pride & community beyond buzzwords

a mini essay on my queer journey + trans/literary resources & links

Today I’m thinking about my dad. I’m thinking about how testosterone makes me resemble him more each day. I’m thinking about how I haven’t cut my hair since last summer. I’m thinking about reclaiming my long hair, I’m thinking about my friend Saint’s essay about their hair, I’m thinking about “waiting on you to die so i can be myself” by Danez Smith, how I first read it three months before my dad died, how I read it again three months after and understood it was okay to transition.

I’m thinking about how horrible it was for my safety and self esteem to move to West Texas in 2016, but how once I found other Latinx and queer people, it was worth it. It felt like family. How loved I was and how much I loved my people. I’m thinking of my first Lubbock Pride in 2017, my first ever pride, how someone heard me say English major and invited me to book club, where I read Chen Chen for the first time. How now, I’m a poetry editor for a press started by my chosen fam, working towards elevating more queer, more BIPOC literature. How the tiny pride flag a stranger handed me is on our table at events 7 years later.

I’m not sure pride can exist without community. (Now I’m thinking about how some people might roll their eyes at the nearing-buzzword-status of community.) I can’t write about pride without writing about my friends and loves.

I’m thinking about how welcoming every event put on by local literary org Infrarrealista Review is, how artists and writers can tangibly address social justice needs in our community.

I miss my dad, but sometimes as an afterthought. The last time I saw him was June 2019. I cut off all my hair a month later. I missed having long hair without it threatening my sense of masculinity. I miss my loved ones in Lubbock, Dallas, South Texas, the afterlife. I miss my partner when they’re at work. I’ll admit I miss some of my exes. Or maybe I just appreciate how they are forever part of my queer story. Will queerness ever be separated from longing in my mind?

I saw a post a few hours ago that mentioned the pressure of pride month. I think that we should and could eliminate that pressure by distancing ourselves from capitalist, individualist ideas of what it means to have pride. It doesn’t mean performing (or purchasing) in a certain way to celebrate your queer identity, it doesn’t even have to mean choosing a label that fits your experience 1000%. (Of course I’m thinking about how mindblown I was when my partner said “the only person who fits a label completely is the person who invented said label.”)

My favorite way to celebrate pride is through art, literature, community, but also just by existing.

I’m listening to Tennessee by Kevin Abstract and Lil Nas X. I’m reading Brickmakers by Selva Almada. I’m going to write poetry every day this month. (I’m going to be nice to myself when my disability inevitably gets in the way of writing every day). I’m going to facilitate a poetry workshop for Abode each week this month. I’m going to hear my friends Cloud and Diamond read at a pride event tonight. I’m itching to go back to the desert.

me in south texas, looking like every man in my fam before me with my grandfather’s hat

Writing life update: I got accepted to the Roots Wounds Words Retreat for Storytellers of Color this fall! I will be working on my memoir about navigating abusive power dynamics in academia as a queer disabled Chicano. I’m currently crowdfunding for the cost of attendance. If every trans poetica reader donated $7, I would be at my goal! If you’re able to donate, I ask that you first check out the Solidarity with Palestine section of the newsletter and support your local mutual aid efforts.

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Solidarity with Palestine:

• Keep calling your reps

• USCPR is a good resource for engaging with us representatives

• Find in-person actions here

• Check out the BDS site for up to date info on boycotting

• If you have extra money, donate to people in need through Gaza Funds

• Don’t stop holding those who are silent in the face of genocide accountable. Many towns and cities of all sizes are organizing. Find out if yours is.

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Writing, Art, & Grant Opportunities:

• LittlePuss Press

  • We are currently considering original manuscripts of fiction and non-fiction (including works-in-progress). We are also considering reprint proposals of literary/historical works of significance by transgender authors.

