QUEERCRIP REBELLIONS

Workshop facilitated by Robin Eames Email: robin.m.eames@gmail.com Facebook: Robin MemesWebsite: robinmeames.orgTwitter & Instagram: @robinmarceline

Please feel free to contact me about this workshop or about queer/disability advocacy & community organising,!

#

WHO THE FUCK AM I?

Hi, I’m Robin. I use they/them/their pronouns. I’m a queer writer and artist working on my honours thesis in history (specifically THAT GAY SHIT). I’m also a manual wheelchair user with multiple disabilities, and I contain a core of frustrated disabled rage that burns with the power of a thousand hellish suns. That rage will not be directed at you today, because this is a workshop, but please keep in mind that I am very small and very tired and I’m here because I think this shit’s important and I want to have fabulous intracommunity discussions about the stuff close to my heart, not because my life’s passion is educating oblivious bipeds with my Inspirational Suffering.

I have a whole bunch of other intersectional identities but I won’t list them all here. If I say something that makes you go “hey that’s kind of fucked up” feel free to pitch in & tell me “hey that’s kind of fucked up”.

This workshop is being held on the stolen land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. It was never ceded and no treaty has been met. Violent colonisation is a continuing institution in which I am complicit.

#

WHAT WILL THIS WORKSHOP COVER?

I could talk for five bajillion years about my many and varied QUEERCRIP FEELINGS but for now I’m planning on running through a few core ideas before opening up the room to discussion. Feel free to pitch in earlier if you have any questions, confusions, or amazingly hilarious related anecdotes.

For the most part this workshop will focus on disability intersectionality in the queer community; resisting abled norms & expectations around identity, gender, sexuality, and relationships; the paradox of hypervisibility and invisibility of disabled identities; and celebrating queercrip lives & loves in the face of overwhelming ignorance & stigma surrounding physical disability, intellectual & cognitive disability, chronic illness, mental illness, and terminal illness.

#

WHAT IS QUEERCRIP?

QUEERCRIP is a term that to the best of my knowledge began with Robert Mcruer and Abby L. Wilkerson’s 2002 novel “Desiring Disability: Queer Theory Meets Disability Studies” and in Mcruer’s 2006 novel “Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability”.

Mcruer & Wilkinson’s goal was “mapping the intersections of queer theory and disability studies, moving issues of embodiment and desire to the center of cultural and political analyses. The two fields are premised on the idea that the categories of heterosexual/homosexual and able-bodied/disabled are historically and socially constructed… [exploring] how the frameworks for queer theory and disability studies suggest new possibilities for one another, for other identity-based frameworks of activism and scholarship, and for cultural studies in general.”

#

A QUICK NOTE BEFORE WE CONTINUE

It’s important to note that crip is a slur. Cripple is a slur. Queer is a slur. You can’t reclaim a slur unless you are part of that community – otherwise by definition it’s not reclamation, it’s just persistent usage of a harmful word by the group exercising harm. “Crip theory” has become a commonplace way to refer to disability studies in academia, but you need to exercise tact & sensitivity as to whether you think it’s a term appropriate for you to use, depending on your context & experience.

#

QUEERCRIP & RADICAL VISIBILITY

In 2015 Shy Cubacub wrote the Radical Visibility manifesto for their project Rebirth Garments.

Image descriptions:

1. A photo of a brown-skinned person wearing an extraordinarily brightly coloured sleeveless close-fitted midriff crop top (resembling a binder) & matching leggings, made out in

geometric patchwork spandex in various shades of neon purple, pink, blue, orange, and green, as well as black and white triangles, collared with purple and green chainmaille. They have dystrophied limbs, pearl green nail polish, a flat(tened?) chest and have chin length curly black hair. They are seated in an electric wheelchair with joystick control, and there is a black linework tattoo visible on their ribs. Their makeup includes fuchsia lipstick, three yellow stripes over their nose, and an asymmetric constellation of six coin-sized blue polkadots on the left side of their forehead, four slightly smaller neon yellow polkadots on their right cheekbone, and a half-visible orange polygon on their right cheek. Their expression is calm and happy, they are looking right at the camera, and their teeth are visible in one half of their smile. They are on a street with a blank wall and two windows behind them. They are visible to mid-calf, and they are in focus at the centre of the photo, and the background slightly blurred. The photo appears to have been taken with a DSLR.

