Or The Necropolitical Death Loop of State Sanctioned White Supremacy To call our current moment a time when state sanctioned inciting of violence is a regular occurrence would be an understatement. In the wake of a recent shooting in Buffalo, we’re now facing down a string of mass murders made by white supremacists who believe themselves to be righting a wrong of marginalized people...
(Originally published on Women Write About Comics: ) When I sat down to have this interview with Tina Horn, it immediately felt like just a free-flowing conversation. Tina was calling in from her new apartment in LA and we got to talk about the different communities that we’re both a part of right now in pandemic times, and the struggles of trying to work when you can’t leave your house. Tina is...
I’ve spent what feels like a lifetime shifting back and forth between identities, trying to find some kind of gender outlook that matches how I know I feel about myself Our language is limited and when your sense of self doesn’t match up with what’s presented to you as options, it’s so easy to feel trapped inside your own body! Sometimes, when I’m having particularly...
Time is valuable A commodity that can be Has been And continues to be exploited It’s only when it’s against us that time seems to move too fast or too slow Time is not on your side When we talk about queer and trans time, it’s only a joke because we know that sometimes our lives don’t start before 20, or 30, or 40 The rest is shameful Time has been weaponized by...
When I say I want to lose gracefully, I don’t mean that in terms of having a nice concession speech. (When I do concede in love, in life, I prefer to go kicking and screaming because I don’t want to go.) So when I say I want to lose gracefully, I want to find the perfect place to end up where I don’t have to keep getting hurt by all the loss in my life Find the only piece of...
“When you wear clothes like that, you look like a cheap girl.” The words you’re trying to use are “You look like a sex worker, which bothers my misogynistic heart to no end” I’m not even a girl, but I don’t have the words To tell you that femininity is just a small part of what you can’t understand. I’ve been told that I should dress...
Gender is never neutral, To assume that someone’s gender is neutral or non-existent because it doesn’t exist between two rigid poles Of a gender binary is arrogant and selfish Even with those of us that do not have a gender, Our identities and how we show them Are a deliberate choice. And we’re fucking proud of it. Many of us don’t exactly know what our gender is And our...
Dinner for one in a rusty old diner Is there anything more American? Or more Americana when you throw in seemingly bottomless bowls of soup and glaring eyes that will make sure you have a good grip on the pepper spray you carry in your handbag. Even if you’re not prepared to use it. But dinner for one in an old diner can be comforting Conjuring images of the neoliberal American dream At a...
I have so many mixed feelings about this day. To say that trans people only have one day or a week or a month to be visible undersells that we have always been here, and we have been fighting to be visible for a long time. Even before we had strict Western conceptions of gender, our ancestors have shown how fluid physical expression can really be. And visibility has also come at the loss of life...
Need to breathe Sometimes I feel like I need to tell myself that so I can have a little bit of control over my body I don’t know if that’s true But I’ve told myself that enough times that I can believe it Need to breathe I used to hear that it was okay to tell people small lies If it was to protect their feelings It took me 15 years to realize that when it came to protecting my...
Hi! I'm Joan Zahra Dark, currently one of the worker-owners of Bluestockings Cooperative, a bookstore and community space based in the Lower East Side of NYC. I'm a writer and public speaker for my job and in my free time as well as a critic on various websites alongside this one! I love talking about queer comics, trans speculative fiction and why we all want to bang and/or be robots!