Sapphic Visions: the Queer Erotics of Hildegard Von Bingen

"Inside, you’ve got heaven and earth, and all of creation. You’re a world—everything is hidden in you."

Hildegard Von Bingen

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Assignment Overview

In this exercise, the seminar will creative a "vision" that queers (alters, disturbs, widens) Christianity through contemplation on the virtues and circumstances of Hildegard Von Bingen. These visions will take the form of a visionary presenting specific insights on the given topic and the other members of the group representing the students or adepts presenting questions or alternative points of view. The goal is to rehearse and then present discourses that arise from or cut across the life of Hildegard Von Bingen. All of these discourses call on students to offer their own insights and experiences. This means that visions and queries are rooted in the historical figure and context of Hildegard but applied to later and current events. Again, this is not a recitation of facts and dates but rather an invitation to contemplate and discourse around important contributions that arouse of women-center relationships, the erotics of chastity, queer family, convents, the divine feminine, mysticism v. scholasticism, and the body v. the mind.

Each group will be given some time in class to research, script, and rehearse. Because the goal is to incite conversation, the visions and adepts' queries need not be pre-written word for word. The task is to generate a discussion which will conclude with the visionary and the adepts inviting others into the dialogue.

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Sample Groups

Vision 1: The Love Between Women,
Hildegard Von Bingen and Sister Richardis

Convents were attractive to a wide ranger of women for diverse reasons, not least because of either a lack of attraction for reproductive sex with men or a desire for intimacy with women. This intimacy need not always be reduced to sexual intercourse, just as heterosexual relationships should not be. Yet for women who love women, convents were places where same gender community and intimacy could be enjoyed. Numerous cases of overtly sexual or chastely erotic relations between nuns are found across the generations. A famous such pairing existed between Hildegard Von Bingen and Sister Richardis. Some scholars strongly suspect that their relationship was sexual. Others believe their intimacies manifested in other forms. In any case, this love between women was greater than any other relationship either of them possessed, especially with any living man.

Because sexual intercourse, including queer sex, tends to focus on penetrative sex, society has often not been able to define sexual relations between women. This failure to define women's love for other women, especially by men, has led to many queer female relationships to be overlooked or excused. The misogynist question, "what do women want?" has riddled generations of men. The question, "what do women want from other women?" usually never gets asked even if it could be answered. In any case, within the contexts of women exclusive spaces, queer women's relationships are allowed to grow and evolve to include the sexual but also forms of intimacy than are unknown in male-dominated society. What was going on between Hildegard and Richardis? The men of her world may never have been able to properly guess.

Vision 2: Queer Erotics of Chastity
and Non-Reproductive Sexuality

Despite being defined by heterosexuals by their modes of sexual activity, queer people have a wide range of intimacies and erotics that go beyond the normative definitions of sex. As in normative relationships, queer relationships include a great deal that is not explicitly sexual. Yet even when these relationships get heated, they need not always involve traditional sexual contact. Demisexual and asexual relationships may privilege forms of intimacy that are either non-physical or do not involve genital contact, such as handholding, nuzzles, cuddling, and sitting comfortably quiet together. Indeed, with modern kink, BDSM, and queer communities, a wide range of relationships and erotics can be explored that are both non-reproductive and non-penetrative. Toys, impact play, role playing, power exchange, and bondage all offer a variety of ways for people to explore each other and themselves intimately without genital play being involved. These experiences can be not only erotic but spiritual. Many of these practices and instruments are based on medieval faith practices wherein the mortification of the body was meant to excite spiritual growth and discipline.

Then again, heterosexual culture has also defined and condemned queer erotics for being non-reproductive. Yet non-reproduction is itself something that can be erotic, life-giving and even spiritual. Despite this privileging of reproductive futurity, non-reproductive forms of sexuality, gender, and community are central to Christian traditions. The convent is one such place in which non-reproductive life was celebrated as bringing one closer to God. In these contexts, asexuals and demisexuals might rejoice in the freedom from being expected to engage sexually. Lesbians, bisexuals, pansexuals and even heterosexuals might rejoice in being in intimate relations with a community of all women. Again, the freedom from reproductive sex may be viewed as a relief and may orient the person towards other forms of relationship and pleasure. Chastity itself can be one of these queer erotics that bring its own form of excitement. 

Vision 3: Queer Family
and the Convent

Queer family often looks different. For many LGBTQIA people who are not accepted by their family of origin, a family of choice is the their primary support. Then for queer couples who elect to have families of their own, the children are often either adopted or mixed. Then there are queer families which are not concerned with reproduction in the normal sense of the word. Rather, family forms informally with elders taking on the parenting role or friends soon becoming like siblings. In special cases, intentional communities such as those women's communes and lesbian communes can form. Some of these collectives are built to last year-round and others are temporary affairs, constituting weekly events, monthly meetings, or yearly festivals. In the case of some lesbian separatists, specific rules and structures form that dictate who can join as well as what the roles of members will be.

Like these queer families and intentional communities, convents form familial structures that use the language of mother, sister, and daughter while not being related by blood. For many of the members, the convent becomes more of a family to them than their family of origin. As in other queer communities, adoption and choice are how the family grows rather than by heterosexual reproduction. These non-normative forms of sexuality, gender roles, and community can themselves be considered queer. Then there are the countless queer people who have joined convents over the generations: lesbians, bisexuals, pansexuals, asexuals, non-binary or gender queer people, as well as both trans men and women. In your group, your task is to consider the ways in which convents may contribute to how we understand queer family as distinct from the traditional heterosexual household.

Vision 4: Nuns
and the Divine Feminine

A result of the co-mingling of faith life and womanhood together in the exclusive spaces of convents was a development in theology of the feminine. While the patriarchy of the Orthodox and the Catholic Church was definitively male, with the advent of convents Christian culture began to transform and nuns increasingly became the on-the-ground workers for the Church. With growing population and relative power, womanhood began to shift in Church discourse from being a primarily secondary and subjugated gender towards being an alternative form of being as well as approaching the divine. As convents developed separately from monasteries and other male influences, a theology of the divine feminine rouse in prominence. The question turned from problematics (how do we deal with the faultiness of women in contrast to a deity characterized as masculine?) to celebration (how might God embody and honor the feminine?)

