've witnessed acting contrary to my answers. I'm tired of maintaining the unshakeable confidence necessary to withstand others asking me the same questions I've asked myself for nineteen years. "Well if you don't have kids, who's going to take care of you?" "Aren't you scared you'll be alone?" "What about when your friends get married?" Don't you think I KNOW what I don't and won't have?
I do not have the answers right now. I am nineteen. I'm going to live day by day, and eventually I'll graduate. Eventually, I will move out of the dorms. Eventually, I will have goals that extend farther than that. A lifetime is a long time to be alone. A lifetime is a long time to create an aro-ace example. I shouldn't have to live a false life in order to be respected, comfortable, happy, connected, and healthy, and I won't.
Against The Banned Book
By Elizabeth White
The banned book is an epidemic. It is utterly pathetic that hearing about books being banned has become an everyday thing. And, without fail, It always plays into the patriarchal world that we have had forced upon us. If we do not push against it, the banned book epidemic will continue and worsen .
The banned book is sickeningly dystopian. It's censorship. What society have we ever admired that restricted words? Why should we admire a society that does that? Book bans reveal deeper, toxic roots in our culture that those in power try to hide Pushing back against this censorship or at the very least acknowledging it as what it is helps the process of dismantling it. We need to stop it from being normalized because we cannot be complicit in voices being suppressed. We need to act now.
The banned book always deals with topics that the patriarchy is afraid of. The system is worried that if people have open access to knowledge on these subjects, they'll see the holes that have always been in the oppressive system. Many of us, those of us who have our voices suppressed, saw through the holes a long time ago. Nevertheless, books continue to be banned. Not enough have acknowledged the problem yet.
The banned book is misogynistic.
Stories of women's experiences are ignored, treated as unimportant because that ' s
exactly how patriarchy views them. Stories of their oppression, their struggles fo r justice are all censored by banning the books that tell them.
The men of the patriarchy don't want their abusive nature to be spread.
Women, all women , have words worth spreading.
Read banned books by and about women.
The banned book is a white supremacy tactic to silence people of color. The boo k s that are banned call out systemic racism and police brutality and white privilege and so many other topics of race. The people who benefit from these systems a r e terrified of their dismantling, which is the entire po i nt of these books existing.
We cannot stop the voices of people of color from being heard. Their written words are vital to calling out toxic culture.
Read banned books by and about people of color.
The banned book enforces heteronormativity and cisnormativity. Queer stories h ave always faced extreme scrutiny. The written word should be free expression. Qu eer people need and deserve free expression because their stories and their lives ha ve been suppressed for so long. When people in the patriarchal system ban quee r books,
What lies does the banned book tell to queer people? It tells them that they are not worthy of having their voices heard. It tells them that even their very existence deserves to be
censored. Shut up the lies. They will not overpower our queer voices.
Read banned books by and about queer people.
The banned book tries to force comfortability where it doesn't belong. These types of books were never meant to be comfortable. They have always been a source of resistance and a source of change. While they can be enjoyable to consume and they can be posed as just stories, that was not how they started and that is not their only purpose.
The censored voices are always the voices that need to be heard the most.
The banned book cannot continue on forever. We will not let it.
The patriarchy and all the systems surrounding it want to censor the voices of those that don't fit their picture- white, straight, cisgender men.
To dismantle all these systems, we need to make the divergent voices heard.
We need to prioritize women, black, queer authors and words.
WE NEED TO RESIST THE SYSTEMS THAT ALLOW THE BANNED BOOK! WE NEED TO STOP THE INSTITUTION OF THE BANNED BOOK! WE NEED TO READ THE BANNED BOOK!
Banned Book Recommendation List
Here is a list of books that have been banned at different times and in different places in the United States. They all feature topics that go against the expectations
of patriarchy and related toxic systems. I have included themes present in each book that were used as justification to ban them, though clearly there is no valid reason.
