Items

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  2022-04-19

  Pride month events return with new mission to uplift people of color, trans civil rights

  This is a news story from USA Today by Bill Keveney. Pride parades will be returning to full-scale since 2019. With the events that happened during COVID, some changes have been made in how it is celebrated. For 2022, more people of color and trans people have been added to leadership positions. Participation is also going to be more accessible for disabled and low-income as well, by making some events online for easier access. Police brutality will also be addressed due to the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. Seattle Pride has banned police from Pride. Along with this, there is also the theme of speaking out against the anti-LGBTQ legislation that is happening across the United States.
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  2022-05-13

  INDY PRIDE FESTIVAL ORGANIZERS HOPE TO RECLAIM CROWDS AFTER COVID

  This is a news story from WIBC by Chris Davis. According to the article, the Indy Pride Festival will be back after a two year hiatus due to COVID. The event will be held Indianapolis. Since the hiatus, some changes have been made. Cops at Pride will be in softer uniforms to make them more approachable. This will include shorts instead of the standard pants. There will also be police on bicycle patrol during the event. Shelly Snider, an executive director of the parade, says that the goal is to help queer people feel safe from major incident, but understands the rough relationship queer people in the past have had with the police force in general.
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  2022-05-10

  Athens Pride and Queer Collective to host first local Pride Parade

  This is a news story from WUGA by Sofi Grates. According to this article, it says that Pride Month will be back in full swing in Athens after it being canceled due to COVID. It will be hosted by Athens Pride and Queer Collective. The parade that is sent for June 12 will include vendors, music, and a cookout
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  2022-03-30

  After two-year hiatus, LGBTQ events return to Fiesta San Antonio

  This is a news story from the San Antonio Current by Sam Sanchez. This story is about LGBTQ events returning to San Antonio after a two year break due to COVID. For the past two years, many of these events have been canceled. This article shares events happening in San Antonio and what non-profits they benefit. Some of these non-profits include: the San Antonio AIDS Foundation, The Thrive Youth Center, Pride San Antonio and BEAT AIDS. Events include: themed parties, chili cook-offs, party shuttles, and fiestas. Certain events include fees for attending and certain COVID precautions, such as masks, to attend.
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  2021-03-29

  Lars Wolfshield Oral History, 2021/03/21

  Self-Description: “I am a pansexual and gender fluid artist and artist manager and I work primarily with Black and queer musicians and bands.” Record label: https://www.instagram.com/wolfshieldrecords/
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  2021-05-06

  Lian McMillan Oral History, 2021/05/06

  Self Description: “I’m a 21-year-old musician. I just recently graduated from U[niversity] of T[oronto] a week ago, and I graduated with a classical percussion degree. I play for a band called cutsleeve. We’re a group of east Asian, queer sound musicians. I’m a mixed race woman, my father is white, and my mother is Chinese. I’ve lived in Canada, the [United] States, and I lived in Shanghai for a few years. I’m a dog owner.”
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  2021-03-14

  Alex Smith Oral History, 2021/03/14

  Self-description: “I’m an artist, writer, musician, and an off-and-on again activist, lecturer, worshopshop leader. I’m coming out of Philadelphia. My work revolves around concepts relating to Afrofuturism; for lack of a better term: superheroes and the conceptual nature of superheroes and the idea of the vigilante and the people’s champions and heroes can walk among us. I use [aesthetics and the immersive ideas of] from science fiction, cyberpunk, solarpunk, biopunk, and Afrofurturism to empower people of color, queer people and to project us into the future and our ideas and culture into the future as well. I use different mediums to do that, my bands Solarized (a sort of noisy punk rock band) and Rainbow Crimes (indie rock, but a little crazier and noisier than many excursions into that). I have written a short story collection called ARKDUST. And I do collage work and soundscapes and curate events like Laser Life, which was a queer sci-fi reading that me and my friends in a collective that I’m in called Metropolarity put together. That’s my praxis right now: a little bit of everything. I view my work as if I’m creating for 18 or 19 or 20 year old Alex, who probably needed some queer Black sci-fi in his life. So, I’m projecting these aspects of myself back to the past to not just nourish my community, but to nourish myself.” Personal website: alexoteric.com Other biographical details: Vegetarian, experiences depression, Pew Center for the Arts Fellow, during COVID is the first time in his life he’s had Health Insurance. Some of our discussion touched on: Using art to project hope and remaining hopeful during the pandemic. Afrofuturism as a part of the fabric of activism, how it is imbedded in culture and impacts queer and POC culture. How Afrofuturism exceeds an “aesthetic revival” of representation of Black people in the future and the kind of work that needs to be done to ensure those futures. Deciding to cancel a show he was organizing in the early days of the pandemic to protect the presenters and audience members. The everydayness of people dying because they don’t have healthcare access or can’t afford medicine* outside of the times of COVID-19; racism, sexism, and transphobia in the healthcare system.Corporate interests and their influence on policy. The unreasonable imperative that artists take the pandemic as an opportunity for productivity when many are out of work. It is hard to make art without fuel and without food. Witnesses barriers in the healthcare while caring for his partner after a stroke 5 years ago, the importance of medical bureaucratic literacy in a “Kafka-esque system”. Excitement about getting the vaccine. The pandemic in geopolitical context. Isolation in practice: Safety precautions and research prior to traveling for a funeral. Hope for “science married with activism”. Scholars in the humanities and social sciences need to be more visible, speak in lay person’s terms, do advocacy, and get in the streets. “Nothing is safe unless it empowers.” Other cultural references: Netflix, Zombie Movies, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Oprah’s interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, Black Panther, Teenage Bounty Hunter, Elon Musk, GoFundMe. A specific reference is made to the need for his sister’s sickle cell anemia medicine in this interview. She dies a few months later. The GoFundMe to cover funeral expenses can be found here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/memorial-fund-for-elizabeth-graham?utm_campaign=p_cp_url&utm_medium=os&utm_source=customer
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  2021-02-21

