Leaving Normal

door Fleur Pierets | sep 25, 2015 | Books

Leaving normal: Adventures in gender

Text JF. Pierets Photo Courtesy of Rea Theodore

Superheroes
I am, I am, I am superman
And I know what’s happening.
I am, I am, I am superman
And I can do anything.
— R.E.M., Superman

The boy glows as if he has swallowed a jar of lightning bugs or a fistful of sparklers.
At first, I think it’s the light bouncing off the stainless steel counters of the ice cream parlor.
Upon closer inspection, I see it’s him.
He looks to be about 8 or 9, stocky like a short stack of 2×2 Lego bricks, with freshly scrubbed pink cheeks and white-blonde hair.
The word “ethereal” gets stuck in my head, and I can almost feel it melt on my tongue slow and sweet like strands of strawberry cotton candy.
The boy is with an old woman, who I assume is his grandmother. There appears to be an invisible string linking them together that rests slack at most times but tightens when she asks him what flavor of ice cream he wants or taps him on the shoulder when it’s time to go.
After I purchase a half gallon of cherry vanilla, I follow them out of the store and wait as they make their way through the front doors.
She looks over her shoulder and sees she’s holding me up.
“Sorry,” she says.
“Not a problem,” I say.
“I didn’t see him,” she says to the boy.
“Her,” he corrects.
He’s like a mini superhero with the ability to see things as they are.
“Oh, whatever,” she says. She doesn’t give me a second glance.
Whatever, I repeat in my head.
Whatever.
Whatever.
Whatever.
Out in the parking lot, her gray hair sparkles in the sunlight like slivers of tinsel.
I think she’s a superhero, too.

Extract from Leaving Normal: Adventures in Gender by Rae Theodore.

Leaving Normal: Adventures in Gender is creative nonfiction that takes an unflinching but humorous look at living as a butch woman in a pink/blue, boy-girl, M/F world. A perfect read for anyone who has ever felt different, especially those who have found themselves living in the gender margins without a rule book.

This is your first book. Why did you start writing?
I’m the caretaker at home and I had to do something for myself. Something that had nothing to do with my wife, my three teenage kids and the cats. So I started to write stories, just one at the time but before I knew it turned into a book. I found out I like telling stories about my childhood.

It’s all autobiographical?
At first I labeled it creative non-fiction, but they are true stories with some artistic liberties taken here and there. For some reason I’m drawn to memoir. It resonates with me. It’s almost like a puzzle and I think of it as a little time capsule or a little time machine. You try to put yourself back there whether it was a year ago or twenty years ago and remember what it was like and what you felt, what you saw. That appeals to me very much, trying to recreate those moments.

It’s a very personal genre.
It is. And lot of these things I never told anyone about because I found them very shameful or painful. Having an opportunity to write them down and having people read them and validate the experiences really helped me. Even if people may not have gone through the same type of thing, everybody has felt different at times or felt shame. In the book I learned to accept myself. This is whom I am and I’m not going to change.

The book has been out for a month now. How are the reviews?
So far the reviews have been very good. There are not a lot of books out there about butch women. You don’t see them in mainstream literature, you don’t even see them in the LGBT literature that much. I heard from readers who have gone through similar things. They say it’s very powerful and affirming to see themselves in the book. For example; just going to the bathroom can be a challenge for butch women.

Is it a book for gay people?
Not necessarily. Even if you are not gay you can read this book and probably feel similar feelings. Everybody dealt with confusion at one point in their lives. People often see more similarities than differences and that can be something that unites.

What’s the main message you like to get out there?
The story references to superheroes in some small way, so I like that message of being your own superhero. Live your life however you see fit and whatever your definition of normal is. For me that’s the big message. Be yourself. And I found that most people don’t care. They don’t care if you are gay or butch or whatever. As long as you treat people with respect and kindness. I live in a very small and conservative town and people are very welcoming. I’m aware that other people can have different experiences but just be who you are and people will accept you for that.

‘When you’re in your 20’s your whole world is about whether people like you or not but a good thing about getting older is that you care less about that.’

