It Is Complicated

Being upbeat is complicated - when is the smiling face a mask?   In the face of a continuing pandemic and life doing it’s worst, we discuss being upbeat, having humour about the situation. How do we engage in a non-cynical way when we have this rolling anger underneath it all? Is our humour and positivity good for us, and for those around us? Should we let our anger show more clearly? We are...

Lockdown easing is complicated - what is this normal we will return to?   One of us has had a second vaccine and can stop shielding - and now we can think about what this means for us and how this is impacting on our mental health.    It is more complicated than you’d first think - when we talk about “returning to normal” what does that mean when “normal” wasn’t a good place for us?...

Imposter Syndrome is complicated - if I had cis white straight man confidence I would..   We talk about the impact of imposter syndrome on queers. The extra layers that we deal with at times - when you’ve been told by a culture that you’re not good enough, that you’re somewhat suspect - how do we start to enter more normative spaces?   We give examples of how we overcome this when we fac...

Being visible is complicated - Positive visibility matters.   For Trans Day of Visibility we decided to do an episode on why we are visible. Dr J celebrates a ten year anniversary of being out publicly as non-binary in their workspaces. What it means to be visible in spaces where we are celebrated and how that impacts on us, and people who see us. What it feels like to have your face plastere...

Why we need Queer Spaces - Special Episode for the Queer House Party Radio Show. You can see it here:  https://foundation.fm/show/the-friday-takeover   Talking about how we met and how queer spaces were involved in that - why queer spaces are needed and what they provide to queers that other spaces don’t - tldr; it’s being in a space where we are not in a minority- finding people li...

Gaining our voice is complicated - So is making ourselves heard.   This week we have a guest - Michelle Belcher - https://www.michellebelcher.tv/ and we three talk about voices, gaining our voices and giving voice to our thoughts. What does it mean to gain your voice? What decisions do we make to be heard (and seen) as ourselves? How can we prepare ourselves for changes to our voices? What do...

Being Trans is complicated - especially in times of covid!    This week we have a guest - Michelle Belcher - https://www.michellebelcher.tv/ and we three talk about coming out as trans or non-binary, how we found ourselves, how this changes in the midst of covid, and how that reflects on the ways we’ve all come out, as queer, as trans, as non-binary - often more than once. We cover histo...

Getting healthcare is complicated - what script can we use? We talk about getting healthcare/medical interventions and the experiences we have had. We talk about ‘Trans broken arm” (or in one of our cases Trans Broken leg), and while sometimes we think we’ve had privilege - we find out we didn’t. Content Note: We discuss medical procedures and transphobic treatment We talk about a script of three...

Being queer is complicated - are we queer enough? We talk about the notion of queer and the extended ideas that come with queer and when are we “queer enough” - and when can we call ourselves queer? Where does “queer enough” begin? Who gets to decide? Do we recruit?    We have a transcript for this episode - IIC Episode 35 Transcript The short film we mention - Queerer than Thou - on You...

Being bullied is complicated - and how others respond is also. This comes with a content note - we discuss bullying and violence.   We talk about that phrase “Don’t be a victim” and the status quo warriors who say it to us - and what that means in terms of how bullying works and the complications of our responses - the social scripts we play and those we play against. We give our ideas on how...

Lockdown and Covid trauma - and queer survival is complicated. How queers are surviving the lockdown and the extended trauma of the Covid pandemic. We talk about privilege, and the privilege of being able to shelter - and how we as queers have developed superpowers to survive these long slow trauma events - we are glittery cockroaches who will be there at the end of days - not just surviving - par...

Bonus Episode 2 -  2021 continues - and is 2020 plus one. A special episode, recorded live (so unedited, and one of us is on pain medication), where we cover the last 26 hours or so… and why our “homework” is late. TLDR; Josephine has a broken leg after a fall in the snow   This will lead to another episode in the future - “So you’re trans/non-binary and engaging with basic healthcare” o...

