Bunny by Mona Awad

Bizarre, beautifully evocative, and darkly humorous, Mona Awad’s Bunny tells the story of New England MFA student Samantha Mackay as she uncovers the supernatural underbelly of her English major classmates. Surrounded by “the fake poor and fashionably deranged” of an art school student body, Samantha’s classmates appear at first glance to be caricatures of privilege and hollow femininity. However, when the workshop’s central group — four close female friends with a penchant for calling each other “Bunny” — invite Samantha to their personal writing getaway, she is suddenly faced with their strange, grotesque reality. In part satirical, the novel reflects Awad’s own experience in her BFA program, as she criticizes the hypocrisy entrenched in modern literary institutions. Bunny covers a range of themes from girlhood to cults to the destructive power of love, imbued with stylish elements of cult classic horror. 

— Michele Fu, Culture Editor

Glory by Noviolet Bulawayo

Bulawayo’s second novel is a unique take on the 2017 Zimbabwean military overthrow of then Prime Minister Robert Mugabe. She draws inspiration from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, setting the story in the fictional African nation of Jidada, whose residents are all animals. The word ‘people’ never appears in this novel, and gender is not defined by men and women, but by ‘mals’ and ‘femals.’ This post-colonial masterpiece tackles the long-standing effects of European colonization on Zimbabwe’s political systems, ultimately culminating in the 2017 coup. This brilliant work of political satire uses familiar allegories in a groundbreakingly new way. 

— Eliana Freelund, Culture Editor

Severance by Ling Ma

In her debut novel Severance, Ling Ma tells the story of apocalyptic dystopia, alienation and cruelty under global capitalism, and the moving struggle of reconnecting with a mother’s heritage. Our protagonist Candace Chen embodies the millennial condition — she is a first-generation American and corporate office drone, grasping for comfort in routine following the passing of her Chinese immigrant parents. Although published in 2018, Ma’s novel centers around an eerily familiar pandemic in NYC, as we witness the self-destructive nature of loneliness and grief. A post-capitalist satire under the guise of one Asian-American woman’s journey into adulthood, Severance is a delightful treatise on the human condition.

— Michele Fu, Culture Editor

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Jackson’s final work is widely considered to be her best. We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a gothic mystery novel that follows the lives of sisters Mary Katherine ‘Merricat’ and Constance Blackwood. This novel takes the idea of the ‘home’ and its association with traditional femininity, and flips it on its head. In the Blackwood home, food always has a chance of being poisoned, eerie wards surround the house to “keep it safe,” and family members can be mysteriously killed off at any time. Although Jackson’s novel can be quite jarring and unsettling at times, the story ultimately hinges on close female relationships; in this case, the unwavering love the two sisters have for one another. In a world where everyone else — the townsfolk, their childhood friends, and even their own family — has turned against them, Merricat and Constance find their strength in each other. 

— Eliana Freelund, Culture Editor

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Braiding Sweetgrass is a nonfiction book about the traditional Indigenous uses of plants in medicine and science. Robin Wall Kimmerer, a Potawatomi professor of Environmental and Forest Biology at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF), organizes her book as a series of essays divided into five sections. “Planting Sweetgrass,” “Tending,” “Picking,” “Braiding,” and “Burning Sweetgrass” each give wonderful insight into the world of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and ethnobotany. A must read for everybody!

— Frida Sofía Morales Mora, Social Media Editor

Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism by Kristen R. Ghodsee

Kristen R. Ghodsee, professor of Russian and East European studies at the University of Pennsylvania, offers an engaging and deeply researched analysis of the lives of women under state socialism in Eastern Europe. She examines the lives and legacies of prominent female activists and politicians in state socialist countries, as well as how policies shaped the daily lives of women and in many cases, afforded them more independence and opportunities than before. She argues that socialism done right leads to increased economic independence, better work-life balance, and more political participation for women.

— Emma Bainbridge, News Editor

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My experience is one of many; whether you’re currently struggling, have a friend that’s struggling, or just need a safe space to vent, hopefully you’ll find something below that works for you. All of these services are free of charge for McGill students unless otherwise stated. The list is not exhaustive, and not all of them will be a right fit for you, but do not procrastinate your wellness. Keep looking for something that is.

Peer support

The Peer Support Centre (psc.ssmu.ca), founded in 2013, provides confidential, face-to-face, one-on-one support with a McGill student volunteer. You can drop in during their hours, or make an appointment online to speak with a peer who has “[undergone] more than forty hours of training on topics such as active listening, ethical conduct, confidentiality, and a range of common student issues. While the SSMU building is under construction, they are located on the second floor of 3471 Peel St.

Nightline (nightline.ssmu.ca) is a student-run call centre at 514-398-6246, open 6 PM to 3 AM during the school year. They provide anonymous, judgement-free active listening crisis management, and referral services, free of charge. They also have an online instant messaging support called Chatline.

The Sexual Assault Centre of the McGill Students’ Society (SACOMSS) (sacomss.org) provides support to survivors of sexual assault throughout the entire year. They have a hotline, drop-in appointments, and hold support groups. They consult or train many of the other McGill groups listed below, and can advocate on the behalf of McGill students and staff for conflicts related to sexual assault.

Other peer support services include Vent Over Tea (ventovertea.com), an active listening service which pairs you with a student volunteer in a local café. If you’re living in rez, another source of support can be floor fellows, who are trained to respond to mental health issues.

Off-Campus services

Living in downtown Montreal means that you are not limited to services within McGill. Along with several helplines, Montreal also has a variety of free health centres and non-profits that can offer help.