In your group, consider the ways in which a spirit of femininity may be said to exist? Is it social, natural, super-natural? How does the life of Hildegard Von Bingen and the development of convents illustrate the possibilities and conflicts that arouse when a theology of femininity began to speak back against patriarchal church politics? How might a feminist, a gynophilia, lesbian, or lesbian feminist perspective inform or reform Christian theology?

Vision 5: Theology of the Body:
Women Mystics vs Male Scholastics

In the Middle Ages, scholastic theology celebrated the re-examination of Classic Greco-Roman texts and Reason-centered theology. Yet nearly all of these scholastics were men. Women rarely found their respect as theologians and when they did it tended to be based in mysticism. Mystic approaches to theology were rooted in direct contacts with spirits over the mediation of the written word, the sensuality of the physical body over the mind over matter emphasis of male scholastics. This corresponds to traditions in which men are supposed to be more rationale and ruled by logic while women are supposed to be more emotional and ruled by their bodies. Women mystics followed this patriarchal division in certain ways, yet in other ways demonstrated how the eroticism of female bodies and emotions can allow for different ways of encountering the divine. Consider in what ways that mysticism's defense of devalued gender and embodiment represent a queer turn in theology.

How does the various bodies and emotions of women allow for distinct insights that are might not occur as readily in male dominated theological circles? How does a theology that arises out of the body defy certain limits and ways of knowing which focus on the mind? How does mysticism allow women to work around assumptions that exclude women from reading or writing about the Bible, Classical philosophy or scholastic theology? How have queer women, non-binary folx, and trans people of all sorts developed alternative forms of knowing and speaking that fill in the limits, blanks, and gaps left by heteronormative cisgender men?

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Through the Looking Glass: Women and Mental Illness

"Who in the world am I?
Ah, that's the great puzzle"

Alice in Wonderland

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Course Overview

In this section of Monsters and Disability, we will explore "The Monstrosity of Women and Mental Illness." Following a social constructionist approach to gender and disability, this seminar will unpack a range of genres and media for how women have been made to be figures of madness. Consequently, we will utilize affect and trauma theory to study how women are also literally made mad by the sexist and ableist roles they are made to play. Taken together, the mad woman has become a recognizable monster in a variety of media.

In the first half of the semester, we engage in disability in print media. We begin by reading the verse of John Donne from the play (turned film) "W;t" alongside Arthur Frank's "The Wounded Storyteller" to see how illness can function as a call to stories; narratives of chaos, restitution, and questing. Next, we turn to comics to see how sexuality and madness of abuse, cancer, dying, mania and depression are expressed through the interplay of text and image. Later, we examine the prose of memoirs and novels which show how crip individuals strive use narrative to explore the construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction of their sense of self. 

In the second half of the semester, we will examine disability and film. We will explore how in fantasy films young women who just don't think like the rest are brought through trials of divergence, through rabbit holes, and left deep in the woods of depression, suicidal ideation, and undeath. In horror, women are victims who must survive the traumas of slavery, silence imposed by a threatening ableist world, and men who simultaneously desire their innocence and want to see them suffer.

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Selections from the Reading List

Verse

• J.J. Cohen, “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)” (PDF)
• A. Frank, Wounded Storyteller (1997)
• M. Nichols (dir), Wit (2004)

Comics

• E. Forney, Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo and Me (2012)
• Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner, Harley Quinn: Joker Loves Harley (2017)
• The New Batman Adventures, 1.21, “Mad Love” (1999)
• WhatCulture Comics, “10 Worst Things The Joker Has Ever Done to Harley Quinn”
• Batman: the Animated Series, 1.56, “Harley and Ivy” (1993)
• Shippers Guide to the Galaxy, “Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy Rebirth – Update”
•  Jason Aaron, The Mighty Thor: Death of Thor (2018)

Prose 

• E. Clare, Exile and Pride (1999) 
• M. Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night (2004) 
• M. Russo, If I Was Your Girl (2016) 
• J. Mangold, Girl, Interrupted (1999) 
• Garland-Thompson, How We Look, “Social Relationship” & “Beholding”

Fantasy Film

• N. Burger (dir.), Divergent (2014) 
• R. Schwentke (dir.), Allegiant (2016)
• T. Solomon, Far From the Tree, “Son” (AW) 
• Snyder & Mitchell, Cultural Locations of Disability, “the Eugenic Atlantic"

• Disney, Alice in Wonderland (1951)
• N. Willing (dir), Alice (2009) 
• T. Solomon, Far From the Tree, “Schizophrenia” (AW) 

• S. Myer, Twilight: New Moon (2009)

Horror Film

• J. Demme (dir.), Beloved (1998) (AW)
• J.B. Bouson, “The Dirtied and Traumatized Self of Slavery in Beloved” (2000)
• A. Cvetkovich, Depression: A Public Feeling

• M. Night Shyamalan, Split (2017)
• T. Solomon, Far From the Tree, “Disability” (AW) 
• T. Solomon, Far From the Tree, “Crime” (AW)

• J. Krasinski, A Quiet Place (2018)
• T. de Cartagena, Grove of the Infirm

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The Future of Queer Medieval Organizing: A 10 Question Survey

"If there's a book you want to read, 
but it hasn't been written yet, 
then you must write it."

Toni Morrison

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Welcome to the Queer Medieval Studies Survey

Out of an increased interest in queer medievalist organizing, this survey looks to collect responses on the areas of greatest need and possible growth. The questions are designed to be general but not exhaustive. All responses are anonymous. The responses will be collected and used to inform future queer medieval organizing.

This is a collective and open door process. Anyone who wants to be involved and help steer the conversation is welcomed. This work needs to be inclusive and intersectional. While Transliterature (and Gabrielle M.W. Bychowski) is managing this survey, she considers herself primarily a facilitator in this conversation. 

In fact, if you prefer, you may fill out and share this survey without directing participants to Transliterature Online by using this link: 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScdB_RKk3D5fMR8JmCLaMKl0q9vE3AREXTBr4_3g_typ-YBRg/viewform?usp=sf_link. 

This survey is aimed at growing and developing existing queer organizations as well as highlighting opportunities for new voices, networks, and initiatives.

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Thank You!

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The Praxis of Silence: Teresa de Cartagena and Grove of the Infirm

"Who could hear with the ears of his soul such healthy advice if his physical ears were filled with the noise of human voices?"