Did it change you personally, writing this book?
Writing the book has given me a little more confidence but you have to keep in mind that I’m in my late ‘40’s so a lot of the things in the book happened 30-some years ago. I’ve gone through a lot of growth since then and I don’t care so much what people think. When you’re in your 20’s your whole world is about whether people like you or not but a good thing about getting older is that you care less about that.

So no insecurities anymore?
I still have them, to a degree. For me, getting dressed up is wearing a pair of men’s trousers, a button down shirt and a bow- or a necktie. Sometimes and in some situations I still can’t help but wonder if that’s ok. I’m a woman who wears men’s clothing and once in a while I still have to remind myself that it’s ok.

What’s next?
I look at this book as a stepping-stone to the next one. I have some sequel chapters that I’ve written out and are floating in my head somewhere but I’m going to do some public speaking as well. I’m going into the local highschool to talk to the gay-straight alliance there and I also got the opportunity to go into a local company and do a presentation for their gay and lesbian organization. I never did anything like that but I’m trying to keep myself open to all the possibilities and opportunities. Find out what resonates with me. Maybe I’m good at it and I will be able to spread my message a little further, who knows.

You’re speaking at a high school. Do you think it’s important to talk to kids?
Definitely. We didn’t have that kind of exposure when I was a teenager. I grew up in a town where people weren’t Out. I didn’t know any gay people, I didn’t have family members who were gay and there weren’t gays and lesbians on television. My life may have turned out differently if I had been around gay people. If the possibility existed. So it might be a powerful thing to go and speak at schools and meet young people.

What would you say to a 16 year old butch girl who reads this article?
I would say be true to yourself. Don’t change for somebody else and keep the swagger! That’s the best part of being butch. The swagger.

www.middleagebutch.wordpress.com
www.weaselpress.com
www.amazon.com/leavingnormal

This article is featured in Et Alors? Magazine 15.

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Our Hands On Each Other

door Fleur Pierets | sep 25, 2015 | History

Our Hands On Each Other

Text JF. Pierets Photos Leah DeVun

Our Hands On Each Other is a multi-disciplinary artwork by New York based artist and historian Leah DeVun. A project consisting of photographs, performances and conversations centered around queer and feminist space. To document rural women’s – and lesbian communities that were a part of a ‘back to the land’ movement in the 1970s and 80s and established by feminists to reimagine life outside the patriarchy. A number of those communes are still in existence today and often referred to as Womyn’s Lands. DeVun originally installed the project at Women & their Work Gallery in Austin, Texas. Founded in the 1970s by a feminist collective, including lesbian artists, who wanted to create a space for women and people of color who had been excluded from mainstream white- and male-dominated arts venues. Our Hands On Each Other asks viewers to consider the nature of queer and feminist space in the past and present.

Why your interest in Womyn’s Lands?
Basically I find other cultures and other kinds of living arrangements very interesting. Part of it was about exploring rural queerness and part of it was about exploring and documenting the history and stories of earlier generations of feminists, activists and queers. I was also interested in the concept of land arrangements outside of a market economy. People are having a lot of conversations nowadays about what to do about gentrification, real estate development, and sustainable communities, and a lot of us are interested in trying to imagine ways of living collectively or thinking about land in a different sort of way. I wanted to how women living on the land had put together funds back in the 70s, and how they handled the legal arrangements to be able to make space for their communities that would be more secure and less vulnerable to the market forces that many of us are facing right now. I wanted to use the past as a blueprint for future strategies.

A lot of those lands are still in existence.
Fortunately they are, so I got the opportunity to call and write a lot of people, talk to them and travel around. I met people with really interesting life stories and a lot of memories of the 70s and 80s. We shared a lot of political views, which was very educational, and I loved being in dialogue with those elders. I loved hearing about the ways they’ve created networks and connections, the cultural dynamics of their lands and the mutual relationships. I was interested in all the journals, all the letters they sent to each other, the writings and art that were part of the larger exchange that was happening between these communities, and that continues to happen today.