Centre local de services communautaires (CLSCs), or local community centres often offer several mental health and referral services. Some require Quebec medicare or out-of-province health cards, and some (but not all) offer services in English. You can check the Quebec Wellness Centre site (sante.gouv.qc.ca) to find one close to you that suits your needs, or the off-campus list on the McGill Student Health Service website.

The same page lists a few private clinics, but most of these require a fee upfront, especially for non-Quebec residents.

Face à Face Listening and Intervention Centre (faceafacemontreal.org) opened in 1982 as a listening service for those in need. It has now expanded to include free 8-week counselling sessions, support groups, and listening and referral services all focused on empowering people experiencing tough situations. It is located a 14-minute bus ride or a 26-minute walk from the McGill area.

Head & Hands (headandhands.ca) provides free drop-in medical clinics to 12-25 year-olds, regardless of their access to health insurance. They are open Tuesdays and Thursdays starting at 4:45 PM and are able to see 10 people by random draw, rather than on a first come, first served basis. You’ll meet with a friendly health educator followed by a physician. They are a 33-minute bus trip from the McGill area.

Some 24/7 phone services you can try include the bilingual Tel-Aide, a listening service at (514) -935-1101. If you’re struggling with addiction, Drugs: Help and Referral (DAR) (reachable at (514) 527-2626) provides bilingual information, support, and referral services that connect you with a certified counsellor. Info-Social puts you in contact with a psychosocial intervention worker. They can be reached via the number 811. Interligne offers 24/7 phone, text, email, and online chat services for the LGBTQ+ community. They can be reached at 1 (888) 505-1010 through text or (514) 866-0103 on the phone.

Find your Community

Your mental health and healing process will intersect with many facets of your identity. Though the following groups are not all mental-health related, connecting with like-minded people and staying informed in a safe space can make all the difference.

The Social Equity and Diversity Education Office (SEDE) (www.facebook.com/equity.diversity/) was “founded in 2005 in response to issues surrounding harassment and discrimination at McGill.” They work closely with many other groups listed above. They host workshops, events, consultations, and provides grants to support research and knowledge exchange, all to incorporate equity as a fundamental part of a McGill education.

Queer McGill (www.facebook.com/QueerMcGill) is “a social, political, and informational support service for queer students, by queer students.” Part of SSMU, they hold workshops, meetings, “gayme” nights, among other activities, and host an active Facebook forum. They also provide staffer training sessions every semester for anyone who wants to get involved.

The Union for Gender Empowerment (UGE) (www.facebook.com/UGEMcGill/) is an “anti-racist, trans-positive, feminist organization” with a variety of resources that help to advocate and educate the McGill community about gender-based oppression. They have a library of gender-related reading material, a zine, drop-in appointments, and a co-op that sells menstrual products, safer sex products, sex toys, and other gender-empowerment items on a pay-what-you-can basis.

You should also look into cultural, identity and advocacy groups and resources like the Black Students’ Network (BSN), the First Peoples’ House, Arab Student Network, McGill Students in Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), as well as local groups outside of McGill such as the South Asian Women’s Community Centre.

Some groups and events at McGill, like the following, focus on mental health more specifically, and are a great way to stay informed and practice self-care.

Students in Mind Mental Health Conference is an annual conference organized by students that includes panels, workshops, activities and speakers. The next conference is set to be held in January 2019. McGill’s chapter of jack.org holds self-help workshops and self-care activities, a speaker series, and local “summits” where students gather to discuss mental health. The parent organization of jack.org also holds regional and national summits.

McGill Student Association for Collaborative Mental Healthcare (CMH) holds multidisciplinary discussions about Quebec’s mental healthcare system, with a focus on engaging future mental health workers and researchers. They have an annual conference and hold networking opportunities for graduate and medical school students. Healthy McGill (www.facebook.com/healthymcgill/) is a more general health group part of Student Services. They have several helpful resources on their website and have a portion of their peer health educators involved in their Mental Health and Wellbeing team.

McGill Office of Religious and Spiritual Life (MORSL) (www.facebook.com/morsl/) is another helpful resource. It offers a cozy lounge located on the second floor of the Presbyterian college in front of the Milton Gates, places of worship, workshops, and their own spirituality magazine, Radix.

McGill Counselling and Psychiatric Services

Both services fall under the broader group of Student Services, so any full-time or part-time student, who has paid the Student Services fees, has access to them. They are open the entire year, including the summer months.

To get a counselling appointment, you have to make an appointment on the phone at (514) 398-3601, or go in-person to Suite 4200 of the Brown Building. Bring your McGill Student ID card and a copy of your insurance to your first appointment. Your first session will be an hour-long assessment, where the clinician establishes a personal plan for you, which might consist of individual therapy, group therapy, self-directed online therapy, and/or workshops. This fall, they’ll be re-introducing drop-in counselling appointments.

If you access individual therapy, you have the right to ask for a clinician of a specific gender, a French-speaking clinician, or one that is part of the PRIDE Counselling Team members with experience in helping LGBTQ+ students.

McGill’s Psychiatric Services are located in the same building, in Suite 5500. To make an appointment, you’ll need a referral from either a family doctor or from a clinician from Counselling. You’ll need your McGill ID Card along with your McGill Insurance or Health Card (provincial or Blue Cross). Usually, if you’re struggling, the first stop will be McGill Counselling.

Most criticisms of the McGill counselling and psychiatric services are of their long wait times and their failure to meet the demand of students. For example, last Winter, more than 1,000 McGill students signed a petition expressing concerns about the medical note system, Student Service’s diversion of funds away from mental health services, the lack of mental health integration into other services, and the lack of input from the larger McGill community in their decision-making process.

In the past, wait times have ranged from three weeks to over a month for initial counselling appointments, though the wait is generally shorter for psychiatric services. The earlier you book, the better; don’t wait until it gets worse.