Teresa de Cartagena

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Deafness is traditionally defined as a disability but medieval and modern deaf writers have long made the case for the concept of “deaf-gain.” As part of our embodiment narrative exercises, we have been pushing beyond the intellectual assent to disability theory and into the praxis of enacting life and ideas together. Towards that end, each of you will practice the habit of Teresa de Cartagena by engaging silence physically, intellectually, and socially.

By intentionally experiencing silence in a loud, busy, stimulating modern world, you will engage to the writing of Teresa de Cartagena in a way that makes the theory into an embodied lesson and consider the challenges as well as the benefits of silence.

The Praxis of Silence will begin at the usual class-time (5:30 PM) on Monday. After this time, you have 24 hours to find an 1 hour 15 min of silence. The first critically important and integral task is to find somewhere as perfectly silent as possible to sit or stand for an hour and fifteen minutes. This may be a museum, a library, a park (be safe), or even your own empty room. Please do not use music or other audio to cover over the ambient noise. Note: what you will experience is NOT the same as what deaf people necessarily experience. Rather, you will be learning in your own way and with your own embodiment what it means to live in and with silence.

While you sit in silence, you are to limit your activities and distractions. You may walk around, think, and do some light reading from the book of Teresa de Cartagena OR from read the lyrics to some form of music (e.g. as Teresa does the Psalms). However, reading should only consist of less than half (30 min max.).

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Questions

Before 24 hours is up, you must write a four paragraph post that uses two quotes from Teresa de Cartagena’ in order to help you narrative your embodied experience of silence. How does the theory inform your praxis? How did the physical experience inform your theory? Consider attached questions.

How did the experience of silence affect your body and mind?

• Consider whether or not you moved, fidgeted, sat motionless, etc.
• Consider what emotions and sensations came and went
• Consider how your mind and thoughts changed over the hour.

How did the experience of silence make passages of the Grove of Infirm clearer?

• Consider how certain sentences are different to read than to experience
• Consider how words often are short-hand for complex physical events
• Consider how reading changes in quiet versus among noise

How did reading the Grove of the Infirm affect how you experienced silence?

• Consider what things you focused on because of the book
• Consider how you felt about the experience because of the book
• Consider how the book made the experience an intellectual one

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Additional Pedagogical Resources

Additional Disability Studies

Additional Medieval History

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I Shouldn't Be Here, But Here I Am: A Birthday Reflection and Wish

"You asked me what I want this year

And I try to make this kind and clear

Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days"

Better Days

the Goo Goo Dolls

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In memory of Ally Steinfeld

and those who won't see another birthday.

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A Birthday

I was born premature with my umbilical cord wrapped around my neck. I came quickly and my mother wasn't even able to be given any pain medication when she got to the hospital. She arrived and thirty minutes later, so did I. When the doctors saw the cord and the color of my skin, they went into immediate action to get me breathing. The strangling cord was cut and I was coached into taking my first breath. I was lucky. I was lucky to be born in a hospital with doctors who knew what to do. I was lucky my mother was a nurse, practiced in delivering babies, who had the knowledge and access to the care we needed. I was lucky that the night before, my mother stopped while brushing her teeth and called to my father, "I think I am ready for this baby to be born." My father laughed because I wasn't due for weeks yet and my mother was showing no signs of labor. But late that night, things began to happen quickly. My mother woke up and told my father that the time is now. They rushed to the hospital and if traffic had been worse I would have arrived into the world in the back of a car with a cord around my neck and no doctors with sharp scalpels to give me air. I was lucky. I was privileged. I shouldn't be here, others in similar circumstances aren't here because they lacked such luck and resources like life-saving healthcare. They had just as much right to be here but aren't. But here I am.

Flash forward ten years, I am double-digits and proud of that as I sit in a doctor's office with a strange humming machine pressed against my chest. A few days earlier I was at my routine physical and the doctor checking my heart had heard an abnormality. He had another doctor come in and listen. Then my mother was told to take me in for an echocardiogram to confirm. The results are conclusive, I have a heart condition. While twenty years later, further research has showed that my condition is not fatal and that people with my diagnosis can have full rich lives, at the time the material facts and the current knowledge painted a far grimmer picture. I was warned that my life expectancy would but markedly less than my peers and that, most certainly, I would need open heart surgery by the age of thirty at the latest. The doctor could see the immense concern cringing my mothers practiced face. Both could see the color draining out of my skin. Open heart surgery is risky, even on the relatively young. Thirty-years old seems far away to a ten-year old but not nearly far enough away. The doctor assured me that he would do everything he can to prepare me and keep an eye on my condition. I was told to watch what I eat, to exercise, but also not to push myself too hard. I was given a note that would excuse me from gym class at school.

 I never used that note, however. Buying into what Eli Clare calls, "the super-crip" narrative, the moment I was told that I couldn't or shouldn't be out running the mile with my classmates, I felt the compulsion to show that I could and would. In fact, I joined the track team, literally jumping over hurdles. But pushing myself didn't change the fact that I would and still do get light-headed when a burst of heart palpitations hit my body like a punch to the chest. Nor did it allow me to enjoy coffee later in life without bringing on similar stress with a cup of full black. Nonetheless, I am turning thirty-years old this year and although I am relatively young, I still don't feel any more prepared for open heart surgery. Fortunately, that is no longer regarded as necessary. In fact, after years of regular cardiograms and doctor's visits, as well as many miles run, I am not shorter nor shorter-life spanned than those without my heart condition. My diagnosis is the same but the prognosis is good. I was told I shouldn't be here, many others with better bills of health aren't here, but here I am. Despite the panic I felt at the age of ten, I am grateful for the luck and resources I was given, for the doctor's note even if I didn't use it, and for the whole team of people who were on my side and ready in case my heart gave out. What if that attention and care was given to those other kids, regardless of having a white nurse mother and a diagnosed heart condition? How many more that aren't here would be? How many more birthdays would be celebrated?

