Reading: Gender Outlaw (Kate Bornstein) To contextualise: How Nonviolence Protects the State / Chapters 13-14 related tags: #HNvPtS
The beginning of this chapter is way too... I was going to say theatrical, but I love theatricality and theatre. Maybe it's too... hippie for me, since I've never been keen on that.
It's not awful, but I know it's not for me. Anyway, I like this part:
I write when nothing else will bring me peace, when I burn, when I find myself asking and answering the same questions over and over. I write when I’ve begun to lose my sense of humor and it becomes a matter of my life and my death to get that sense of humor back and watch you laugh.
While the rest of the paragraph is interesting, it's also not for me.
I’ve come to see gender as a divisive social construct, and the gendered body as a somewhat dubious accomplishment.
I also really like this line.
1985: I’d just begun living part-time as a woman. The Church of Scientology, IBM, and the tatters of my third and final marriage were behind me.
This isn't about Kate Bornstein in particular, but it's striking to me how often people who are in technology participate in weird cult shit. I know Scientology focuses primarily on the upper echelons of Hollywood these days, but it's just such a common theme... and it's like... Why? Why are folks in tech Like That so frequently?
In choosing to break from the patron church of capitalism, the queer artists at this conference found themselves seriously underfunded, underpaid, and alone. A number of queer theater artists expressed the feeling that the conference was “home.” That they’d met their own kind. That it was family.
Things I can relate to as a queer anarchist. 'Home' is hard to find, and people don't want to risk resources on different projects because they “might fail” and “might waste resources.” It's so depressing.
But when I find other queer anarchists, particularly queer anarchafeminists... It really helps, and I often find people with whom I can call my friends and family. Yet, we're often the ones with the least access to anything and doing the most we can with it.
I’m especially tired of watching theater that limits itself to the portrayal of heterosexuality—and heterosexual romance only. I look for theater that portrays open sexuality and a wide range of eroticism.
This is just reminding me of Talis when they were discussing BLs and other queer dramas in China and Korea... and maybe Thailand, and they were like “If you don't like what's available in your region and how straight it is, look outside it.” We really don't have to, like... stick with “our own” media. We can look elsewhere.
I live in the constructs of this culture day after day—I don’t need a theater that simply portrays more of the same. I like to see theater which uncovers the rickety framework on which are draped the lies of the dominant culture.
I feel this way for a lot of media. I'm tired of perpetual heterosexuality and cisnormativity. It's exhausting, trite, and boring.
Theater funded by the war chests of capitalism usually ends up a tool of capitalism, in the position of being yet another commodity. Theater funded by the community it supports can then be a tool by which an alternate community may be forged and/or strengthened. But any funding is dangerous if it ties the theater to the funding agent. At some point, queer theater must break ties with its funding sources and seek new sources of income which won’t tie it down.
This is also true of all media, yet again.
The next chapter is a play, so I'm going to hold off on that for now.