In the works is the Rossy Student Wellness Hub, which will be located on the third floor of the Brown Building. In an interview with The Daily, Martine Gauthier, Executive of Student Services, stated that “the main goal of the [The Hub] is to simplify access to McGill’s health and wellness services,” and represent a collaboration between physical and mental health services. They’ll have a new drop-in clinic, a common room, and a website that lists their services. They will house faculty-specific wellness advisors and the campus Shag Shop.

Academic Support and Other McGill Services

The Office for Students with Disabilities (OSD) (mcgill.ca/osd) can provide resources and accommodations for students with mental health issues, disabilities, and chronic health conditions. They provide workshops, exam accommodations, note-taking services, and tutoring.

The McGill Student Health Centre (mcgill.ca/studenthealth) is available to students who have paid the Student Services fee as part of their tuition and allows you to see a doctor or a nurse. Make an appointment at (514) 398-6017.

The McGill Mental Health Hub (mcgillmentalhealthhub.ca) provides a variety of online resources and referrals to other services, within and outside of McGill.

Empower Me is a service open to students who are under the SSMU Health & Dental Plan. They have a 24/7 hotline which you can reach anywhere in North America at 1- (844) 741-6389. A trained counsellor can provide you with a confidential, short-term online counselling via video, or phone.

Know your student rights. Formed under SSMU’s University Affairs Committee, the “Know Your Rights” website (studentrights.ssmu.ca) and campaign give a breakdown of your rights as a student. These include exam deferrals, exam conflicts, accommodations, and links to official McGill policies and charters.

Emergencies

If you or someone you know is in danger, call 911. McGill Security can be reached at (514) 398-3000 for the downtown campus. However, when calling the police, be mindful of Montreal and Canada’s history of police brutality and racism, and consider the safety of Black, Indigenous, People of Colour (BIPOC) around you in the presence of the police.

Suicide Action Montreal: 24/7 hotline at (514) 723-4000.

TRACOM Centre for Crisis Intervention can be reached at (514) 483-3033, and provides both phone support and short-term crisis housing.

McGill offers Urgent Care Safety Appointments, where you can immediately meet with a psychiatrist at Psychiatric Services, Brown Student Services Building, Suite 5500, West Wing, Monday through Friday from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

The student testimonies were edited for clarity

The post Navigating mental health at McGill appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The McGill administration’s anti-semitic practices

During the early 20th century, the United States and Canada saw an influx of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who were fleeing religious persecution. Many of these immigrants settled in Montreal, where Jewish people thrived despite anti-Semitic hostility from the local population. Jewish immigrants often saw university as a means of upward socioeconomic mobility, functioning as a gateway into the elite of society. First generation Jews, encouraged by immigrant parents who wanted to see their children thrive in their new home, performed exceedingly well academically and soon made up a significant portion of university students at McGill.

In 1913, 6.8% of McGill students were Jewish; by 1924, this number had risen to 25%. Professor of Religion and Jewish Studies at Concordia University and the author of Anti-Semitism in Canada, Dr. Ira Robinson explains that Jewish students were perceived as being too “academically concentrated.” Supposedly, this warranted their reduction in academia in favour of students who were more “well rounded”: all codewords used to legitimize the reduction of the number of Jewish students admitted to McGill.

In 1926, McGill University adopted an informal ban on “Hebrew” students from outside Quebec.

In 1929, the Faculty of Arts increased the admission grade average requirement to 70% for Jewish students, then further increased it to 75% in the 1930s, while the grade requirement for non-Jews remained at 60% throughout that period. Additionally, the faculties of Medicine and Law instituted admission quotas that capped the number of Jewish students at 10% of the faculty’s student population. These policies achieved their desired results; by 1935 McGill’s the proportion of McGill students who were Jewish had dropped to 12%.

Although these policies were “purely administrative” and were never officialised, it was an open secret that McGill wanted to restrict the number of Jewish students at the university. In fact, many thought it normal that Jewish students would have to achieve better grades than their non-Jewish counterparts. It would not be until shortly after the second world war that these racist policies would be phased out.

A broader context of generalised anti-semitism

Anti-Semitic sentiments in Montreal and Canadian society at the time of the quotas were not limited to the academic sphere. Canadian Jewish historian Irving Abella describes Canada during the 1920’s-1930’s as “a benighted, xenophobic, anti-Semitic country” in which “Jews were excluded from almost every sector of Canadian society.” In Montreal, Jews were generally not hired as engineers, bankers or lawyers (except at Jewish firms). Virtually every Canadian university that had a sizable Jewish population implemented discriminatory measures similar to McGill’s. Furthermore, anti-Semitic sentiment was wide-spread on Canadian university campuses; in a 1933 survey, 80 percent of the University of Toronto’s non-Jewish students did not want to admit Jews into their clubs. Discriminatory policies against Jewish students were deemed justifiable as Jewish students were regarded as a threat to a ruling elite of Anglo-Saxon Protestant in Quebec.

In many ways, the quotas and higher admission standards were part of a larger effort by the ruling Anglo-Saxon Protestant elite to maintain the social status quo.

Many administrators felt that Jewish students were limiting the access to education for Anglo-Saxon students. Universities were an environment in which future elites networked. As Dr. Robinson puts it, admitting many Jewish students “clashed with social expectations,” because it fostered the inclusion of Jewish members within elite circles of society.