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A Reflection

When at the age of eighteen a pair of police officers drew their guns and pointed them at me, my first reaction was disbelief. I was standing in front of my condo with my partner, a friend, and my mother, working on a school project. The disbelief was not dispelled until I was pinned against a car being frisked. My initial surprise arouse from many sources but not least because we were not doing anything dangerous or illegal. Of course, years later, when I would have the police called on me yet again I wasn't doing anything dangerous or illegal either. In both cases I was being investigated by police because someone who saw me judged me to be a strange person who doesn't belong in their normative safe white community. In both cases I was with my family. Years later, it would be my children who had to watch as a police officer interrogated me to determine that I  was these children's other mother and not a pervert and child abductor as the onlooker had supposed. This time, however, it was my mother who had to watch in fear, praying that her daughter didn't get shot in front of her eyes. I recall having to tell both my mom and my children that everything would be okay, that we would talk and everything would be sorted. Of course, in reality, I had no such assurance. In the end, both sets of police soon realized that I was no threat and that they had been given bad and prejudiced information about me. Yet in the moment and afterwards, I am keenly aware of how many trans persons, youths, people with mental disabilities or illnesses, and people of color do not have such luck. I ask myself, had I been a trans person of color would the police officers have paused long enough to listen to our story? What if the prejudice of the passerby who saw me had ignited the same prejudice in the police officers, sparking the outcome which too often comes when the thought, "you shouldn't be here," takes the form of violent action?

Well before my tenth birthday I already knew about another factor of my life which I was told the prognosis of even without doctors or fancy buzzing machines: I am transgender. If open heart surgery at the tender age of thirty took the blood out of my skin, I can't imagine if I knew the statistics then about how many trans kids attempt suicide a decade before that by the age of twenty. The Youth Suicide Prevention Program says 50% of trans persons will attempt by the age of 20. The American Society for Suicide Prevention states 41%. Another widely reported figure states that if I was a trans woman of color, I may not worry so much about heart surgery at the age of thirty because my life expectancy is not that much later, with an average figure of 35 years of life. These are the numbers that further research compounds, not corrects such as in the case of my heart condition. This diagnosis, whether given by a doctor or by society, brings with it a prognosis that should make all of us sit up and pay attention. Turning thirty, these are the numbers and names that still haunt me. When I accepted who I am, affirmed that I would transition, I prepared myself for the type of life and violent death that I am more likely to face. I have been told, directly and indirectly, that as a trans woman I should not be here. But here I am. That presence would feel like a victory if not for how many trans persons (especially trans persons of color) who should be here, should have been told that they should be here, but are not. 

And this is not just a matter of luck and access to healthcare. Because the too often fatal prognosis for trans folks are not determined by fate but by people, by other human beings. As scholarship on necropolitics, precarity, and "slow death" is showing, suicide is not a matter simply of bad luck or a bad apple. Suicide is inextricably linked to systems of shaming, abandonment, isolation, marginalization, and expectations which bring on depression, anxiety, despair and death. These systems of education, care, and prejudice which divide those whose lives will be managed from those whose lives will be abandoned, are also the systems which divide cisgender from the trans, intersex, and non-binary, male from female, straight from queer, able-bodied from disabled, white from black (and all other persons of color), the Christian from the non-Christian, and the haves from those whose resources have been taken or exploited. Such systems have said to me time and again, you shouldn't be here, but here I am; not least because in other ways and times I fit the criteria of those to whom society says, you SHOULD be here. The negative and mixed messaging is enough to send too many just like me or those better, more promising, more normative than me, to their graves. But to those who hear the compounding voice made from the many intersecting utterances of "you should not be here," there are many who should be here that aren't and many who have less of a chance to be here whose persistence should be lauded all the more. I hear traces of their condemnation in the voices which condemn me and also in the voices (those white supremacist, able-bodied, educated Christian voices) which praise me in part, even if I fail to live up their demands. In being able to say, "here I am," I feel the loss (the socially engineered loss) of all those who aren't. In being able to say, "here I am," I feel the responsibility to remind everyone to consider that they are not and why they are not.

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A Wish

Over my years here in this world, I have seen many time and ways that people have been told "you shouldn't be here" and the many ways these wishes are made into reality. Recent events in the government, the United States as a whole, and even in Medieval Studies in particular, has stressed the persistence and power of dominant groups issuing the demand that marginalized peoples and persons no longer be allowed to be here. I have been told this. I see my friends told this. I see important colleagues told this. I see queer, trans, and crip graduate and undergraduate students told this. I see people of color told this. And I see the consequences. These words have power. These wishes are not silent thoughts or harmless opinions. These wishes are real and are having disastrous consequences. Yet it is not too late. The candles have not all been blown out. We might make other wishes, better wishes.

The cruelty but also the power of it is that these deaths and these messages, "you shouldn't be here," are not sentences from heaven or Nature but the judgements of humanity. This is not a matter of magic or super-natural wishes. Life is not a resource which must be hoarded for some and denied to others. Affirmation and welcome that you should be here is not something which runs out the more you say it. Indeed, the longer and more I become present here in this country and this world, the less I feel that "here" belongs to me. I am "here" but I do not possess it. There are many more who should be here, could be here, might be here if we didn't work so hard at belonging here and making here belong to us. Take for instance my role in the academy, the more I find myself, against odds, still here in the scholarly community, the greater I feel the pressing absence of all those who should be here but aren't or are here but are still told that they shouldn't be because of being outspoken, trans, queer, crip, feminine, old, young, poor, or a person of color. In an academy that is shrinking in funding and size, we need all hands on deck. In a culture grappling with transphobia, racism, sexism, ableism, xenophobia, and homophobia, we need more critical voices (especially among the oppressed) to turn the tide. In a nation which daily increases the volume and spectrum of the voices which say, "you shouldn't be here," we need more open and affirming voices, more voices of difference and dissent which respond, "but here I am," then add, "and so they should be too." It need not be survivors guilt or imposter syndrome to say, "I don't belong here," if we turn that statement into a demand on behalf of others who should be here.

On my birthday, when I say, "I shouldn't be here, but here I am," I do not wish to express self-pity. Rather, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for all who have literally said to me, word for word, the statement, "so long as I am here, you will be too." What is more, my birthday wish is that I may be able to say the same to the others who are here but pushed to the margins, those who are here but aren't certain they should be, those who are here but aren't sure for how long, those who are here but told they aren't welcome, as well as those who aren't here, won't be here, might be here, could be here, and should be here. My wish is that we say in greater frequency and clarity, responsibility and variety, "you should be here" and "so long as I am here, you will be too." This is not our gift to them because we do not belong here any more than they, "here" does not belong to us. Rather, if we make this wish, then we might receive the gift of their presence and that is something worth celebrating.

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Transgender and intersex persons are still constantly told 

by society and the law that they are not welcome here, 

in restrooms that correspond to their personal gender identity.