All of these topics are ones that are vital to examine and be open about. Nothing deserves or needs to be censored. I have included books for children, teenagers, and adults. What's the point of talking about banned books if we don't have a list of them to read and resist with?
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Topics of Race and Slavery
Melissa by Alex Gino
Transgender Youth
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Anti-Capitalism and Anti-Consumerism
Dear Martin by Nie Stone
Racism and Police Brutality
And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Queerness and Same-Sex Marriage
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Queerness and Sexual Assault
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Critiques of Patriarchy and Its Treatment of Women
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Racism and Police Brutality
All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson
Queerness and Race
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
Queerness
I am Jazz by Jazz Jennings
Transgender Youth
Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe
Queerness
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Racism and Sexual Abuse
The Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed
Anti-Sexist and Rape
Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez
Racism and Rape
Milk and Honey by Rupi Karr
Femininity, Sexuality, and Abuse
This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson
Queerness and Sexual Education
Prince & Knight by Daniel Haack
Queerness
Open Your Eyes and Raise Your Voice
By Audra Wilson
Who am I that my voice is heard?
Who am I that you are reading my words?
Who am I that I can rest?
Who am I that I have a home?
Who am I that I am safe?
Who am I that my greatest worry is a deadline, not a bomb?
Who am I to receive an education?
Who am I that I can choose?
Who am I that I can say NO?
Who am I to live without fear?
Who am I that I can breathe deeply?
Who am I that I have not felt the breath of death whisper by?
Who am I that I have not cried from the deep pain of loss?
Who am I to live in abundance?
Who am I that I may protect my home, belongings, and people?
Who am I that my humanity is not "too" political?
Who am I to scream?
Who am I to stand for others?
Who am I to see the good?
Who am I to change the world?
What power do I hold?
You are everything, my dear. You hold every power in the world. You can bear the weight of the world, or you can step back and watch it crumble. You can step forward and fight for those without a voice or sit in silence. You have the power to stay the course or build a new history. This is your chance, your moment , your potential.
Can you stand and watch while a history is erased? Can you rest knowing the most vulnerable among us are weary? Can you survive a world where your comfort comes at the cost of a child's life? I
cannot I will not. I cannot turn my back so I may rest while Israel persecutes the people of Gaza. The Palestinian Genocide is not a matter of politics. It is not a story of a far-off land full of strangers. The people of Gaza are our family. They are our mothers, fathers, coworkers, friends, and ancestors Every life lost at the hands of Israel is a world exploding. It is a family ruined, a true love lost, and a dream vanished.
The world we have inherited is corrupt. A dollar holds more value than a life. Money controls every c o nversation that makes a change. Our legislators and leaders put their mouths where the money is. The very people we elect to represent us do nothing but represent those with the money. It is not a coin cidence that our president has not called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Most Americans support a perm a nent and complete ceasefire in Gaza. Americans and people across the world have been calling for sanctions on Israel for months. Despite this, nobody in positions of power will call for an end to the brutality. Those in our government who have spoken out in support of Gaza have been condemned and censored. In America, this is likely because of funding. Pro-Israel organizations such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spend millions of dollars a year lobbying American Congress to pass legislation protecting Israel/American interests and supporting candidates during elections. Candidates and current members of our government would rather risk losing the support of American voters than risk losing funding. This is the result of an extraordinarily complex history of voter suppression but, in simplest terms, if only the people who receive funding make it to the ballot, then the people on the ballot can never be truly representative of the people. They are representatives of money. Money talks and our leaders are listening. American media allows and promotes the brutal and systemic dehumanization of Palestinians. Since October, main news sources have published more articles on Palestine than ever before. Unfortunately, most of these are riddled with Zionist ideas and motives. Headlines are full of lies and propaganda that are meant to draw attention from what is truly happening.