In May 1934, Dr. Samuel Rabinovitch was appointed as leading intern at Montreal’s Notre-Dame hospital. The other medical interns, predominantly Francophone, saw his appointment as a threat. The other interns called a Jew treating Catholic patients “repugnant.” Soon thereafter, the interns launched the first medical strike in Canada’s history, demanding that Rabinovitch resign. The strike was a widely publicized affair. It received broad support from the population and from French-Canadian nationalists. Under pressure, Dr. Rabinovitch eventually resigned.

The Société Saint Jean-Baptiste, who represented many French nationalists who opposed Rabinovitch, also campaigned against Jewish immigration to Quebec under the leadership of future mayor Jean Drapeau. Their anti-semitic petition received over 150,000 signatures.

Parallels with contemporary anti-Asian discrimination

This type of discrimination is not just limited to the past. Today, Asian students need better grades than their non-Asian counterparts to be admitted into Ivy League Universities such as Harvard. Harvard University is currently being sued for discriminating against Asian American students in their admission processes. The lawsuit has been brought by Students for fair admission which claims that “Asians get the Ivy League’s Jewish treatment” a reference to the racist quota policies against Jews that were also implemented in Ivy League institutions.

Struggles that Jewish students face today

When asked what current challenges Jewish students and academics face, Dr. Robinson cited the politicization of the Jewish identity with regard to the state of Israel. He stated that “Israel is the great fact of life of Jews in the 20th and 21st century”, and that, as a result, it “becomes impossible to differentiate between Jews and Israel.” In other words, many Jewish students may feel compelled to “[enunciate] a certain attitude toward Israel,” particularly one of political support. This conflation of Jewish identity with support for Israeli policies makes for an environment in which students may feel boxed into a set of beliefs due to their religion and/or ethnicity, making constructive political dialogue difficult. This is not to say that instances of anti-Semitism do not occur during or outside of such political debates; they do. Anti-Semitism must be called out and made accountable at every opportunity.

Conclusion

It’s important that we as McGill students are aware of our university’s discriminatory past. If we hope for our university and society to be places of equal opportunity, it is vital we understand where we have gone wrong. We as the McGill student body need to educate ourselves and take some responsibility for the University’s anti-Jewish policies by fighting against present and future anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination on the basis of people’s identities in the McGill community. This is vital if we do not want the politics of hate and racism to return to campus life.

The post McGill’s 1926 Jewish ban appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Between his ownership of slaves and his possession of stolen Indigenous land, McGill epitomized a picture of colonial success in his domination and subordination of Indigenous and Black people.

For many Indigenous and racialized members within the McGill community, colonialism is a daily reality. The name McGill only serves as a further reminder of the cultural genocide of their ancestors and the continued discrimination they face. Still, de-colonization seems not to be a priority for the university’s administration. Not only does their biography of James McGill present a whitewashed narrative, but the university continues to engage in settler colonial behaviour.

Settler colonialism is an international issue. The Israeli occupation and settlement of Palestinian territories like the West Bank is a contemporary example of the aggressive colonialism that McGill engages in. The university invests in companies that profit from the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, such as a $2 million investment in RE/MAX. RE/MAX is known to finance the development of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian land, settlements which have been ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice. By disregarding international law, the university makes a statement on where it stands in the violent dispossession of Palestinian territory and identities. McGill’s financial support for RE/MAX, a company furthering the Zionist settler colonial agenda, sends a powerful and disturbing message. Based on their actions, McGill shows an open disregard for the McGill University Mission Statement and Principles when it comes to profiting off of modern-day colonization.

McGill’s investments have not gone unnoticed by student activists part of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. They have been urging the University to divest from companies profiting off Israeli settlements. BDS was formed in 2005 with the aim to end the Israeli government’s oppressive regime in Palestine through non-violent economic boycott. This pacifist tactic is comparable to the one used to take down the apartheid regime in South Africa.

In September of 2017, following advice from the Judicial Board, the SSMU board of directors voted that BDS was discriminatory in nature and violated SSMU’s Constitution and Equity Policy by targeting a specific nation, namely, Israel. However, BDS’ qualm with Israel is one founded on a disagreement with its government’s policies, not its identity as a nation. In fact, BDS works specifically to target governments and corporations, not individual citizens, who uphold oppressive colonial policies. They have a set of clear demands that focus exclusively on Palestinian rights and do not hamper on the rights of Israeli citizens, 20% of whom are Palestinian Arabs. The SSMU decision to make BDS unconstitutional at McGill is troubling, especially for Palestinian students, who are attending a university that is profiting off of the continued ethnic cleansing of their country. It is also a reminder that we as students have much work left to do in combatting colonial structures on campus.

A testimony of McGill’s current colonial reality is the underrepresentation of non-Western anti-colonial perspectives in academic teachings. For example, the Indigenous studies program is only offered as a minor, partly because there aren’t enough funds put into the creation of a variety of Indigenous content-related courses to fulfill the requirements for a major program. Outside of the Indigenous Studies program, Indigenous perspectives are even more limited, with most departments at McGill focusing nearly exclusively on eurocentric academic knowledge.

This Eurocentrism is apparent when looking at the syllabi for various courses at McGill. The introductory course to international relations, POLI 244, draws its reading material almost exclusively from Western scholars and textbooks. The same goes for GEOG 210, an introductory geography course on “global places and peoples.” Such courses deal with a subject matter that is international by nature, yet are taught through a purely Western lens. Even though authors sometimes attempt to limit ethnocentric bias, their study of other political systems and cultures is heavily influenced by the Western scientific method. This is based on empirical analysis of observable phenomena through a series of predetermined steps. That is not to say that Western epistemology is by any means weak — empirical analysis is a cornerstone of higher learning — but rather that it dominates the discourse at McGill to the detriment of other forms of knowledge, namely Indigenous epistemological systems. Our highlighting of this fact is not to criticize professors for their choice of subject matter, they are of course more than qualified to do so, but rather to underline that McGill as an institution that promotes a Eurocentric academic culture. Complementing a Eurocentric curricula with scholarly work from non-Western and Indigenous scholars, in addition to rethinking Western academic methodologies, would go a long way toward eroding colonial teaching on campus.