2. A photo of three people on a tiled footpath in front of a grey-blue wall with stripes of stone that have a texture reminiscent of watercolours. The person on the left is wearing a spandex unitard with cap sleeves and a collar, again in fluoro/neon colours, metallic sparklies, and triangle patterns. There is magenta chainmaille around their shoulders and hanging over their chest (sort of like a cross between a waistcoat and a frilled bodice), and they are wearing a magenta and purple helmet-like chainmaille headpiece fitted closely to their skull. If they have hair it is not visible. They are wearing chainmaille on the back of their hands, connected to their wrists and fingers, not quite fingerless gloves and not quite bracelets/rings, in a way that may be doubling as finger splints. They are standing with their weight on one leg and their left leg crossed behind them, their shoulders back, and their left arm resting on the second person’s electric wheelchair. They are wearing purple lipstick and have a number of visible tattoos. They are slim and their skin is light brown. Their shoes are a fabulous conglomeration of ice skates, ballet flats, steel-tipped boots, and calf-high converse, in teal/silver/black triangles on a white background, with magenta laces against black tongues. The second person is wearing black and white leggings/trousers patterned with polkadots and triangles, a cape-like jacket in orange, metallic teal, red, and monochrome patterns again. They are wearing a close-fitted bright pink beanie with the word CRIP made out in blue. If they have hair it is not visible. They are seated in a black electric wheelchair with joystick control, and wearing a nasal oxygen mask that is presumably fitted to an oxygen cylinder at the back of their chair. One of their eyebrows is dark blue and they are wearing gold lipstick with red/orange stripes on their cheeks. Their skin is light tan; they may be of East Asian or Polynesian descent. They are looking directly at the camera. Their mouth is closed and mostly even but they may be half-smiling (their fabulous cheek-stripes are making it difficult for me to tell). The person on the right is crouched on one knee with their left elbow propped up on the middle person’s armrest (or possibly chair back), wearing a sleeveless dress/tunic in black mesh with an opague upside down V over their chest, over a high-waisted garment that might be a skirt or flared shorts in metallic blue. They are wearing purple lipstick with pink triangles curving up the side of their face next to their hair, which is medium-dark brown, straight, and shoulder length, swept to one side. They are wearing a ropy navy necklace and a bangle that may be doubling as wrist support. Their arms and knees are bare (they are propped up on one shadowed foot, but if they have more leg below their left knee it isn’t visible). Their skin is pale. Their upper arms have more muscle and fat than their forearms and there is some soft fat around their belly. They have broad, bulky hips, and their legs are stocky and muscled. They are also looking at the camera.

3. Three photos of a brown-skinned person grinning at the camera in various positions, with their arms over their head, with their leg angled towards the camera and other leg bent away,

and with their back to the camera, knees bent, hands on their knees and butt turned toward the camera as they laugh over their shoulder. They are lean and very muscled, wearing glasses, orange lipstick, and a blue and purple goatee. Their hair is short and curly, black at the sides and dyed blonde over the top. They are wearing teal and yellow leggings and a racerback mesh purple and teal crop top/sports bra. Their chest is flat. Their shoes are floral blue and yellow Doc Marten-esque boots. Their arms and midriff are bare and they are standing on what appears to be the same sidewalk pictured in the first photo.

#

QUEERCRIP & RADICAL VISIBILITY

“Everyday is a performance where I bring my body as a kinetic sculpture into the consciousness of the people I interact with in passing and on a daily basis. I get stared at or stopped on the street and in the CTA everyday…

When a part of your physical appearance dominates all others, it becomes you. Your identity is that thing. You are then automatically objectified.”

“The current situation for trans* undergarments and for people with disabilities is that we shouldn’t be stylish, because we should “want to blend in” A.K.A. society wants us to be invisible and not draw attention to ourselves.”

You can read the Radical Visibility manifesto here: https://radicalvisibility.wordpress.com

#

I RAN THE HELL OUT OF TIME

• I AM SO SORRY O HECK

IS ANYBODY SURPRISED PROBABLY NOT