  Laura Larson Oral History, 2021/02/21

  Self description: “My name is Laura, and I am in two bands right now. I am in a band called Scrunchies and a band called Kitten Forever. I play guitar, base, drums, and I sing in those two bands. I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. For work, I work at a community cooperative grocery store, in an administrative position, but one that is community outreach based and have a lot to do with meeting and coordinating with our community partners, a lot of the work that I do is about mutual aid, and helping out the community with the resources that we have available to us. Besides that I am a visual artist, I like to paint, I like to draw, I like to read books, and I live in a little duplex with my partner and our cat Sissy.” Some of the things we spoke about included: - In addition to performing in the bands Scrunchies and Kitten Forever, working for a community grocer and its ties to health activism. - Income and racial disparities in Minnesota. - The fear that comes with being uninsured in the United States. - The national confusion around the values of masking and other safety precautions and the burden placed on individuals to make these decisions in the absence of clear and consistent messaging. - The significance of shutting down music events while keeping sporting events going. - Media representation of event cancelations, freezers of bodies, and overwhelmed hospitals. - Living less than a mile from where George Floyd was murdered and movements to defund the police. - How the ongoing destruction of the earth conditioned the pandemic and the enduring importance of climate change. - Grocery store workers being essential workers who still did not receive vaccination prioritization. - Collective trauma and that fear begets fear. - Making and consuming art as a form of self-care. - How new the internet still is as a technology. Cultural references: Save Our Stages, The Atlantic article “Cancel Everything”. See also: https://scrunchies.bandcamp.com/ https://kittenforever.bandcamp.com
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  2021-03-31

  Gyre Oral History, 2021/03/31

  Self-Description: “My name is Gyre. I am a multidisciplinary artist based in South Africa with global ambitions. I specialize in music, but I also work as a freelance writer as well as in dance. I’m a dancer learning to choreograph. Political commentator, particularity with regard to the LBGTQA+ community. I identify as queer. I am homoromatic and homosexual at this point in my life. You never know honey, it’s a spectrum. I had my first venture into artistic expression that is rooted in queer rights and queer understanding and queer theory, was my debut album, titled Queernomics, which was a documented audio-visual book about the contemporary experiences of a Black queer South African male, and that has gotten me into the positions that I express myself in, both out of passion and out of profession. Inkosi Yenkonkoni, which means “The Gay King”, in my native language which is Zulu.” Other details available here: Works produced during the pandemic: Kithi, International LGBTQ+ Rights Festival, writing on football. Some of the things we spoke about included: “What happens at the top is just politics, what happens at the bottom is real life.” Thinking about the term “pandemic” Listening to the body The pandemic exposing state corruption Having written a song called “Quarantine” in 2018 The inadequacies and privileges of Medical Aid in South Africa, having aged out of Medical Aid before COVID, the personal impact of worse-health insurance during pandemic, the importance of demonetizing health care Pre-COVID keeping busy: organizing, walking, collaborating Transit during COVID, sub/urban and outskirt disparities Canceling shows and taking dance classes and rethinking what it means to be productive Global Americanization and the impact of Trump’s pandemic denialism on South African health Moving out of disbelief about the severity of COVID after losing a loved one in the first wave Gratitude for the global influence of the Black Lives Matter movement, and sadness that tragedy in the diaspora brings neocolonialism to the fore The importance of social media for queer counter-violence and activist fractures among LGBTQA+ Feeling allyship with the #metoo movement How homophobia intersects with everyday altercations about social distancing The anxieties of hooking up during the pandemic The importance that scientists learn to speak in lay terms about climate change and vaccines Existence as resistance and creating art “Spread love not tolerance” Other cultural references include: Trans Day of Visibility, astrology, and the TV series Pose.
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  2020-05-24