Reputable news sources are unreliable when it comes to this issue. In turn, sources such as social media have become a beacon of truth instead of news sources controlled by Zionist influences. TikTok has been a place where folks found the truth of this situation. When the news would not report the truth, people turned to the internet to hear from those experiencing the violence firsthand. Creators like Motaz and Bissan took the stage to share the brutal reality of what is happening in Gaza. Benjamin Netanyahu would rather control the narrative and call Palestinians "human animals," but Motaz and Bissan connected the world to the humanity of Palestinians. While Israel attempted to strip Palestinians of their humanity on the world stage, younger generations connected to them and learned the history of the situation. Our generation is the most pro-Palestinian generation in history. The constant barrage of terrorism and bombings is likely to desensitize us to the brutality of the Gazan genocide. We must continue to keep all eyes on Gaza. We must continue to feel. Feel the pain, anxiety, and guilt for what is happening. If we lose our feelings, we lose our humanity and theirs.
It has been six months of constant terrorism and bombing of Gaza. We have watched as the abuse and violent occupation of Gaza has scaled to an unprecedented level. The violent military occupation of Palestine has been in place since well before most students on this campus have been alive. It has been more than 75 years of what amounts to a violent colonial settler rule in Palestine. Settlers in Israel kicked Palestinians out of their homes and off their lands. Israel stripped them of their rights on the very land they were born on. The Israeli government decided what roads Palestinians could walk, which jobs they could take, and what land they could live on. The Israeli military controlled every aspect of life.
Israel's military has been striking fear into the hearts of Palestinians as a control tactic for years. Israel detained Palestinians without reason and killed them for "crimes" as small as throwing a stone. Israel meets any act of rebellion against the oppressive government swiftly and unjustly with direct and extreme violence. We get to live in America. We have the right to protect our space and people from violent rule from the government. We live comfortably and sleep peacefully knowing that the law will protect us should we ever act out of self-defense. We live in a country that protects our right to bear arms even to the detriment of our children. Our schools teach us that if the government is truly corrupt, the people have the right to take back their land and rights. We understand Stand Your Ground Laws when it is a White body acting in self-defense, but when a Black or Brown body protects their land, it is terrorism. How do we fully understand and protect self-defense but cannot understand how a violent rebellion group would form from the conditions in Gaza??? Hamas grew from the victims of Israel's violence. Many members were orphaned or homeless by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). These young people had no
support in their country, which was now occupied by a violent government that claimed rights to their land. There was no peaceful resolution when Israel threatened their very existence. Israel was not going to stop. The State of Israel exists despite the existence of Palestine. Hamas is a group that grew from violence in a country that has not known peace in a lifetime. It is not a terrorist group that grew from nothing. The violent acts of October 7 th were not unprompted. Unfortunately, it took the violence of October 7 th to bring Israel's malevolence into the scope of global attention.
All the atrocities occurring in Gaza and on the West Bank are being documented in greater detail than ever before. People all over the world have heard the calls of Gaza. Before October 7th , Israel was killing the people of Palestine while the rest of the world was blind. Since Hamas's attack, Israel has been in the spotlight. The entire world watches every attempt to wipe Gaza and the Palestinian people off the world map. (This is happening in a very literal way too. Google Maps has removed Palestine as a state/location and only shows Israel.) Evidence is piling up against Israel. Israel's actions are far beyond the scope of self-defense and certainly qualify as a collective punishment. For the first time in history, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has recognized the crimes being committed by Israel. South Africa won a case accusing Israel of committing genocidal acts. The ICJ agreed that the acts South Africa accused Israel of committing would fall under the Genocide Convention agreements. The ICJ ordered Israel to stop committing such acts and to take steps to mitigate the damage they are causing. Of course, Israel has not changed its behavior as they are committing genocide with intent, but this is the first step in holding Israeli leaders accountable for the harm they are causing.