Ending colonialism isn’t something that can happen instantly, but there are concrete steps that we as students can take towards decolonizing McGill. Those who attend talks on campus or SSMU legislative council meetings have heard the sentence “the McGill campus sits on unceded Kanien’keha:ka land.” Reiterating this statement at each event may seem redundant to some, but in doing so we reclaim past and present identity of this place, an identity whose origins are eroded by the name McGill. A land acknowledgement certainly is a respectful gesture that honours the injustice this university has perpetuated; however, it does not heal the ongoing damage of hundreds of years of oppression.

In order to decolonize McGill, everyone needs to commit daily to the anti-colonial effort; the fight for decolonization is one of actions, not just words.

Here are various ways to increase your awareness and get involved on campus:

EDUCATE YOURSELF AND OTHERS:

• Take a course about race and/or colonialism
• Read Indigenous Writes by Chelsea Vowel (read and buy Indigenous work in general)
• Read the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 calls to action, learn about residential schools, reconciliation and decolonisation
• Take Indigenous studies courses
• Attend McGill’s Indigenous awareness week events in mid-September
• Attend Black history month events in February
• Learn about microaggressions and educate people around you as to why they are harmful

ORGANIZE, GIVE SUPPORT, RESIST:

• Support/get involved with the Indigenous Student Alliance
• Support/get involved with Black Students’ Network
• Engage with BDS in the fight to divest from companies profiting off of Israeli settlements by liking SPHR’s Facebook page.
• Show solidarity with people struggling against colonialism through protesting, organizing, writing and material support.
• Join the Facebook group “settlement reparations for Indigenous people Montreal and surrounding area” to provide material support to Indigenous people around you.
• Support Black and Indigenous-led initiatives around you: attend events, pay artists, support and share their work
• Organize events and campaigns to counter colonialism on campus and in your community

We hope to see you at a rally soon!

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An important distinction must also be made between sexual and romantic orientations. Acknowledging the existence of asexuality as a spectrum means recognizing that not all people experience sexual attraction, and that not all people experience a lack of sexual attraction in the same way. This acknowledgment opens the door to understanding that attraction can mean different things to different people. For example, some individuals experience romantic attraction toward others, and can choose to identify with a romantic orientation which may or may not coincide with their sexual orientation. Folks who do not experience romantic attraction can choose to identify as aromantic. Although aromanticism is not specifically the subject of this piece, I encourage readers to inform themselves on the subject and include aromanticism in conversations. For example, the Aromantic FAQ on the AVEN wiki provides useful definitions, vocabulary, resources, and related blogs. Aromantics are important members of our community and are very often invalidated and silenced.

Today, online communities such as AVEN are at the core of asexual activism and spreading public awareness. It was only after David Jay founded AVEN in 2001 that asexuality began to gain growing acceptance and visibility, and that asexuals could meet and connect on a larger scale. Because there are very few queer resources, events, and spaces that are inclusive of asexuality, asexuals will often start identifying as such only after being in contact with other members of the asexual community. In my case, I started using that word to describe myself only after discovering AVEN and relating to other people’s experiences on the site’s forums and on other online communities. These asexual communities gave me the vocabulary, information, and support that queer communities and sexual education platforms had not offered.

Locating asexuality in western history

Although asexuality as a queer sexual orientation received very little visibility until the beginning of the 21st century, there are many different western understandings of asexuality in history that still shape the way we approach the identity today. The meaning of asexuality has been politically and culturally contingent; perceptions have shifted over time, while being embedded in conceptions of race, class, and gender. In her essay “Asexuality and the Feminist Politics of ‘Not Doing It,'” Ela Przybylo argues that around the beginning of the 20th century, the general understanding of women’s sexuality gradually shifted from the idea of passionlessness (where female sexuality was seen as a threat to the status quo, and was considered passive as opposed to active male desires), to a focus on female desire and pleasure as natural and necessary. Though in contrast to the female passivity posited by psychoanalysis, these new ideas concerning the innate nature of sexual desires similarly excluded the experiences of working class and immigrant populations, women of colour, as well as queer, trans, and non-binary individuals. Many of these marginalized groups were depicted as hypersexual in dominant narratives; their sexualities were perceived as already immoral and deviant. This left many communities without a space to voice their own unique experiences of (a)sexuality. These conversations equally eliminated the possibility for individuals assigned male at birth to express their asexuality, as they were largely seen as the ‘active,’ sexually demanding elements in a binary and patriarchal conception of heteronormative partnered relationships.

Until recently, historical discussions of female (a)sexuality were therefore limited to the experiences of cisgender, heterosexual white women, often from middle and upper classes. In her essay, Przybylo explains that the 1920s and 1930s in North America and Europe were characterized by growing socio-cultural anxieties about the visibility of women in the public realm and their presence in the workforce. Efforts were made to ensure women’s subordination to male authority and return them to the private realm of the household, where successful marriage and motherhood became imperatives. These imperatives were dependent on women engaging frequently and willfully in heterosexual intercourse. Female sexuality was seen as innate and natural, and any divergence from this norm was perceived as threatening and pathological.