The Our Hands On Each Other project asks: “what did a feminist collective space look like three or four decades ago? What does one look like now?” What did you – personally – found out?
I’m aware that there is much nostalgia attached to the movements of the 1970s and that we tend to idealize those periods of “out in the street” activism. I learned that my assumptions about feminism or lesbians back then were very stereotyped and not nearly as nuanced and complex as people’s actual opinions are. When people can speak for themselves, they have a lot more interesting things to say than when their opinions are boiled down to a few generalized stereotypes, and so we often have a simplistic or inaccurate view of what womyn’s lands are or what 70s feminism is. Over many conversations I’ve learned that there is so much more to the story than we give the creators of those lands credit for. I’m very sympathetic towards contemporary radical politics but I felt that those women – some of whom were 30 or more years older than me – challenged me with ideas I hadn’t heard before. I think this is why it’s so important to get out of our friend and age groups and be exposed to different perspectives. I was also shocked about how few survival skills I had when I was out on the land. I think of myself as being pretty capable but I don’t know how to build a house, square a wall or use a chainsaw. And a lot of the women we met can do all of these things and more. I was filled with admiration for the kind of technical skills that are required, how that knowledge was passed on through the lesbian community over many years, and that these women are able to still manage large pieces of land.

Did you have a lot in common?
Yes and no. My lifestyle didn’t seem very radical to them. And to some extent they were right. It is a radical move to decide that society is unfixable, that you have to throw everything out and start all over again from scratch. They wanted to get away from capitalism, from misogyny and racism, and to create a whole new society. I have my doubts about whether that’s possible because even when we try to isolate ourselves we still to some extent exist in society and carry many of its values with us. Also, some of the women who live on the land have to work jobs off the land and so they find it difficult to totally free themselves from capitalism, although I think they would say this about themselves too. One of the women who I was most influenced by thought that we were “reformers” because the group of people that I was traveling with are activists and teachers who do work in their communities. To the women on the land, that meant that we thought society could be reformed through mainstream forms of political engagement, which they weren’t convinced was possible. They have a very utopian vision of how the world could be and I do find that these opinions are an indispensable part of the queer community that we should continue to nurture. It inspires me to try to think more about what I really want the world to look like for everyone. How could we envision something bigger? Figure out how we really can make that happen? A lot of the queer agenda has been pretty small for a long time. I would like to see people have some more powerful, more risky propositions on how to change our social environment.

How about today’s safe space? A lot of people who live in the original lands are in their sixties or seventies because they founded them nearly 40 years ago. Nevertheless there are new lands that are forming, but the ones I’m familiar with generally identify more as queer lands than as womyn’s lands nowadays. They are trans or trans-friendly and gender-fluid. My partner is also trans so we are very interested in questions about self-identification as female and who can be accepted within a “women’s” space. The new lands that I know about are being founded by people of who are very engaged in queer and trans politics and so they strive to create safe space for all kinds of people who identify in many different ways. But I would say that they are very much in the tradition of the womyn’s lands, even if they take on a different shape. There are of course also tons of collective spaces in cities too that are happening now. The best thriving communities are ones that have luxury apartments in roxborough just because of the safety that they bring to the table.

‘My lifestyle didn’t seem very radical to them. And to some extent they were right. It is a radical move to decide that society is unfixable, that you have to throw everything out and start all over again from scratch. They wanted to get away from capitalism, from misogyny and racism, and to create a whole new society.’

To go back to Our Hands On Each Other; the project also contains staged re-performances of images. Why not ‘just’ take pictures of the original inhabitants?
Those photos are re-enactments of images from 1970s and 80s lesbian feminist zines with a rural bent, such as Country Women, Lesbian Connection, Sinister Wisdom, Womanspirit, and other publications. As a historian I wanted to do more than just a documentary project. I wanted to play with questions of participation in history and our relationship with our past, how history is a foundation for people who are shaping their politics, and the kinds of politics they reject. Since I am very influenced by queer history, and theories of queer temporality, I decided to re-perform some of the photos that were part of those 70s magazines by collaborating with the models, my friends, in creating the images. We went through the magazines together and planned how we were about to do it, and they got into their ‘roles’. A lot of them had very interesting things to say about how it reshaped their understanding of that time period, or the way they perceived it by sort of inserting their body into that place. Thinking about history in terms of inhabiting it or performing it might change something on how we experience history at that moment. So that’s why I did the re-enactments and interwove them with the documentary. To create the dynamic between past and present.