While it is easy to get caught up in the legal jargon and general propaganda surrounding Israel's actions, it is time we speak up. We must open our eyes and call shit as we see it. Israel is committing war crimes with genocidal intent, and the United States of America is funding them. Blanket bombing entire cities and targeting hospitals overflowing with people seeking shelter and care is not self-defense. Blocking humanitarian aid and bombing food banks to keep civilians from food, water, and medicine is collective punishment. Collective punishment is a fucking war crime under Article 33 of the Geneva Convention (IV). I have known that fact since I was nine years old so I would certainly expect the State of Israel to know that. Destroying universities and libraries holding the written history of the people you are bombing is not accidental. It is all part of a bigger plan to erase the history and future of Palestine. Israel is committing genocide, and the world has been too corrupt to stop it. It is time to change.
It is our responsibility to protect the people of Gaza. The crisis in Gaza is one of the greatest losses oflife our generation has ever witnessed. We hold more power, and therefore responsibility, than our parents and grandparents ever did. Knowledge is power and the collective is stronger than an individual. We can read about the history of Palestine. We can see the impacts of Israel's violence in realtime. We are far more educated on the topic than our parents ever were. We can reach out and feel the pain of the Palestinian people. We can connect with people in Gaza on a completely different level than generations before us. Palestine is not separate from the world. We can stretch out our hands and clasp them with allies from across the world. The oppression and politicization of Palestine is a coordinated effort from oppressive powers. We too must coordinate our protection of Palestine. We must stand as one collective and protect the most vulnerable.
Grassroots movements can change the world. Every time you share a post about Palestine, you take advantage of the algorithm and boost its popularity. Every person who sees your post has an opportunity to engage with you and the world around them. As more people join the conversation, the conversation grows. It begins with the liberation of Palestine and ends with the end of all oppressive systems. If we see the liberation of the most battered among us, then we see the liberation of all. Oppressive systems cannot survive in a world that has the protection of BIPOC at the forefront of the movement. The world as we know it will crumble before our eyes. We can light this world on fire. The time is now. If this is the first you have read about the Palestinian Genocide, then make today the first day you raise your voice against this violence. If you have been fighting since October, keep up the fight. Stay upset. Do not let them silence your voice. You have the power to make real change. You can protect the Palestinian people. Lift their voices and add yours to the chorus.
AGAINST AMATONORMATIVITY
Harper Wood
As we continue our fight for feminism and against capitalism, because feminism is the enemy of capitalism and the opposite of everything it hopes to achieve, it is important that we become aware of a certain social hierarchy that is so ingrained into our way of living that no one has noticed the way it continues to oppress us. Throughout humanity's fight for equal rights, from racial equality to LGBTQ+ rights to disability advocacy, one of the common threads across these fights has been marriage. The right to interracial marriage, the right to many whomever you so choose regardless of gender, the right to many without losing federal disability benefits.
But why is marriage so important? Wh y is marria g e somethin g that these different groups have to fi ght for , over and over again?
Let's examine the benefits of marriage, first. These are all good things, on paper, at least. Married couples receive tax benefits. Married couples are able to qualify for immigration visas easier, as far as "easy" can be used to describe our country's immigration process. Married couples become each other's next-of-kin in the event of medical emergencies, deaths, and funeral arrangements among other stages of life and death.
There is so much celebration around marriage, it seems almost endless. There are parties, before and after. There is the expectation of a registry, and gifts, useful gifts for the married couple to use in their home. There is an entire industry built around wedding dresses and cakes and venues and honeymoons. The world holds the idea of a marriage up like it's the sun in the sky, the only thing that keeps the world turning. What would we do without love? What would we do without marriage? What would we do?
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Don't answer those questions. You might have an answer, or you might not, but that is not the question I am posing. The fight for marriage equality is heralded as something of great
importance because it is something that the whole world understands as the most important kind of relationship you can have. To be in a marriage is something that everybody should be able to achieve, because it is the most important fonn of relationship to have.
And that, frankly, is some real bullshit.