Around this time, Freud and other psychiatrists were theorizing the concept of ‘frigidity,’ a word used to medicalize female asexuality as an inability to achieve vaginal orgasm. Frigidity was seen not as a complete lack of sexual desire, but as an incapacity to conform to male-defined notions of sexual pleasure. It was necessary to engage in heterosexual intercourse for one’s sexuality to be considered non- pathological. Asexuality was seen as deviant: an incomplete and repressed way of experiencing sexuality, not unlike other queer identities perceived as sites of necessary medical intervention by psychoanalysts and sexologists alike.

The meaning of asexuality has been politically and culturally contingent; its perception has shifted over time, while being embedded in conceptions of race, class, and gender.

Przybylo adds that the second half of the 20th century saw another shift in the understanding of (a)sexuality. Once again, this shift was largely focused on the experiences of cisgender, heterosexual, middle class white women. The so-called ‘sexual revolution’ of the 50s and 60s sought to liberate women in their sexual desires and pleasures. Many feminists saw the clitoris as a site of female agency in sexual pleasure, as opposed to the vagina, which had been considered the place of male-defined, hetero-coitus. The clitoris became the symbol of sexual autonomy in contexts where sexual freedom was often equated with general freedom. Frigidity was perceived by many as a patriarchal tool for gendered oppression, originating in false assumptions about female anatomy. These concerns are clearly problematic in the way that they define femininity in physical, biological terms. The movement for sexual liberation largely excluded the experiences of non-binary and trans femmes, and failed to account for the plurality of lived experiences of femininity. Asexuality was relegated to the sphere of conservatism and gendered oppression.

During this period, feminists like Dana Densmore and Valerie Solanas rejected the idea of sex altogether and proposed radical celibacy as a way to undo patriarchal institutions, such as the family, which were seen as violent and oppressive. However, these discussions positioned a lack of sexuality as a political choice and not as a legitimate queer sexual orientation. This conceptualization of asexuality as a political stance contributed to the continued perception of sexuality and sexual attraction as natural to humans. Indeed, some kind of sexual feeling would be necessary to precede the choice to challenge or reject it. Encouraging radical celibacy did offer an interesting counterpoint to discourses of sexual liberation and opened up conversations about the empowering potential of not engaging in sexual acts. However, it did not challenge gender binary and heteronormative conceptions of sex, remained limited to the privileged decisions of largely white middle and upper class women, and did not account for the plurality of lived experiences of femininity and asexuality.

To summarize the past centuries, asexuality has mostly been excluded from historical understandings of sexuality, except where it was seen as a disorder or a political decision. Asexuality as a non-pathological, mostly lifelong characteristic was reserved to the study of plants and animals, and only started to appear in studies on humans in the 1980s, albeit minimally. According to Przybylo, discourses on sexuality remain saturated by the sexual imperative and the heterocoital cluster. The sexual imperative refers to the ways in which “sex is privileged above other ways of relating,” and the ways in which sexuality and the self are understood to be fused. In other words, the sexual imperative encourages us to understand sexuality as inherent to being human, so that sexual intimacy is perceived to be superior to other forms of closeness. Przybylo adds that “sex is configured as ëhealthyí (in particular, culturally designated contexts).” See the many studies and articles detailing the benefits of sex, from supposedly clearer skin and happier moods to reduced risks of cancer and lower blood pressure. Finally, she writes that “sex remains genital, orgasmic, ejaculatory, and in the case of heterosex, coital.” Here she is referring to the heterocoital cluster, which defines what types of sex are ‘appropriate’ and ‘acceptable.’ More specifically, heterosexual coital sex in which the orgasm is an imperative. Sex is seen as the evidence and enactment of pleasure and health, in specific contexts which fit into dominant discourses around acceptable sexualities.

From narratives of female passionlessness and passivity to a reclaiming of sexual desires and pleasure as natural and empowering, asexuality has been largely overlooked in western history and mostly considered pathological or political. The absence of asexuality as a sexual orientation in dominant discourses of the last centuries shapes the ways in which we accept the sexual imperative today and still fail to challenge its implications.

Asexuality in queer and feminist spaces

Today, we must prevent the continued exclusion of asexuality in narratives about human sexuality if we want to effectively question the sexual imperative and its harmful effects. This means consciously including asexuality in conversations about queerness, feminism, and disability, so that asexuality may be accepted as a legitimate queer sexual orientation — non-pathological and not equal to celibacy.

Feminists and members of the queer community seek to challenge the heteronormative and gender binary implications of the sexual imperative and heterocoital cluster. I argue that in order to effectively dismantle these dominant narratives, asexuality must be included in discussions about queerness, sex-positivity, and consent, if said discussions want to be inclusive of all experiences related to sexuality, and not foster harmful sex-normative representations of human relationships and intimacy.

When coming out to friends as asexual and panromantic, I have often been met with disbelief and suggestions on how to live my queerness in a ‘more fulfilling way.’ Well-intentioned folks have suggested that I ‘experiment’ more before restricting myself to identifying as asexual. Intimate and sexual partners have asked me what they could do so that I would enjoy sexual contact with them, as though I was awaiting their skilled hands to ‘cure me’ of my lack of sex drive and absence of sexual pleasure. These reactions invalidate asexuality as a sexual orientation and present it as a phase defined by unfulfilled or immature sexuality. While some people who identify as asexual for some time may later change this label, the queer community must accept anyone who finds the word asexual useful to describe themselves for any period of time. Asexuality is not a condition to be cured nor a phase to be gotten over. It is a legitimate sexual orientation. Queer and feminist spaces claim to respect and validate varied sexual experiences and not shame anyone for their sexual behaviour. Accepting asexual people who do not engage in sexual acts should be recognized as a vital part of this sex-positive mandate.

When coming out to friends as asexual and panromantic, I have often been met with disbelief and suggestions on how to live my queerness in a ‘more fulfilling way.’