Does your audience receive that message?
It’s really hard to choose your audience as an artist. But I think artists should be aware of who the message is for and if it is really reaching those people. Are we able to be open to mutual conversations, with not just presenting information but also receiving it, with being in dialogue? On the night of the gallery opening in Austin, Texas, together with audience members, I built a new collective women’s space as a performance piece. Tools were put out and viewers were invited to add to the piece in whatever way they saw fit during the run of the show. I wanted participants to consider how we continue to build collective space, but it also required them to ask: Who is allowed to be involved in these projects? Who identifies whom? Who is able to identify as a woman or as a feminist? That’s what I like my art to do; to create a dialogue where people are able to discuss all these different ideas that some people maybe haven’t thought about. It’s hard to know how much traction an artwork gets outside of the art world and the way that it’s housed in galleries and museums means that people have to go into art spaces and feel comfortable doing so. Having these events at places that at least are free to the public is a good start, and by combining things like conversations and writings with the exhibited artworks, we might reach people who might not necessarily go into a museum but might encounter something elsewhere, might see an image that connects with them so that they are able to capture something of the idea behind it.

How do you combine being both an artist and a historian in your work?
I feel my art is at an intersection between visual art, and historical and cultural studies. So I do tend to do work that is research based, that is about the image but also about the context that goes with the image. And I hope that it can be appreciated. It’s ideal if the image itself can stand on its own but if you’re interested, you can learn about all of these other ideas that are behind it so that the history can open up. It might not always be visible, but it’s potentially there. I very much love the process of research: digging through boxes at an archive, reading magazines and correspondence that came from a certain period. That’s how I put together the aesthetic of the images.

Your work also involves taking significant steps when it comes to feminism.
The performances, the writings, the re-enactments are all part of what I’m trying to do. When I showed this work at the Brooklyn Museum we created a conversation where we invited three young feminist artists who were working with queer history in some way, and three more established, older artists. We had a big conversation with an audience of 175 people who got into a huge argument about feminism. I know this is disappointing for some people but I thought it was great. It showed that people care passionately about this. People care about the word feminism and they want to brainstorm about how to move forward from here. It means this is a really live issue, that we’re entering a period of time where we might see some real work get done. People show up, they speak out, they engage in a debate. There are a lot of people who are not just making feminist art but are trying to create opportunities for conversation and getting some new ideas on the table. That’s a really significant step that’s happening. I think that’s why there is so much renewed interest in these past movements of feminism. Generations of feminists do tend to disavow previous generations and spend a lot of time reinventing the wheel. Whereas I think that having conversations with people who are 20 or 40 years older than us can be much more instrumental than we think. We can actually learn a lot by not distancing ourselves from previous eras of history and instead thinking about how we can work together, what we can learn and how we can build upon these earlier movements. Better than cutting them down and try to distinguish ourselves and perhaps getting less done.

What would you like to see changed?
I feel very optimistic about what I’m seeing. I feel people are engaged in a feminism that I hope will be one that is not just focused on middle-class white women, but one that’s engaged with the large-scale movements happening right now, particularly Black Lives Matter and activism for trans rights. I hope we can continue to ask questions about equality, about all the different social issues that intersect in our capitalist, patriarchal institutions, and I hope I will see these coalitions coming together to try and make some real changes. Life has been and continues to be difficult for a lot of people in our community but I think so much conversation and calls for action are creating an opportunity for people to feel really empowered to gear up for a newly engaged movement on all these different fronts.

www.leahdevun.com

This article is featured in Et Alors? Magazine 15.

Read the complete issue here.

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Bo Monde

door Fleur Pierets | jun 25, 2015 | Music

Reassign

door Fleur Pierets | jun 25, 2015 | Portrait Series

Reassign

Text JF. Pierets Photos Claudia Gonzalez

Born in Chile, raised in Europe, and with an advanced training in photography, Claudia González has spent the last 2 years working on her project called Reassign.