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Transgender Can Save the Middle Ages: A Letter to the International Congress on Medieval Studies

“You ask me what I want this year
And I try to make this kind and clear
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days”

The Goo Goo Dolls

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Dear friends in the Medieval Congress,

I don't know most of you personally, although I would like to begin. Most of you don't know me, although that is less important. What is more important is that we all could stand to know more about all the great people in the trans community. Let me tell you a bit about them:

A magical moment happened in my house about a week ago. It was bedtime and I was reading to our 10-year-old and our 7-year-old. I usually begin with a bit of educational literature before moving on to the fiction. Well, this night I had just put down "This Book is Gay," a primer on the spectrum of gender and sexual diversity, when our youngest raised their hand. I was expecting a question (they ask great questions) but to my surprise they had an admission. They wanted to confess that years ago, when they first remember learning about LGBT identities from me, they had assumed (not yet realizing that having two moms wasn't a norm) that it was a distinctly medieval thing. Can you imagine? I am guessing that like me you learned about LGBT culture AFTER or separately from learning about the Middle Ages. But for this child, the gender queer kid of a trans lesbian family, the Middle Ages started as a queer place before it was anything else. I'm not asking for laughs, I'm just telling you about family.

That was a good night but there are harder nights. I try to read or adapt medieval stories to read to my kids. Some nights are easier. Our kids LOVE the Tale of Chanticleer. Talking animals? Big fans. Kissing butts and farts out the window? They eat that up! But then I turn to the next Tale and I see the rape of young women. I turn it again and I see women being treated as property. I turn it again and I see a father cut off his girl's head as she begs for him to reconsider. Those are harder nights. Then I still go in there to read to them. I'm not asking for pity, I'm telling you about an institution of sexism.

Then there are the days that I get approached by people on the street, at conferences, or via e-mail. I hear from established medievalists about how they are transgender but haven't been able to come out because they fear the ridicule of fellow medievalists. At conferences and online we hear the jokes. You may not know we are listening. You may not know we are trans. But we hear you. Then I find some way to respond to them. I'm not asking for explanations, I'm telling you about your colleagues.

Then there are times I hear this, "How are YOU a medievalist?" I've gotten this from prominent scholars in Trans Studies (if you are familiar with the field, you know their names) as they looked me up and down, then proceeded into a diatribe about the marginalization of female scholars, Catholicism, and male supremacy. There are many who share their view and there are real instances, even traditions, that contribute to this concern. Many in transgender studies find it hard to move into medieval studies because of some valid fears. Even if this is hardly representative of the whole of transgender or medieval studies, they voice issues that deserve to be answered. Then I (and others) find some way to defend the field. I'm not asking for thanks, I'm telling you how our profession is perceived.

Then there are times when I'm grabbing coffee with early career scholars, young women, who just aren't sure how or if there could be a place for them in the profession. The job market is brutal for those of us who are lucky enough to find work. And most are not that lucky. And we hear about male supremacist websites, about institutions intentionally favoring male candidates. And we hear men joking about how "feminism" or "transgender" is taking over everything, how funny it all is, how no one can take a joke. Then we find some way to support each other to keep sending applications. I'm not asking for you to surrender your sense of humor (although I would recommend the better brands), I'm tell you about how many women are getting Ph.Ds in medieval studies and how few of them are getting hired.

Then there is me packing my bags for Kalamazoo, like I do every year, like I plan to for many years to come. And one of the things I am packing, which is there every year, is anxiety and frustration. I recall the mocking of women, feminism, transgender persons, and the small gestures being made to give us back a bit of our dignity. I recall how last year there were two panels on transgender and intersex in the Middle Ages, how this year there are none. I get ready to go through the TSA and their policy of groping each trans person's genitals EVERY TIME because we don't match the 3D models programmed inside their body scanners. I recall how hard it is for me to get to the conference each year and imagine how hard it is for others. I will find out, as I do every year, who decided it wasn't worth the fight and stayed home. Then I'll find some way to encourage them to consider trying again next year. I'm not asking for the Medieval Congress to radically change, I'm telling you about what stands in the way of it growing.

This letter is not an attack. I'm just telling you about my community. I'm telling you about a side of your community that may not be the parts you get to see. I'm not asking for you to make everything better all at once. I'm asking that you try to make it a little better today than it was yesterday. Even if you stumble today, it will soon be yesterday and then you can try again. This letter is my way of saying that I'll be there along side you in the Medieval Congress because like you I love what we try to do here. I love it so much that I want us to do it better. I want it to be better for those who don't come or can't come. I want it to be better for those who might come or will come in the future. I want it to be better for those who are being ridiculed. I want it to be better for those who don't get it yet because you deserve to know how much better things can be. I want it to be better because I know so many amazing women and trans people who will revolutionize and revitalize any profession in which they are able to be a part. I want it to be better because I know that the Middle Ages are worth studying for everyone. I want it to be better because I know that women can save the Middle Ages. I want it to be better because I know that transgender can save the Middle Ages.

So don't do it for me. Do it for them. If you can't do it for them, do it for yourself because you deserve to be a part of a Medieval Studies that does a better job at making the world better.

Sincerely,

A friend

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What the Women's March Means For a Transgender Medievalist

"Cheseth youreself
which may be moost plesance"

The Wife of Bath's Tale

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The Trans Medievalist's Armor

As a transgender woman in the public eye, I often do not comprehend what my presence means to those around me. This ignorance is inevitable, because I can't read minds, but also a self-defense mechanisms. I am inundated on a daily basis with stares, offensive comments, and sometimes physical assault that whether or not I want to know what others think of me I have the abusive answer forced on me. In what I am aware is classic conditioning, I have been trained by society to assume that most people around me don't like me and don't want me around. That is the ingrained lesson deep in my brain and muscles, everywhere where scar tissue exists and remembers. Yet I am rationale and work to protect myself, so I built an armor of indifference. Actively, I can take it off and receive compliments (often not knowing how to take them) but passively I have affixed to my mind and heart the statement, "you don't know what others think of you and you don't need to know." It's true, I don't and I don't. It is better to shut down the question than constantly be receiving the logical answer to the stares, shoving, and insults. I don't know what they think of me. They really don't know me. Their violent reaction to me is as ingrained as my defense against them. When I can be charitable, which is often enough, I tell myself that however badly they might have reacted against me, they will go home and have to ask themselves what they think about me. It is more important that they ask that question of themselves than me to ask that question of them. They need that question. I don't. So I try not to ask. The benefit of this armor is that it helps me in other areas of my life, like being a woman and a medievalist. The armor of unknowing helps me process sexist and objectifying comments from men and second readers of my articles. Don't get me wrong, the words still hurt but my trained reaction is to separate the comments from the person. I can hate what they said without hating the person. Hating people, even people that hate me, is too exhausting and soul-destroying. It is better then that I focus on the words. That is part of why I study literature and rhetoric. 