There is a widespread idea that to be radical and queer, one must be ‘sexually liberated,’ i.e. that bodily agency and sexual empowerment go hand in hand with engaging in sexual acts confidently and frequently. This idea often centres conversations on consent around what giving consent looks like, and how important it is to receive and formulate consent. Although these discussions are extremely important, I argue that we should also focus on what not giving consent looks like, and how empowering it can be to (be able to) say ‘no.’

Folks who identify as asexual are often pressured into giving consent because they are made to feel like consenting to sexual acts is the only way to be seen as ‘valuable’ and ‘normal.’ Societal expectations of sexuality delegitimize the experiences and needs of asexual people, making us especially vulnerable to situations in which we may verbally give consent, but sex remains unwanted, and is therefore non-consensual. Consent requires that both parties negotiating the consent have equal power; in a society defined by the sexual imperative, in which not wanting sex is seen as deviant by many, asexual folks are often made to feel powerless when offered sex. I have in the past given consent reluctantly because it was easier than having to come out to my sexual partner; than having a potentially draining and alienating conversation; than possibly offending them and making them feel guilty about my lack of attraction towards them.

Folks who identify as asexual are often pressured into giving consent, because they are made to feel like consenting to sexual acts is the only way to be seen as ‘valuable’ and ‘normal.’

Acknowledging asexuality in conversations on consent means not expecting to hear ‘yes’ every time when asking for consent. It must not be a routine formality. It must be a conscious, mindful conversation where partners feel comfortable saying ‘no’ and are validated in their need to set boundaries, without being made to feel guilt or shame. Not feeling sexual attraction does not mean being repressed or conservative. It is not linked to political affiliations, religious feelings, or a denial of natural desires. Asexuals do not need to be corrected or liberated in order to be accepted within the queer community. In our fight against the harmful effects of heteronormativity, patriarchy and imposed gender binaries, we must not forget that sex-positivity does not mean sex-normativity. While sex-positivity can be beneficial and empowering, sex-normativity (and the sexual imperative) are harmful in the ways they exclude and silence the asexual community.

Discourses on asexuality and disability

It is also essential to include asexuality in conversations about disability. In an episode of the television newsmagazine 20/20, a sexologist tells a group of interviewed asexuals, “And your saying you don’t miss [sex] is like someone in a sense who’s colour-blind is saying, ‘I don’t miss colour’ — of course you don’t miss what you’ve never had.” Speaking from an able-bodied perspective, the therapist uses an analogy with disability to invalidate people’s experiences of asexuality, assuming both to be abnormal conditions linked to a lack of an important component of life, which must be medically cured.

Today, folks with disabilities are often denied sexual feeling and perceived as lacking sexual potency. In her essay, “Asexuality in Disability Narratives,” Eunjung Kim explains that in some contexts “asexuality is not only an assumption, but also a moral imperative: disabled people ought be asexual.” This can be seen in violent efforts to desexualize folks with disabilities. Desexualization is a process which seeks to separate sexuality from bodies with disabilities, and it can affect people at any stage of life through objectification and dehumanization. For example, Kim explains that children with disabilities are often excused from sexual education classes, as they are deemed ‘unnecessary.’ It is clear that the people making this decision are assuming that disabled children will not (or cannot) engage in sexual activities. Adolescents may see their social encounters closely monitored by professionals and family members, and may be denied access to health care services such as family planning. Adults with disabilities are often infantilized and seen as deviant or shameful if they engage in sexual acts.

In conversations about disability, we must challenge the dominant idea that all people with disabilities are asexual, and fight against desexualizing practices. However, we must also respond positively to people with disabilities coming out as asexual.

In some cases, desexualization can take the form of reproductive control and forced sterilization, as was the case in the highly controversial operations imposed on Ashley X. Born with static encephalopathy (a brain impairment which means she is assumed to remain at infant level mentally and physically), she underwent growth attenuation operations including hysterectomy and breast bud removal to prevent menstruation and development of secondary sexual characteristics, even though she was unable to consent to these medical interventions. This forced desexualization was understood to make her disability less distressing to her family and caretakers. The case of Ashley X demonstrates the very material ways in which disability and sexuality are made to be incompatible.

In response to the enforced asexuality of people with disabilities, disability activists have done important work to reclaim the sexual feelings and experiences of people with disabilities. According to Kim, “disability activists in sex-positive movements often attack the stereotype of disabled people as asexual.” Although this seeks to enable systematically desexualized people to enjoy the current sexual culture, and to challenge the myth that all people with disabilities are asexual, it sometimes dismisses all asexual orientations themselves as myth. This leads asexual people with disabilities to be understood as the “products of an oppressive society,” who have internalized these myths and have accepted sexual oppression. In conversations about disability, we must challenge the dominant idea that all people with disabilities are asexual, and fight against desexualizing practices. However, we must also respond positively to people with disabilities coming out as asexual, and validate their sexual orientation, if asexuality is to stop being perceived as pathological and curable, or as the result of internalized oppression.

Toward new definitions of asexuality

Beyond including asexuality in conversations around feminism, queerness, and disability, I believe that we must reflect critically upon the widely accepted definition of asexuality itself, and the ways in which the asexual community presents itself today. Of course, these opinions are my own and do not reflect those of the whole asexual community. I also draw largely on the work of CJ Deluzio Chasin in their essay “Reconsidering Asexuality and its Radical Potential,” to argue that we should challenge the concept of asexuality as an ‘absence,’ and the current image of the ‘real asexual.’