Media is complicated - or maybe not. We talk through the Bechdel test, what it is for and how it works and propose our own version for Trans and Non-Binary representation in film/TV/shows. The Laverne Totah Test: 1) Have a Trans or Non-Binary Character 2) Played by a Trans or Non-Binary actor 3) Whose main narrative purpose is not tragedy   It’s simple! It’s setting the bar incredibly low (we...

Introducing ourselves is complicated - and it can be an emotional journey. We talk through what a change in employment can mean, what being visibly ourselves when we are employed can mean. We cover the notions of visibility and safety, and how this complicates our lives and the decisions we make every day about visibility.    How our fear of loss can impact on our ability to enjoy, and r...

Being lighthearted complicated - we attempt to do something fun and fail due to complications. We discuss postcolonial readings of popular Christmas songs, Latin for “in the middle of”, we attempt to answer simple random questions, and thanks to events we even had to add a postscript as events and people’s comments overtook our conversation - thanks to a particular trans person's comments in the m...

Being ourselves can be complicated - and it is so freeing! In a special episode, we interview the amazing Max Marchewicz (wheeliequeermerbabe on insta) - a BSL interpreter, access consultant, and fellow member of the Queer House Party crew - talking about the joy of being able to be yourself in your workplace, the fun of working online and how that makes a more queer way of working,  How have...

Social Media is complicated - and trolling can be fun! The way we use social media is different when you are non-heteronormative - we use social media to connect to people we don’t know and have never met - more heteronormative people tend to connect to people they do know and have met. Why do we have these differences in how we use social medias? Are we only creating bubbles? What are trolls, how...

Value is complicated - How do we value ourselves and each other in an imperfect world that all too often undervalues us? We talk about how to value our time, each other, our differences and our similarities.    We talk about mutually valuing is a wonderful way to exchange what we value in each other. And we also talk about making sure that we are not undervalued when making those exchang...

Gaming is complicated -  How do we understand stories within games? Skyrim might be the only game according to one of us - that doesn’t prevent us talking about the ideas that make games work and how that allows us to make sense of our world. Games are more serious as media than we think - they promote discourse and participation.  How does modding a game allow us to build on our experie...

Building Community is complicated -  How we form networks differs in “queer’ world from straight world. Common experiences help us bond deeply and quickly, and yet those can also be temporary. How does this style work when you try it in the more normative world?   How do we subvert the normative ways of networking to locate and bond with queers like ourselves? How does the description of...

Getting it out is complicated -  Why it’s important to have a rant buddy. We sometimes need spaces to vent, to get those things off our chest. To talk about what is worrying us, and processing it out of our heads. Without that space, and those people, we suffer - trying to hold things and working things through on your own is hard. We cover why the podcast started and why we keep talking and...

Production is complicated -  is it better to be paid or be heard. We talk about producing events, as a pair with over 35 years of production experience between us - we talk about the best ways we’ve approached production - and tell some tales of when it’s gone wrong. We talk about Queer House Party - becuase it is one of the best examples of what happens when you centre accessibility and incl...

Representation is complicated - Good Representation is wonderful when we locate it. There is a lot going on at the moment - we wanted to bring a happier viewpoint, and talk about our favorite ways of seeing queers and non-binary and trans people within the media.    What it means to see yourself represented in media - in a normalised way - where your story is about things other than your...

Class is complicated - Honorifics are the way it can show up. What it means as a non-binary person to rub up against the service industry. Do impromptu lessons on gender help? How can we disrupt the power differential and how can we as queers perform class in a way that has respect and safety for all involved. When the Service industry runs to scripts, how can we make them more inclusive, in a way...

Art is complicated - Censorship and that narrative is made more complex by queers - how does talking about queer lived experience blur this boundary? Josephine and Dr J talk with Suzanne Shifflett, painter and tattoo artist, based in Long Beach, California. We cover the hustle we all face as queer and artists, and how we constantly hustle to survive and be seen. We are the glittery cockroaches who...