We are trapped in a culture that continues to regard romance and sex and the committed relationship of a marriage to be the most important relationship a person will ever have in their life. That does not have to be true. That should not be true .
We are trapped in a culture that places relationships in a social hierarchy, where romantic relationships, specifically committed, monogamous romantic relationships, are treated with the highest priority of status Friendships are seen as less than, always. Friendship is seen as a secondary form of relationship to have with someone , or a stepping stone one takes toward a romantic relationship. A committed, lifelong friendship with someone doesn ' t hold nearly the same weight as a committed, lifelong marriage does.
This socially constructed ideal that romantic love carries some kind of special quality, one that elevates it above all other forms of care, is known as [amatonormativity,] a phrase coined in 2012 by philosopher Elizabeth Brake.
And when you are asexual , or you are aromantic , or you a rc anywhere on the spectrum that struggles to identify with the allonormativc standards of what is ex pected from yo u in relationships, then this amatonormative world that we live in and that activists continue to advocate for sucks. Badly!!!
Amatonormativity is perhaps one of the most no1malized social behaviors that we have constructed, and much like allononnativity, it is intertwined so deeply in capitalist reinforcement that most do not realize what they are choosing when they reinforce amatonormativity.
Amatonormativity, standing hand in hand with monogamy, tells you that you need to center your life around only one person to reach true fulfillment. That is what the world celebrates.
Platonic relationships are important. Platonic relationships are everywhere. Platonic relationships are the most common types of relationships you will have, and they are so important, and we are so starved of it. Amatonormativity tells you, everyone, but especially men, that any kind of affection shown to friends must be a signal of a deeper, romantic connection.
Amatonormativity trains men to only show affection in terms of romantic attraction, and society in turn is trained to only expect as such from men. That is so dangerous, and so fucking sad. Potential forms of affection, connection, and love, squandered by amanormative parameters. And we wonder why people are so isolated. And we wonder why people are so starved for connection. Do not be tricked into thinking that you have to save your affection for a singular person . There are billions of people on this planet, and you have more than enough love than can fit the heart of just one person. You have so much love to give!!! There is so much love in the world to be given to you, too!!! You are deserving of so much love, always and forever.
Let me be clear: to be against amatonormativity is NOT constructing a world that enforces polygamy in romance. To be against amatonom1ativity is NOT to be against sex positivity. To be against amatonormativity is NOT to get rid of all forms of committed relationships in totality.
To be AGAINST AMA TONORMATIVITY is to allow yourself to consider a world where friendships are understood, celebrated, and rewarded as a commitment in the way that marriage is. Celebrate anniversaries of friendship! Get gifts for each other! Treat your friendship as something serious, something to be treasured, because it isl Your relationship is important, is as important, is more important than your marriage. Do not let the world fool you into thinking otherwise
To be AGAINST AMA TO NORMA TIYITY is to be not only accepting of som e one who doesn't feel inclined toward romantic relationships , but to fight to ensure that their righ ts as a single person are equivalent to that of any other person , regardless of relationship status. Sin g le people should be able to choose their next-of-kin without fuss. Single people should be abl e to immigrate without issue. Single people should not be held to the standard of achie v ement ba sed on their relationship to another person
To be AGAINST AMATONORMATIVITY is to embrace community . Abolish the idea th at your maniage partner is the only one who can live with you , raise your children , receive your belongings after you die. There are other people in your life who care about you just as much , if you will only open your mind to receive it to that same standard.
To be AGAINST AMA TONORMA TIVITY is to consider that there are other fonns o f relationship out there aside from friendships and romantic relationships Consider queering the social borders of what defines relationships in such strict parameters. The queerplatonic relationship is an endless, undefined, and beautiful thing, if you will only let yourself try to seek out something beyond the hierarchy this world attempts to constrain us all to .