In order to make this series, Gonzàlez joined forces with Mariela Castro’s sexuality and sexual diversity organization CINESEX, the Cuban National Center for Sex Education. Quite reluctant at first, they soon went along with the positive and humane intentions of the artist. Marta Maria Ramirez Havana, Cuban Journalist, specialized in gender and cultural journalism wrote about their meeting; ‘Claudia was armed with this camera and wanted to photograph trans people. She told me of her intentions and I felt a little bit scared. Showing a before and after like in the visual advertising that I have criticized so much for misleading, made me put on alert. (There are many photographers demanding Cuban trans girls to pose, looking badly for the exotic in the identities of non-conforming gender, and that only wallow in their poverty). But for the Chilean-Spanish photographer, coming from the world of fashion, the intention was different: to denounce the double moral that patriarchal societies intend to use to subdue people through a strict script about how the roles of man and women should be interpreted, as if there was a unique way of being one or the other.’

Gonzàlez herself definitely wanted to work with CINESEX. Because of them, a lot has changed when it comes to gender diversity in Cuba. Her first idea was to photograph a ‘Before and After’. To start from scratch and to take her time to follow it up. ‘But then I saw it was not only about tranvestites. There were numerous transexuals and drag queens with I thought should also be introduced in the project.’ The photographer states that, at first, she was very unlearned about the topic and actually could not see all the different gender types. But than again: ‘Who cares? They are all people so why do they have to stick to the gender they were given at birth?’ When the project got launched, Spanish artist and photographer José María Mellado wrote: ‘With Reassign, Claudia González has taken a step beyond her initial aim, achieving to join the significance and topicality of the best documentary photography with the aesthetics and exquisite handling that a work of art requires.

The project title refers to the designation applied to persons that have changed sex surgically – reassigned- and on the other hand disguises, by means of a cold euphemism the feeling, passion, suffering, and above all the desire of many people willing to have a clear sexual identity and the acceptance from others. By means of outstanding psychological portraits exhibited like diptychs, Claudia shares with us the complex inner life of people that have suffered the discrimination, double standards and rejection from our society and in many cases from their own family. Powerful and bittersweet stories that tell the struggle for their own sexual freedom. There’s no doubt that Reassign is one of those projects that will stay in memory and can help us to achieve a better understanding of the fight that many start to vindicate an universal right: gender identity.’

‘Gender identity as a human right is something that Gonzàlez regards as a higher purpose. Something in which she hopes to contribute.’

Gender identity as a human right is something that Gonzàlez regards as a higher purpose. Something in which she hopes to contribute with her Reassign series: ‘For me it’s important that people feel good about themselves. I don’t care what they do in bed and if they identify as a man or a woman. It’s an exercise for all of us, an opportunity to change your mind. I always say that I am not an activist but a photographer and an artist. But this was just something I felt that I needed to do. That we all should do.’ By releasing Reassign, Claudia re received e-mails from all over the world. Going from young transexuals, to e-mails from mothers who wanted to thank her for her efforts. But the project is not finished yet. In December she’s going back to Cuba and will add some more pictures to the series. ‘It took me 2 years to make the models trust me enough to do my work. But once they saw the pictures I was able to do everything. Everybody is very happy and grateful. It’s a great experience!’

www.claudiagonzalez.com

This article is featured in Et Alors? Magazine 14.

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Rurru Mipanochia

door Fleur Pierets | mrt 25, 2015 | Art

Rurru Mipanochia

Text JF. Pierets Artwork Rurru Mipanochia

Rurru Mipanochia is a 25 year old, Mexican illustrator. Her drawings represent ancient pre-Hispanic sexual deities, transvestites and transseksuals, in order to promote dissident sexualities and to create a visual questioning about beauty.