Arriving at the Women's March on Washington, one becomes aware of how many others feel very similar. These queer, trans, straight, cis, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, non-believer immigrant, citizen women of color know what it means to be the targets of hate in ways that overlap like a venn diagram, intersecting in parts and extending some extra more in others. Entering into this crowd of hundreds of thousands, I still had up my armor. But I could read the armor of others as well. Some wore their armor in the layers they wore. Some wore army or police uniforms. Others wore suits. My partner wore her collar marking her as a member of the clergy. I had asked her before we left, "what is my medievalist uniform?" She laughed when I asked and then laughed harder when I came down the stairs. "You did it!" she said, looking me over. "You are certainly wearing your medievalist uniform." For me, these were my teaching / conference clothes but she agreed that I represented my work well. Others at the march wore their armor in the clothes they didn't wear. Mothers nursed their children. Young women bore their breasts openly in the January air with little strips of black tape over the nipples. Some augmented their bodies with face and body paint. Venus's mirror, a common symbol of womanhood, was drawn around people's eyes. Nasty woman was written on arms and cheeks. Then again, buttons, t-shirts, and signs were everywhere. The march was an overload in rhetoric and language. Some signs were funny. Some were angry. Some said a lot, listing the many immediate issues that need to be addressed by the government on six-foot signs in tiny lettering. Others indicated there was too much to say, with one woman holding a sign saying just that, "there is just too much..." For our part, the family brought with our flags that we hang in the front room of our apartment: a transgender pride flag, a rainbow LGBT pride flag, and a Black Lives Matter flag. Throughout the day, as we wore the flags around us or extended the flags between us, folks would come by and say a few words to us or take a picture of us. We met others who had similar ideas. The biggest advantage of the flags was that they could be seen by those who were not at the march. They would be visible in media and social media pictures as well as video. Those describing the event would likely include mention of these recognizable symbols. In a crowd with so much to say, we wanted to keep our statements simple but important, and leave it to others to say all the rest.

What mattered most to us was to speak with our presence. Like the hundreds of thousands around us, we were asserting our voice and power in the most peaceful way we knew, by silently standing together in a crowd. Images of the march had trouble capturing and comprehending how many of us were present. Estimates of all U.S. cities suggest that around 3 million people, mostly women, walked in protest this day. Aziz Ansari commented on Saturday Night Live that evening how Trump and his campaign/administration must have recognized that they did something wrong to piss off an entire gender. 3 million marchers do not represent the entirety of women or even just one gender but the massiveness of our presence made a statement. It was a statement that no one of us marching or those who saw the march could control. What does it mean when so many women, feminists, allies, and Trump protesters collect together? What does the Women's March have to say? What do women want? The question had many answers - some certainly better than others - but overall the massiveness of the march asserted how important the question was regardless of the answer. The Women's March stated that we were a force to be reckoned with and reckoned we will be. Immediately the news and politicians began spinning, trying to control what the Women's March meant. But no one description does justice. The March was too big to be contained by fences, roads, police barricades or by hashtags, news bulletins, or governmental pandering. The Women's March cannot be contained not only because it is so big but because it is made up of so many parts. The population of the march cut across race, religion, sexuality, disability, political party, class, and gender. The Women's March asked a big question but did not speak just in one voice but in many voices each with their own language, experience, dialects, and subquestions. What the Women's March means is an important question to ask but is inextricable from the question, what does it mean that a transgender medievalist and her family marched?

Answering the question of what the March meant to me will be a task that will take a long time to ponder, but what it meant to others with whom we marched is surprisingly easier to articulate. As soon as we began walking onto the National Mall, stopping by the fountain in front of Congress so the children could rest, I began to be approached by people. One women walked over just to tell me, "you are so beautiful!" This caught me by surprise because covered in my winter gear, medieval uniform and mom-equipment (for our hungry, tired kids) I didn't think I looked at my most attractive. Functional, competent, matronly, yes. But not beautiful. This also caught me by surprise largely because of my defense mechanism that insists I don't wonder what others think of me. If I ask, "does she think I'm beautiful?" I am prone to also ask, "does he think I'm ugly?" Often it is easier just not to ask either. But when someone comes up to me and tells me what they think, it is a surprise. I don't want the armor to deflect it but I can fumble - and did - as I had to take down these defenses and try to catch the compliment. I tried to switch the befuddled look on my face into one of gratitude. It is easier to shift into thanking them for the kind words. Again, focusing on the rhetoric and language is easier than assuming I know what was the personal intention behind them. Yet as the Women's March continued and others kept coming up to me to share their thoughts and experiences, pieces of the armor began to fall off. More and more I was able to release myself from trying to understand the meanings of their words and just receive their presence. In turn, I did feel more vulnerable. Because not only were they being present with me but I became more present with them. My meaning met and joined with the meaning of others. What does it mean for a transgender medievalists to be present at the Women's March on Washington? How does that feel? To consider this question, one must think like a transgender medievalist and that means considering the Wife of Bath for a moment.

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The Wife of Bath's Feminism

On twitter, Chaucer Doth Tweet announced that he would be at the Women's March, provoking the question whether the Wife of Bath would be there as well. Modern feminists have much to admire about the Wife of Bath's liberty, strength and strategy. Too often medievalists have to correct students when they call her a "proto-feminist" or a "modern woman" because they want to declare her an honorary woman of their age. This impulse comes from a place of love and a recognition that if the Wife of Bath were walking among us today, she would likely be marching with us as well. But what such claims can elide, what we can pass over too quickly in our declaration of her modernity, is how her fight for women is so very medieval. She fought for herself and became a model for women in the fourteenth century. Most women and feminist medievalists won't be able to miss how patriarchal and subordinating of women the Middle Ages were. Indeed, as the revelation of "FemFog" last year made clear, the patriarchy and the subordination of women continues in the study of the Middle Ages as well. We share experiences and battles for sexual liberation with the Wife. Our oppression is linked over centuries to her oppression. The one came from the other. Yet the distinction of the Wife of Bath as a medieval woman (or medieval feminist, if you will) is as important as other intersectional identities. A woman of color (WoC) is affected not only by being a woman but being of color. Often it is hard to distinguish which element is at play more in any given act of prejudice, but reading the narratives of women of color demonstrates differences as well as similarities exist with WoC and white women. Likewise, 9/10s of the experience of being a transgender woman may overlap with cisgender women but the 1/10 that is specifically transgender and the way that 1/10 colors the rest is critical. In this way, the Wife of Bath being a medieval woman matters. Her medieval world and language affects how she understands and expresses her acts of resistance. Being a medieval woman affects how she would understand us, transgender women, and the Women's March. 