To be AGAINST AMATONORMATIVITY is to reject heteronormativity, allonormativity , and monogamy To be AGAINST AMA TONORMA TIVITY is to embrace relationship anarc hy an d all the possibilities of what a relationship could look like. To be AGAINST AMA TONORMA TIYITY is to have the freedom to exist in any state of being, and to nev er be treated differently for not matching up to predetermined expectations of what a relationship could be. There is no way to define relationship s in totality Abolish amatonormativity, and fin d the freedom that follows!
Confessions of an Anti Sorority Girl
By Marlo Young
The day I opened my bid was the day I became invisible. From this point on, it didn't matter how many events I attended, how much makeup I wore to parties, or how many friends I'd tried to make. In the end, I was just a number. So much time and energy poured into the exhausting Rush Weeks; the endless Novelty Parties, the forced socialization, the constant pressure of being examined, testing if you are fit to become one of them. I had played their game, faked enjoyment through as many dainty tea parties as I could. I had become an expert in making my true self as tamped down as I could without coming off as robotic. I had succeeded in becoming what they were looking for; an automaton that could pass as having a personality. I had truly become a sorority girl.
Now, I know what you're thinking, why join in the first place? Maybe it was the unspoken promise of booze-filled mixers, maybe it was the vision of wearing those admittedly cute letters across my chest. What I can say for sure is that I felt like I could be accepted; we all did. We were searching for our home, eagerly awaiting the email that decided who would move on and who was erased. To move up meant you could serve a purpose; to be erased meant you didn't matter. I was one of the lucky ones ... until I became unlucky.
As an active member, I have watched new recruits shyly sip their punch in the
corner of the room before the mandatory bonding activities start in earnest. This phase is to test your likeability and how willing you are to go up to a stranger and start a conversation. In other words, an introvert's ninth layer of Hell. As the party progresses, and I attempt to be the good sorority girl who makes her rounds at the party, I see a few of them come out of their shell. I see their real identities present themselves. I ask these women about their hobbies, the sports they played, what music they listen to; and I see the gleam in their eyes as their hopes of making the cut rise. I smile when I think of how much they came alive that day. But then happiness never really exists in the sorority system; because as soon as the hopefuls left, we rank who we found most worthy. I remember staring at the two sheets of paper in front of me; one a list of names of the girls, the other an empty ranking list. So many wonderful women I met today, but I am forced to place them in a box of most-desirable to undesirable.
I find it nearly impossible, am dumbfounded by this ranking of human beings, but everyone else easily lists one name of a girl they would like in the chapter. It comes to my turn, and I say what I'm truly thinking, "Well, I thought this girl had a sweet personality and then this one was confident. Oh, and this girl was super shy, but she really opened up!" The room goes quiet, one person mutters an exasperated "Ugh girl. " before rolling her eyes at me. I begin to apologize, but then stop myself. This girl doesn't deserve my apology when I was seeing these girls for the humans with lives and dreams that they were. For not seeing them as another blank smiling face on our lnstagram. For judging their worth on more than simply their looks, their forwardness, or
the esteem of their chosen studies. The anger started right in that moment. When I realized how much this system was fucked up. How we were invading these girls' lives; picking apart their lnstagram accounts, observing them in their classes, judging them during their most pressured times. I gritted my teeth as the number of candidates wheedled down to a select few. All the sororities performed this ritualistic sacrifice that night. Every one of them enacted the ultimate power of saying who is "good enough" and who is not. Those who were got to join their family behind the Campus Center the next morning; those who did not received a phone call from the director saying "Don't come. Don't embarrass yourself. Better luck next time!" During Bid Day, as I felt the elation of welcoming new members, I looked around and realized there were many faces I had seen during Rush that had been eliminated completely. Later that day, Panhel would call this year's Bid Day a great success I'd call it a slaughter.