  Why We've Created New Language for Coronavirus

  Language is ever evolving, and an event such as the COVID-19 pandemic has certainly led to new words and phrases in the English language and to new definitions for existing words and phrases. It remains to be seen which words that were coined during the pandemic will survive long-term and which ones will remain in a dictionary rather than in regular usage. This article, describing the English language from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), describes changes in British, Indian, Canadian, and Australian English during these pandemic times. It discusses the speed of the linguistic change brought about by the pandemic and the coining of new words and phrases and new definitions of existing words and phrases.
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  2021-04-22

  Queer Joy

  Throughout the pandemic I have found myself with a lot more time for introspection than usual. I had thought at the start of this pandemic I had felt rather self-assured. I thought I knew what I wanted as a career, for my future, and mostly what kind of person I wanted to become. However, the more time I spent alone the more I realized how much of myself had been a performance for others. For once, the pandemic encouraged me to slow down enough to evaluate what my own personal wants and needs are. I also grew spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually. I was especially surprised to find myself changing my opinions on religion. For years, I have subscribed to rather devout atheism, to the point it nears becoming a religion in my attempts to cut it out. However now I have found myself accepting the mystic much more, and allowing myself to stop explaining everything. Though all these added experiences I was able not to find something new in my queerness per say, but a new way to relate to my world. I was able to find peace with myself as a queer person in the world, not in spite of it. I think the time alone allowed me a lot of space to appreciate the community and its place. To finally start feeling like the bonds and friendships and joy of myself and other queer people is worth even more than just surviving. I think one of the most important things that happened was coming to terms with myself as a nonbinary person. For years I was confident I was a binary trans man due to my physical transition goals and personal fears of being delegitimized in public. I finally realized and accepted that myself is no one else’s business. I have found a new peace with living authentically, even when other people react poorly. Finally, I honestly love being queer.
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  2020-12-15

  Pride 2020 Through Art: Queer Media as Lego Minifigures

  When I had the idea to focus a mini collection on the expression of sexuality during the pandemic, one of the things that came to mind was Pride 2020. I myself was going to attend the event in Boston this year, however, like much of the United States, the celebration was cancelled. However, I knew that the LGBT community wouldn’t just let June pass by without some celebration. This post from Reddit displays how one individual spent pride month with the goal of turning individuals from queer media into Lego minifigures. Queer characters in movies and television are not all that easy to find, so this individual’s work had the potential to introduce anyone who stumbles upon their posts to queer characters. This in itself amplifies the voices of the LGBT community, by in a way calling for the normalization of queer characters in media, and giving them a way to share their identities through projects they create.
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  2020-11-16

  Queer History

  Queer history is one often unknown sector of history designated to historians writing things such as "good friends" or "roommates" to muddy the waters when it comes to discussing queer individuals. In such examples, people who write to their "friend" of the same sex of their undying love for one another in a romantic sense would be played off not as lovers but "great friends". Another example would be the painting dubbed "Sappho and her Friend" where they are quite literally two women having sex. This Twitter thread goes through the ins-and-outs of bits of queer history that have been hidden and not much discussed for these aforementioned reasons.
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  2020-11-19

  bluestockings bookstore

  An NYC bookstore collectively owned by queer, trans people, and sex workers as well as a cafe operating during the pandemic.
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  2020-06-29

  Love and the Pandemic

  Trying to keep a relationship together-- let alone happy or healthy-- during this pandemic has been tough. I had to move out of my home and back in with my parents in March, and that meant my partner and I didn't get to see each other for almost six weeks, the longest we had ever been apart. We decided to move in together in May, even though we'd only been seriously dating for less than six months, and three of those months we had been separated due to COVID. Spending 24/7 with another human being, no matter how much you love that other human being, can also be an adventure, as toes are unavoidably stepped on. Still, most days I think we're doing pretty okay. One of the things my partner and I are doing to maintain a sense of normalcy is modifying our old hobby of playing Pokemon GO. Before the pandemic, we used pick a restaurant on Mill for dinner and then catch Pokemon in the surrounding area after. You would think that Pokemon GO would be safe to play right now-- because you can play outdoors and also it's easy to play while maintaining social distancing-- but we've actually really struggled to find places to play where people are wearing masks and respecting social distancing protocols. Mill Avenue, for example, is a literal cesspool with packed bars and no face masks in sight. At Kiwanis Park a few weeks ago, I heard a woman loudly complaining about having to wear a mask. Everything feels dangerous because it seems like people don't care if others get sick. Luckily, with some patience and persistence, we've found places to play that are both safe and allow us small moments of joy. Yesterday, we headed to ASU's campus, which has been mostly empty and requires face masks. We kept our masks on the whole time and saw less than five people. Normally, even picking up groceries from Fry's feels like a terrifying experience to me, and last night was probably the first time I've been out in this entire pandemic and not been paralyzed with fear the whole time. It was nice. Probably about as nice as things can be in a pandemic? I included this video from the end of our Pokemon adventure as we went back to the car. I like the video because it bears the obvious signs of Summer (sweat, traces of sunscreen smudges on my glasses, tank tops), the obvious signs of the pandemic (face masks, empty campus), and the obvious signs of two people dating (smiles, jokes, joy).