Author: swirlstar

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for her

6 months ago we started dating. my second ever queer relationship and i knew it would have to be my last. somewhere along those 6 months i fell hard for you. you took my fragile heart gently and cupped it in your hands tightly.

last night you told me that your dad found out that you were dating a girl, and had given you an ultimatum. you have two years to decide- live the way you are living and move out of my house or start living righteously. (who told him? who saw us together? were we just holding hands?) i didn’t think that we would be found out so soon. it had only been 6 months.

when i held hands with you, when i reached out to hold your hand, and you held it, we put our bodies under the knife edge of power. you put yourself under the knife edge when you said yes to me asking you to be my girlfriend in may.

i guess im trying to be grateful for the time we had but the truth is im scared and guilty and angry. (fuck! fuck the church and fuck your dad and fuck it all oh my god!!!) i feel a future me looking back at my young twenties and seeing myself living a vibrant queer life in baltimore. i know there’s an alternative universe me where that is my reality.

We should go out and dance like we used to dance
We should go out and hold hands like lovers hold hands
And I can’t tell you who’s gonna last
Well, maybe that’s a question and answer I don’t have

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Prison Ministry and Prison Systems

My family is pretty involved with my church. My mom specifically, is involved with the prison ministry and with hospital ministry as well. In both, volunteers from our church bring the Eucharist, bibles, rosaries, and the church ministry to hospitals and prisons. I had never been involved with it before, but last week, I accompanied my mom on the annual prison ministry fundraising banquet that was hosted by my church portico. The tickets were a little bit expensive and they were also raffling away baskets for the same charity reasons. My mom and I asked what the money goes towards and the answers we got was that it goes to the national parent foundation and portions of it go back to the salaries of the prison chaplains , the various bible study, and the technology and training programs behind the program (Good News Global).

I usually have sort of complicated feelings with church stuff that my mom encourages me to get involved with and I was thinking about a couple different things during that banquet. The slogan of the prison ministry was “Bringing freedom behind bars”, and for me that brought up some of the ideas of White Christian Saviorism. Considering that all the Board of Directors is all White (see below), and looking around the room at a largely White reception it made me think about the messaging of Good News Global.

I think I would have felt better giving money to the cause if there was some kind of graphic or information that said where the organizations’ money has gone in the past and where they will spend that money. I think charities lack of transparency has degraded my trust in them, especially in ones with obscure websites.

“The Strike” documentary we watched in class interviews inmates after their decades in solitary confinement and they talk about “convincing your mind that it is not going insane when it is”, and how the prison system functions to break and control the human spirit. I think religion can provide some relief to the conditions/situation of inmates but that these ministries are a little predatory for this reason.

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questioning faith/questions of faith

Understand and explain how different forms of embodiment are produced and shaped by narratives. That’s the course learning objective for this unit. The further explanation notes how oral history is produced by selves and produce selves in their telling.

While I was reflecting on how my topic was going to connect to the course objective, I reflected on my recent experience watching the production of “Call Me By Any Other Name…Just As Sweet”. The piece was very impactful, and while I watched the production I was struck with the familiar thought when I am witness to an impactful piece of art- ‘I wish everyone I’d ever loved or know was here next to me to see this too’. Thinking about it more, I think its a thing of I see my human experiences mirrored back to me in media/art and I crave that visibility in my loved ones. Like.. I wish I was understood in THIS way. It’s like when you watch an impactful movie with your family or friend and you want them to get it in the same way you did.

That’s what ‘Questions of Faith’ from Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender Identity felt like for me. Like I wished people in my life would read and understand my feelings about it. It’s a memoir produced by selves and it produces selves (recognition and validation of my own experience).

  1. Complicated hometown church/small town feelings. Growing up in a small town, being active in church activities, being known as one image of a person and feeling very different. I avoid spaces where I might be known in my hometown to avoid seeing people that know my family, or dress differently in my church to uphold the image. I am very selective with who I’m out to, and to which family friends and people know I am dating my girlfriend.
  2. The feeling of looking for faith communities that fit me. Beyond the feeling of ‘fun’, I struggle with connecting with individuals in faith communities when I leave big parts of me at the door. I have felt like individuals in faith spaces I have been in the past lack a lot of nuance and say a lot of things that make me cringe internally.
  3. Having faith questioned in queer spaces. This one is like when queer spaces are exclusive of religion because of their experience of church hurt/other reasons. Being ridiculed by queer people for being religious. ‘You are still brainwashed and an idiot if you are queer and religious’.
  4. The biggest factor to drive me away from religion is the intense pressure from Christians to conform to a very specific image of a religious person. My family, Christians that I know and Christians in politics drive me away from being religious more than the world/ or sin does.
  5. Cycles of faith. Practicing faith because I was forced to but continuing to practice even though I don’t need to anymore. Leaving and coming back to faith, feeling anchored and simultaneously held down and restricted by it.

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docility, masculinity and the chilling effect under an increasingly authoritarian world

I’ve been thinking a lot about masculinity and systems of power. I think it’s interesting how society views men in the military as very masculine and strong, both strong minded and strong physically. In class we talked a little bit about how systems of power create docile bodies. I think its interesting how such strictly disciplined and hierarchical environments really reinforce rule following. They often have humiliation and subordination as a punishment for not adhering to conduct. All of this creates a very docile person. Docility = ease of control.

Another topic that the reading docile bodies talks about is the concert of a panopticon, where people act as if they are always being watched because theres a possibility that they are. I feel like we are all personally feeling… watched. As students, faculty, in our jobs, schools, by the current administration. A couple times we have seen in class where Dr. Kate stops herself and adjusts her wording. This is also called the ‘chilling effect’ where individuals or groups refrain from engaging in expression because of targeted laws and punishment.

These are just a couple ways that existing systems and current events create docile bodies.