I have read the arguments that identify the Wife of Bath as being like a transgender woman but feel that a critical trans reading of her Prologue and Tale points us elsewhere. True, she is a strong woman and transgender women are strong. This may be understood as masculinity in the same way that feminists in the early 20th century were called "shemales" by way of an insult; as if being transgender or intersex was an insult. But I do not think a woman needs to be transgender or intersexual to be strong, even in the Middle Ages. I don't discourage anyone who wishes to read the Wife of Bath as sort of trans. I welcome her into the trans sisterhood. I would gladly march beside her because many of our struggles are the same. This reading of the language and rhetoric others (including the narrator) use to describe her is not wrong but does not interest me as much as other things that the Wife of Bath says her self. My interest in the Wife of Bath is in her Tale. The Tale as a whole offers excellent analogies by which we can better understand the Wife's medieval moment and our own. The premise of the Tale describes a maiden who is raped by a man of the governing class. Many of us in the march have been raped, abused, or traumatized by the current governing class of men in the United States. In response to the transgression, a court of women collect in order to assert their power and offer judgement on the man. While the march was not able to enact the same force of law, matriarchs and women present at the march certainly passed down judgements on a man of many transgressions. The take away of the women's court was the command that the rapist patriarch (a stand in for the patriarchy) must come to understand on question: what do women want? Any man or watcher of the Women's March that does not turn away considering the same issue, what women want, have not read closely. The question is apparent but the answers are manifold. The knight is told in turn that women want: "richesse" (riches), "honour" (honor), "joylenesse" (fun), "lust abedde" (sex), "rich array" (clothing), "oftetyme to be wydwe and wedde" (often to be widowed and wedded), and "flaterye" (flattery). The signs and speeches of the Women's March made similar demands for the funding of women's healthcare, dignity, roles in entertainment, sexual freedom, freedom of expression, freedom to marry and divorce, and to be considered a constituency that the government cannot neglect.

All of these demands are true in the Middle Ages as today but the riddle of the Tale is not complete until the answer is given by the figure I most identify as trans in the Wife of Bath's texts: the shapeshifting "elf-queene" (elf-queen) and "fayerye" (fairy) who the patriarch must marry and the court must accept. The knight encounters the woman as she is dancing in the privacy of her fellow fairies, as a man might see a trans woman in a club surrounded by her queer and straight allies. The man desires her and pursues her but when he gets her alone, outside of the fairy/club atmosphere and dress, she is not what he thought she was. The knight in the Tale sees her as "a fouler wight" (a foul creature) that is often identified as an old woman but connect more broadly to the "loathly woman" trope in medieval storytelling. The commentary on age and youth is still useful because it draws attention to how women's beauty is often associated with their ability to sexually reproduce, ergo a young or cisgender woman is more beautiful than an old or transgender women who the man cannot impregnate. Yet beyond the question of age, the main conclusion is that this woman is not the standard of beauty and womanhood the patriarchy desires. The modern anti-transgender slur for this could be a "trap." Some use this term to describe beautiful (trans) women who trick (i.e. trap) men into sex by passing as cisgender women. Of course, in most likelihood transgender women or this elf-queen were not trying to trick anyone but were just having fun with their friends when the man broke into the queer space of his own choice. The shameful descriptions of her appearance reflect the reactive patriarchy that must dismiss the trans person they once desired for fear it might comment on their own desires. And indeed, the trans figure holds the answer to the patriarch's problem with women - as trans folk might who have been forced by society and body to see the world on either side of the gender divides. The answer she gives is that which a medieval feminist or a medieval trans feminist might give: "Wommen desiren to have sovereynetee" (women desire to have liberty).

Yet the Wife of Bath's elf queen is not done with the patriarchy, because she is not only a woman but a trans woman. It is not enough that trans persons are used to promote feminism for all women, they must be allowed to speak to the specific needs of trans women. After giving the knight the answer, the elf-queen demands he marry her. If one is to work with transgender people, one must be prepared to stick by them in solidarity and not abandon them after they cease being useful. This marriage also serves to introduce a sub-problem and question for the knight. The trans wife asks the patriarch:  "Chese now," quod she, "oon of thise thynges tweye: To han me foul and old til that I deye, And be to yow a trewe, humble wyf, And nevere yow displese in al my lyf, Or elles ye wol han me yong and fair, And take youre aventure of the repair That shal be to youre hous by cause of me, Or in som oother place, may wel be" ("Choose now," she said, "one of these two things: To have me ugly and old until I die, And be to you a true, humble wife, And never displease you in all my life, Or else you will have me young and fair, And take your chances of the crowd That shall be at your house because of me, Or in some other place, as it may well be"). Within the Tale, the trans figure asks him to choose whether she will be ugly but subordinate or beautiful but insubordinate. Outside of the Tale, we might understand the choice as a trans person saying, "I can be openly transgender but can keep silent on the need for liberation or I can pass as a cisgender woman but then will need to fight for liberation." Such a question for the knight is supposed to be a riddle for the reader, "what would you chose?" By way of making a point, the Wife of Bath has the patriarch make the best decision. He says, "Cheseth youreself which may be moost plesance" (chose yourself what you most want). This is a lesson for the medieval patriarch as well as the modern feminist. If you want trans persons to fight for your liberty and the liberty of all women, you need to let trans people be trans people. In the end, it is best for all. The knight magically gets a woman who is beautiful and free. Feminism gets trans women who fight for women and the trans community. The Wife of Bath's feminism is not just transhistorical, it is intersectional.