There are small deaths one must endure to survive the sorority girl life. First, you must acclimate to the establishment. If you fail to conceal your tomboy clothing, your raunchy humor, or your possible affiliation with anything other than a cisgender woman then you've already failed the acceptability standard. They make known your failure to blend in by treating you with silence. Your remarks will not be acknowledged even when you know people heard you. Your deeds for the sorority as an officer will be met with members calling you a bitch behind your back. Your purpose at parties is simply to take pictures of the group you went there with. They pick apart those on the fringes long after
Bid Day has passed. For people like me, the torture has never really stopped. But I am done with this emotional torment that we outcasts face. We pay with literal and emotional currency for warmth that turns cold. And yet we still try to survive and endure. We try to make it tolerable by going to more parties, making cucumber sandwiches for more banal tea parties, reaching for higher offices and recognition . We do all of this to feel like we have truly earned our place here but are shot down as "try-hards." I have tried so hard ... tried so hard to find my place where I must fight to be seen; tried so hard to laugh at everyone's jokes while having my own be swept under the rug; tried so hard to dress like the perfect sorority girl only to show up to a party and realize I lost the battle; tried so hard to have the right things to say and the best courses of action and to make myself likeable. And aren't I so grateful! Aren't I so fucking grateful! So grateful to be chosen as the sad clown that's the butt of all the jokes. So grateful to be chosen by the almighty council of Blondes/Brunettes for the true college test of worthiness. So grateful to be made to reveal my body at parties where the frat boys can leer and offer me another drink. So grateful to have devoted hours of my week to something no one gives a shit about. So grateful for the empty promise of belonging. All I had ever wanted was to belong, to be a sibling with others, to wear my letters with pride. Now I face the cruel reality, and I refuse to be grateful any longer.
I refuse to be grateful whenever I see a social media post that says this person is purposefully left out by their sorority. A sorority member would say, "We'd never do
that!" which I know is a lie. I watched it happen to one of our own . She fit the bill, and she still paid the price. She went too deep into the illusion . She was too good at the ditzy sorority girl type. I saw her get too drunk too quickly; words coming out of her as fas t as the tears; as she wailed "I don't belong here! I don't belong here!" I had heard the rumors spread like wildfire. Soon enough it had burnt her real self, leaving a hollow shell behind. She would tell me that she didn't feel accepted in that sorority; that she felt like everyone was constantly waiting for her to fuck up so they could kick her to the curb. I took her hand, looked her in the eyes, and told her "Me too." There came a time where the pressure was too much, and she would leave the sorority behind. It feels sacrilegious to have started typing this out amidst the Greek Week b anners hanging in the Campus Center. All around me is the artifice of Greek Unity, a co llective "Join Us. We All Get Along." Eleven banners proudly strewn with each ins ignia; each member feeling the heavy weight of those letters. Reality TV was the the me this year, and it's amazingly perfect. The most intense Greek oriented event of the year; the ultimate proving grounds of which groups are worthy, and which are not; would be centered around the falsehood of MTV, TLC, take your pick. The masks of makeup and sorority squats and false smiles deny the relentless emotional pain underneath. "We ' re all siblings here" is what is said on the social media posts and during Rush Week. But much more commonly, within dorm rooms or classrooms, sometimes even the Greek houses themselves, sorority members will often whisper "This is hell. "
Editor's Note
Hello Dear Readers!
After we heard that the theme for this year's edition of KATE was returning to manifestos, we thought that it could not have come at a better time. In a time in which activist voices are threatened by censorship in academia, on social media, in print media, and elsewhere, the form of the manifesto-the only truly unapologetic, unafraid, endlessly versatile genre-is a necessary tool utilized to fight through barriers and bolster activist efforts.
As all three of your Managing Editors are Seniors this year, we feel this collection of works is as fitting a legacy as we could have. We are so honored to have had the opportunity to unite these pieces into one powerful collection. We want to thank all of our readers, as well as our contributors for submitting candid, courageous, and beautiful pieces. We hope this edition of KATE empowers you, educates you, and ignites an activist fire that cannot be extinguished.
Love,
Lily Cowie, Taylor Miller, Madison Newman Your KATE Editors