minority sensitivity

Me in 2005. Photo by Lara Wolfson

I am dead tired and feel as though I have a week’s worth of deadlines and scheduled events coming to a head in these last few hours of May. Deadline upon deadline for this project or that, and most of the work isn’t paid. It must be PRIDE month coming up though because the paid gigs, on this last day of the month at least, are definitely queer.

I have two gigs in Boston today. The first is a corporate cocktail hour. I’ve been hired to be fabulously “out”, schmoozing a room full of (mostly) straight laced strangers. I’ll roam around meeting people and answer questions about gender, sexuality, and identity. The intent is to encourage allies to support the company’s participation in PRIDE this year — attend, march, contribute! Fun, but what shall I wear?

My second gig is to act in a short PSA film. The subject is conveying how important it is to recognize and support LGBT people in the workplace. It’s important not only for company morale, but for better industry.

Today I do my part for Queerdom as, “Fancy Creature: the Out and Proud Fey”. I love my job. Even though I can never just leave it at the office, and sometimes I get some kind of anxious about it, I’m proud. I’ve worked hard to create this strange niche of a working reality where I’m professionally out and am asked to talk about sex and kink, to dance and dress up, to teach genderplay and performance skills, and to support others on their own journeys discovering identity.

It also feels great to know that I’m actively “doing” something when I have gigs like these. I often feel like I’m shouting into a void or not doing enough (whatever “enough” is). I too frequently worry that I’ve let my communities down because I haven’t logged onto social media in a while, or I’ve posted too many cute face pics rather than links to hard hitting news stories with well critiqued commentary as introduction. I fear showing my depressed moments publicly, or I measure the balance of all my faces too intensely. One thing about being a minority person is that when you’re in the limelight it’s easy to feel responsible for towing a line and maintaining active and positive visibility and helpful articulation for all.

Did I ask for it? Yes (not everyone does). Exhausting? Yes. Also rewarding as fuck, scary at times, and disheartening. When sexy-funky-queerdo-glitter-parties don’t manage to equal out the emotional and educational labor put out on the daily, things can get tiring real fast. The mostly glossed over reality of Queerdom: glitter parties can’t fix everything, it’s a myth. In good news though: Unicorns are real. They usually just need respectful communication and to actually enjoy their seekers to come out and play.

People who live outside the norm can get cranky and short tempered or seem really uptight sometimes. I’m sure you’ve had your panties in a bunch about it at some point. We all have. Nothing will get someone to go from diplomacy to judgement faster than a fear of being wrong or judged for being so. It takes a lot of work to answer questions, politely yet assertively correct, articulate, explain, research, think deeply, and reflect on your own experiences in a wholistic manner all the time just to feel accepted, respected, or a like a valuable part of a community that doesn’t look like you (or seem to return the favor). Minority people are people too. While we may have more experience translating a million little things to fit our realities, and practice actual survival far too frequently, we are not necessarily better at diplomacy when feeling our feelings or asking for recognition and space.

It’s energizing and validating to be hired to dress up as myself/”Fancy Creature” at an event, or to say things I already believe and know about on camera for pay. These are wonderful examples of being valued for the social and emotional labor I manage in my personal life and in my career every day. I wish I had gigs like these more regularly.

I want to shout out to all of the people who read this blog and support me through my Patreon Campaign. On the subjects of validation and financial support: without my patrons I wouldn’t have the time or energy to write about the things I write about here. I wouldn’t have the ability to reflect on issues I care about, do further research, or to turn that work into connected conversations which invite the general public to learn and participate. If you have followed me in the past or are new, if you have recommended my writing to others, or if something I’ve written over the years has stuck with you, please become a patron yourself. Even a little amount goes a long way, and I’m grateful for those who are able to offer more.

Signing off to learn my lines and pack!

(Oh, and I need to decide what “historical femme” I want to portray in an upcoming fundraiser for sex workers effected by FOSTA/SESTA… Thoughts anyone?)

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

Please support my work on Patreon, or for one time: Support the Artist or email me.
~Thank you.

Power of Right and Wrong

Don’t let my tits stop you from calling me “Sir”.

We all like different things. While there are a lot of objects, experiences, activities, places, etc. many people enjoy, there are probably no things which everyone enjoys — certainly not enjoys equally. There are multiple ways to do the vast majority of tasks… So, why do we frequently teach within the paradigm of “right” and “wrong”? I think there are better ways. What is the value of teaching without an exploratory sense of one’s subject? Is critical thinking an important skill across the board? When we make mistakes are we resilient enough to call them out ourselves or do we cling to the intention we had when we made the mistake? Are you willing to look at the ways you might harm someone? How hard is it for you to apologize when that occurs? Can a conversation be reset when it gets tense? How? Do you prefer thinking of yourself as “a good person” who’s intention is not harmful — end of conversation? How do we learn if we believe we are “good” at our core, instead of accepting that we also sometimes fail which may make us look “bad” to others?… How do we reconcile these points of view within our communal outlook and interactions with others?

When navigating conversations with actual people intersectional understanding can come in handy. It is entirely possible to be knowledgeable about one community and fail interacting with a person from another affinity group when we don’t understand that a different approach is more respectful than the one we’re used to. This does touch on the dreaded concept of identity politics, but there are more and less useful ways to look at the politics of one’s identity than black and white rules of conduct. People’s identities are more complex than their affinity groups, and even identity itself is not “who a person is”, it’s simply representative of aspects of that person.

I’m suggesting what’s potentially helpful in this scenario rather than what exact phraseology should be used, but take these two phrases:

“Never say things like that to a ___ person”.
“I don’t appreciate being approached in that manner, it feels disrespectful considering my identity as a ___ person”.

The first sentence, though straight forward, condemns a person for not knowing something, for making a mistake within their engagement of the speaker. It implies they are bad for having done something wrong and could feel like a scolding. The second sentence takes responsibility for the speaker’s feelings, tells the other person something about why it’s important to change their approach, and invites them to engage in a more respectful way. Obviously there are many different ways to have this conversation, and wording preference or tone consideration can be helpful but shouldn’t be taken to extremes. Intent also matters (to a degree) within the imperfect conversations we all engage in. Nothing is all one or the other completely.

What this boils down to is power dynamics. It seems to me that people who don’t think a lot about power dynamics (often because they have been more empowered throughout their lives as they’ve navigated the world) frequently complain or double down when it’s brought to their attention that their approach toward another person isn’t working or is actually hurtful. What if instead of needing to be “right”, that person could find it within themselves to be curious — to know that they meant well yet also failed at being good to the person they meant well towards?

To open my heart to others means getting bruised sometimes, and it also means unintentionally bruising. The alternative to trying and failing is to be shut down, shut off, incapable of compassion, not curious about possibility, and eventually, I think, to become nihilistic above hopeful concerning the human potential for peace and evolution. I believe in our better selves. I believe in struggle leading to understanding. I believe in being uncomfortable for a while while I struggle with situations or concepts which hurt my head or heart. I believe in these things because questioning will make me understand the mechanism I’m confronted with better than arrogance. When I treat people as they wish to be treated (rather than how I wish to be treated), when I apologize for my mistakes, when I care to learn better ways than the ones I am familiar with, I become a better person to the people I am around. Learning to fail gracefully and adapt graciously is far more useful, in my opinion, than being right all the time within a small world constructed from a bubble of self-congratulatory homogenous ease.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature (Crea)

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~Thank you.

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