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Intersections with the Past

Standing in the National Mall, straining to hear the speakers in front of the Washington Monument, I was approached by a youth. They came up to compliment my flag and affirm their gratitude that other transgender persons were present at the March. They were done up in their protest apparel and buttons. What struck me most about them was how young they looked. In their eagerness for community, I saw how many of our trans youths are hungry to see themselves in the world. Too often, the world fails to present an image (Imago Mundi), a history, or a future that includes transgender. They didn't stick around for long. They were nervous and flew off to be with their friends. I don't think they would have braved those nerves for anyone and that they did mattered to me. Their presence here mattered to me. Their hunger mattered to me. For that moment, I was at the Women's March for them. Later, the exchange repeated itself as another community member in a transgender flag came over to introduce themselves. They were older and a little braver. I introduced them to my family. They seemed particularly happy to see that we brought our kids. Beyond this, I cannot say what our meeting meant to them but they did ask to commemorate it with a picture. I got one too. Funny enough, we had to same rose-gold pink camera phone. These words and pictures will stay with me for some time. Their meaning will grow as new words and associations build on them. Being present for one another allowed for dialogs to be generated and continued between us and between those witnessing our community-making. Because Marches are where many different lines of flight cross, tangle, and rub up against each other so that at a common intersection our struggles and lives mix. Our meanings, lives, and liberations are no longer our own. They join the collective discourse going on around us. Our voices joined the invited speakers in Washington DC and around the country. Some I heard at the March and others I heard through videos later as their trajectories criss-crossed online.

One of the speakers we were present for at the Women's March in Washington DC was Janet Mock, a transgender woman of color, whose speech insisted that feminist liberation must be intersectional. "It will find us struggling together and struggling with one another," Mock admits in her remarks. "Just because we are oppressed does not mean that we ourselves do not fall victim to the same unconscious policing, shaming, and erasing. We must return to one another." This idea of return sticks with me as a trans activist and a medievalist. So much of being transgender is fighting for the ability to put our lives back together after gender divisions and assignments have pulled us apart from our communities, stories, and embodiments. Trans activism then becomes the way in which we collectively fight to put our shared lives back together, bringing one another back from the isolating margins and into life giving community discourse. Medieval studies too is the work of going into the archives and bringing dead stories to life or bringing dead elements of those stories out from historical silence. In each of these works, we may individually become the enforcers of divides as we struggle to put things together. This is why it is important that we interrupt each other. A youth stepping into a conversation with my partner brings me out of my shell and reminds me of the stakes of being present. A photograph with a young adult returns me from family time to consider how my family may serve to grow the community and carry on discourse. Janet Mock standing on the National Mall declaring the place of trans women of color in the Women's March calls us all to step out of our individual feminisms and stand together, march together, and speak together. Silences can exist between those we are standing next to as they can in historical archives. The Wife of Bath may need to interrupt a conversation as much as my wife may need to interrupt me to point out someone trying to talk to us. We don't do as much or as well alone. Together we are able to continually call one another to return to the work and return to the work of co-liberation.

What the Women's March sent me home with was a renewed purpose to keep on fighting and to continue to be present. For me, this also meant connecting with the other marches once I left DC. In the Women's March in Maine, Jacie Leopold spoke on inclusion while an American Sign Language translator interpreted her words for the audience. "I was asked to represent the transgender community," she said as she told her story of becoming a victim of assault and overcoming this victimization. "I came to a place where I could flourish, do all the things in life a person should do without the having the word transgender define who I am and limit my opportunities." It is important for Leopold that others not tell her what her life means. Others cannot tell her what the March means to her. Yet the trans woman's presence can raise the question and get people talking. "You can create the dialog that gets people discussing, learning, and growing," she told the crowd. By asking the question of what transgender means, its meaning can grow. Yet this growth and dialog must keep moving if it is to stay alive. Like the movement of the March, if we are to liberate ourselves and reclaim the meaning of our lives, we need to keep opening ourselves up to others. Leopold then turned from her story to the stories of other transgender women, naming how transgender women of color face the greatest number of assaults and murders. She confessed how her experience brought her closer to understanding of mutual struggles with them without fully comprehending their struggles. In the wake of these struggles, male assaulters are often let off with minimal sentencing. This is in part allowed because the law sees these transgender women as men, reclassifying the assaults as men assaulting men. The logic of these excuses demonstrates how the patriarchy not only hurts transgender persons, women, but also men. Man on man violence is more acceptable so it is used to excuse violence against trans women. In this system, everyone is victims. The law itself demonstrates how it is victim to sexism patriarchal biases that delegitimize the law as law. By opening up what womanhood means, we give life to one another, including transgender women. By redefining what violence is, we give protection to one another, including men. By entering into dialog with others, we create roads where we might meet each other at the intersections of gender, race, suffering, life, and liberation.

For a transgender medievalist, this intersectionality must also apply to history and difference in historical periods. The Middle Ages are transgender. The Middle Ages marched. The elf-queen marched on Camelot. The Wife of Bath marched on Canterbury. Eleanor Rykener marched on Cheapeside. Saint Joan of Arc marched on Orleans. Narcissus marched on the woodlands. Hermaphrodites and Amazons marched on islands. Saint Marinos marched on the monastery. The trans Middle Ages marched and so trans medievalists marched. We marched because we know our history and carry on our history into the streets. We carry on their lives. We carry on their resistance. We carry on their liberation. We carry on the good. And unfortunately we too often carry on the bad. We march to move forward. We march to bring those along behind us. At the intersection of the past and the future, we find ourselves marching. In many ways, I am less certain of the future than I am of the past. That is the gift of being a medievalist. I know about manuscripts and relics, memories and fragments. I know about persisting through time. I know about change over time, how things transform by being different in some ways and the same in others. The trans-exclusive patriarchy in the fourteenth century experienced by the Wife of Bath is not the same as the patriarchy we know today but ours is a cultural descendent. In the face of today's patriarchy we can see the whole genealogy: in the rhetoric of a man who "caughte hire by the queynte" (grabbed her by the pussy, the Miller's Tale); in the rhetoric of a man who calls someone a "hogges toord" (nasty, the Pardoner's Tale), or in the man who rapes women and then goes to women looking for their support (the Wife of Bath's Tale). Our struggles are not only our own and that is why we march. That is why we may ourselves present and open ourselves to interruption, to compliments, to debate, and to liberation. Because the patriarchy works to make us feel alone, and small, and momentary. Because the patriarchy works to cut us off from each other and our past. Because after each failure, we turn and return to one another.

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For more about transgender intersections

in the Middle Ages

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