• Printed Matter is seeking artists books, zines, etc on Decolonization, Resistance & Solidarity

• Room Magazine - Humor issue - open to all genres by folks of marginalized genders - closes when submission cap is reached

• 3d Space by RWW - non-academic literary arts offering that provides semester-long craft instruction, mentorship, and support to BIPOC writers ready to engage in a rigorous, creative, and care-centered writing program - closes TOMORROW 6/2

• Poet Lore - Ekphrasis folio - closes 6/5

• new words {press} - open to trans* and gender-expansive poetry & hybrid work - closes 6/10

• Illuminated Ink: Free LGBTQ Writing Course in Sydney, AU with Orlando Silver - application closes 6/11

• Underblong - issue 8 poetry submissions - closes 6/15

• GARLAND - queer SFF-themed writing, all genres - closes 6/30

• Point of Pride HRT Access Fund - closes 6/30

• Illuminations Grant - $10,000 for Black trans women working in visual art in the united states - closes 6/30

• Robert Giard Grant - $10,000 to support the creation of new work by emerging LGBTQ+ photographers - closes 6/30

• River River Books - open to full-length poetry collections, pay-what-you-can - closes 6/30

• Sinister Wisdom - Mad Dykes, Queer Worlds - closes 6/30

• Abode Press Reading Internship Program - closes 6/30

• All My Relations - Volume 7: Rest - open to racially & ethnically marginalized, gender variant, & disabled creatives - closes 7/15

• Diode Editions - Full-length & Chapbook contests - closes 7/15

• The Q&A Queerzine - open to LGBT+ writers and artists - closes 7/31

• Coffin Bell - Queer, Feminist, & BIPOC Gothic issue - closes 7/31

• ANMLY - open to all genres - 8/1

• Sundress Publications - full-length poetry collections - closes 8/31

  • free subs until 6/14, free subs for BIPOC the entire reading period

• Annulet Editions - full-length poetry, prose, and literary criticism manuscripts - closes 9/15

• Chiara Di Lello & Emily Stoddard have compiled a list of upcoming deadlines from publishers in solidarity with Palestine

Trans & nonbinary writing & news from around the internet:

• If you’re in the uk, here’s how to respond to changes the NHS might make for gender affirming care

• In celebration of GARLAND subs reopening today, check out the free-to-download issue on queer spirituality

• An excerpt of PANSY by

  Jasper Joyner
  !!

  • “So, what does a closeted queer who knows nothing of the terms “closeted” and/or “queer,” but just listened to a torrented version of From Under the Cork Tree by Fall Out Boy for the fourth time this Monday morning wear to feel good?”

• The Transmasculine Poetics: Filling the Gap in Literature and the Silences Around Us anthology edited by Remi Recchia is free to access online

• The short story “The Spindle of Necessity” by B. Pladek in Strange Horizons

  • “And loving reality was his ticket to being accepted by it, by himself.”

• The essay “Loving Renee Back” by Cavar in The Rumpus

  • “This is a familiar trans story, one whose celebratory trappings belie its fatal implications: under this framework, we may only exist at history’s expense.”

• The latest newsletter from

  Cat Green
  , “Praying”

• elle kennedy fell
  wrote a poem every day for a month, her reflection on that process is a great read

• nat raum
  wrote about their journey as an accidental poet¹

• “ends” by Erica Rivera in beestung

• My Sisters Look Like God by Desiree McCray is out with Abode Press today!

Some of my past queer writing that I’m thinking about:

• A year ago today I wrote “how to pride month (when you’re not feeling anything)” (and it’s absolutely wild to see what I was saying about my memoir project versus how I feel now versus how I’ll feel after the residency!)

• “10 Poetry Collections to Celebrate Transness Beyond June” for Chicago Review of Books

• My poem “Puberty II” in Honey Literary

• My tinier poem “Named” in The Offing

• My queer dead dad poems “Poem in Which I Remember My Dad Bullying Me for Being a Lesbian” in Lavender Review and “When your grieving anthem becomes your transitioning anthem” in en*gendered

How are you celebrating, or existing, during pride month?

<3

Thanks for reading this far down! Trans poetica will always be free, but donations are greatly appreciated! I have three pay-what-you-want zines available here (and a new one coming soon!) I am available for editing, readings, workshops, and more after June through my site.

If you have an opportunity for trans, BIPOC, disabled, otherwise marginalized writers or artists you’d like me to include, please let me know. If I’m platforming an institution that is doing wrong by our communities, please let me know that, too.

1. if y’all can’t tell, I’m really into reading about process