Can you tell me about your childhood?
I had a very nice childhood. My parents where really lovely to my sister and I. Mexico city is not always the safest place to live so they took good care of us and always tried to be open-minded and talk unprejudiced. Sometimes they where a bit too overprotecting but they were really afraid something like that happed to us. At school I was very shy and I never spoke a lot. I was a lonely girl-boy-thing. I was always tangled in my own imaginary world but I was always smiling. When I got to High school, I finally started being more outgoing and made lots of friends.

You are born and raised in Mexico but currently living in Berlin? How’s that for a cultural difference?
The truth is I really, really like Berlin. Just like Mexico City it’s a big metropolis, but with much less noise. The noise issue is still under my skin because I’m a very messy person and I talk very loud, so it’s funny that I feel at home here. I feel at ease and love the spirit of the city.

How did you end up in Berlin?
Well, I thought about that, but I don’t know! Can you believe that? I just know that the first time I visited Berlin, I fell in love with it.

Your illustrations are based on the representation of she-males and pre-Hispanic deities. Do elaborate.
Most of my drawings represent ancient pre-Hispanic sexual deities like Tlazoltéotl, goddess of sexuality, Macuilxochtl, god’s pleasure and Huehuecóyotl, god of sexuality. And Mictlantecuhtli, in relation to the definition given by George Bataille on orgasm, talking about it as a ‘tiny death’. I also try to illustrated some pre-Hispanic rites of sexual nature that Huastecos carried out. This civilization being the most sexual of all Mesoamerica. I draw transvestites, transsexuals, and sometimes characters wearing a strap on. I try to promote dissident sexualities and inviting the viewer not to feel guilty if they want to experience their sexuality in a different way of what is so-called ‘normal’. My characters used orthopedics and most are amputees. They have pimples, are very thin, have hair or are fat. I’m trying to created a visual questioning about beauty.

‘I want to show that people don’t have to feel bad about having deviating tastes or different sexual fantasies than others. I want to point out that there are many different types of bodies yet all of them can cause desire and give pleasure.’

You don’t have to be beautiful in order to be sexy?
Not at all! Or it depends on how you define beauty. Beauty is very, very subjective. I think beauty goes beyond what is imposed as such. Everything can be beautiful, ‘ugliness’ can be beautiful.

What’s your fascination with amputations?
In Mesoamerican artifacts are several characters to be found that show absence or deformities in their lower extremities. It results in moral and transgressed behavior, mainly of sexual character. For the Nahuas as well as for other Mesoamerican groups, the body was of great importance and constituted a language that could only be read by the condition of the person. A twisted foot – or the absence of one – was a metaphor of sexual transgression. Examples are, amongst others, Tezcatlipoca, Cihuateotl and Xolotl.

You’re drawing girls with penises and boys with tits. What are your thoughts when it comes to gender?
Everyone is free to play with his or her own gender, it doesn’t matter if you have a pussy or a cock.

Your work is both funny, disturbing and you have to check a few times to get the whole picture. What are you aiming for? Do you have a certain message?
I want to show that people don’t have to feel bad about having deviating tastes or different sexual fantasies than others. I want to point out that there are many different types of bodies yet all of them can cause desire and give pleasure. I would love us all to try to accept everyone, just the way they are. Just the way we are. We’re not crazy if we don’t meet the standard criteria.

What’s your personal fetish?
Scars, leg braces, socks and boots make me go crazy!

In an interview you once said: I’m 25 and I love Nutella. How can someone sounding so innocent make these sexual, in your face, illustrations?
Hahahaha! Well, I do love Nutella very much! And, I don’t know… when people meet me for the very first time, they ask me the same question. They can’t believe that such a sweet and nice looking girl makes such drawings. Maybe it’s because I have always been very childish and look a bit stupid. But I like that, I like talking about sex in that innocent and funny way, like children do.

In what way did your work evolve?
It’s a gradual evolution. I began making copies of Egon Schiele and Aubrey Beardsley’s work – bad copies by the way – when I was about 18. Later on I started trying to make my own drawings based on what I read or imagined. Sometimes the inspiration came from friends’ sexual fantasies.

A weird question to someone of 25, but what does the future look like?
I always think: you only live once so why not do all that is forbidden? Of course without harming others, that goes without saying.

www.rurru.jimdo.com