As mentioned already, the widespread definition of asexuality is a ‘lack of sexual attraction toward others.’ This definition is often completed by the idea that this ‘lack’ does not cause asexuals any distress. This precision is added to create a clear distinction between asexuality and Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD), which is considered a sexual dysfunction characterized by a lack of sexual desire causing distress or interpersonal difficulties, as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The fact that the definition of asexuality still leaves room for HSDD diagnosis creates a “binary opposition between people who should be accepted as asexual and people who are ‘legitimate subjects’ of psychiatric intervention,” according to Chasin. The definition does not challenge either the diagnosis or the psychiatric institution governing it. Chasin adds, “If a person is upset about being asexual because [they] live in a world inhospitable to asexual people, we need to change the world, not the person.” However, HSDD diagnosis implies that we should ‘change the person’ through medical means, and the current definition of asexuality leaves room for this. When coming to terms with a lack of sexual attraction, asexuals will often be met with negative responses from others, leading them to seek some kind of diagnosis or medical solution to ‘change themselves’ before coming out and accepting themselves as asexual. Pathologizing non-conformity to sexual norms and medicalizing the distress caused by aphobia are harmful and oppressive practices. They perpetuate the idea that one should be made sexual if they can, and should be accepted as a lifelong asexual only if this attempt fails. This creates a hierarchy in which being sexual is superior and more desirable than being asexual.

Indeed, defining asexuality as a ‘lack’ implies that asexual people are ‘missing out’ on an aspect of life, and that our sexual orientation is overwhelmingly defined by the absence of something essential to others. I am not saying we should necessarily modify this definition, and I acknowledge that it is useful for many to account for the variety of experiences of asexuality, as well as to explain to non-asexual people how we feel, but I do want to encourage people to reflect critically on its implications. As Chasin explains, conceptualizing the defining characteristic of asexuality as a lack perpetuates the idea that asexual people do not have some of the experiences that sexual people do. In actuality, asexual people also have experiences that non-asexual people have never lived. Perhaps other definitions are not yet available to us because we are socialized to value sexuality and sexual intimacy above other forms of intimacy and other types of relationships, and because the language to define asexuality as anything but a lack does not yet exist. Moving toward conversations where asexuality is not perceived as an absence can help create the language needed to better understand asexual experiences.

Moving toward conversations where asexuality is not perceived as an absence can help create the language  needed  to better understand asexual experiences.

The superiority of sexuality over asexuality is unquestioned, even as awareness around asexuality spreads, and defining asexuality as a lifelong orientation that does not cause distress has implications for the visibility of certain asexual experiences over others. From this definition, Chasin discusses the image of the ‘real asexual,’ who “gets to be believed and accepted as asexual.” This person has all the normative characteristics of the ‘ideal sexual person,’ but since they have always been asexual, they must be accepted as such. This person, for example, does not have a history of abuse or mental health issues, is not overly sex-repulsed and has tried to be sexual without success, is able-bodied, happy, and outgoing. This person is also usually white, from the middle or upper class, cisgender, and heterosexual or occasionally aromantic. As asexuality occupies more space in public spheres, people outside of our community build a normative idea of what it means to be asexual, and not conforming to this image may mean being invalidated, silenced, or forced to undergo a form of ‘treatment’ or corrective violence. The pressure to conform to an idea of asexuality that does not challenge sex-normativity leads to self-censorship in order to avoid losing legitimacy as an asexual.

However, we should not have to choose between voicing our sexual orientation as we truly experience it, and public visibility and acceptance. If we want asexuality to stop being understood as a ‘lack,’ ‘less than,’ pathological, or curable, all experiences of asexuality must be heard and legitimized. Conversations must account for the many lived experiences of asexuality, which prove it should not be dismissed as an ‘absence,’ but instead understood as part of the complex ways in which we all navigate different forms of attraction and feelings for others.

It is not until every asexual has a voice regardless of their past experiences, gender identity, romantic orientation, class, race, age, or ability, that we can effectively challenge sex-normativity and the sexual imperative. This starts by questioning our definitions of asexuality and thinking critically about the way we view asexual people, as well as the normative assumptions behind these perceptions. It means including asexual voices in conversations around queerness, feminism, and disability, but also race and class. It means unlearning the hierarchies we have internalized, which place sexual intimacy and relationships above other equally fulfilling and powerful forms of closeness. Finally, it means believing and validating any and all asexual experiences, as the beginning of a larger conversation to redefine our understandings of sexual and romantic orientations.

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There is something fantastical about having sex over airwaves: over the phone, over text, over webcam. The immateriality of the sex, the very absence of bodies physically touching, makes anything and everything possible. What new ways can we create for our bodies to relate to each other when they can’t actually touch one another? How can we re-imagine what our bodies look like and what they are capable of?

Technologically mediated sex—sex that happens through technology like phones and computers—fucks with reality as we commonly perceive it. It fucks with common understandings of sex, it fucks with space and place, and it fucks with concepts of gender, especially as they relate to the body. I talk about each of these fuckeries in turn.

Fucking with sex

Phone sex, webcam sex, and sexting fuck with common notions of sex, because each of these methods preclude the body touching body. As a queer and trans person, the kind of sex I have when I am physically present with someone already confuses common notions of what sex should look like (i.e. penis in vagina sex). When I map my queerness and my transness onto technologically mediated sex, I begin to tease out contradictions inherent in our common ideas of sex and pleasure. If I am touching only myself, but I’m doing that with someone else who is not physically present, are we having sex? Is it sex if I am physically alone but feel psychically connected to the person on the other side of the line? And what if I’m not touching myself? Is it sex if it only occurs in our imaginations, in the airwaves? How do we define sex? How do we know when sex has occurred?

Fucking with space and place

I’ve been thinking about the ways that I fuck my boo with my hands. How the hands I fuck them with when I’m physically with them are the same hands that handle the phone I sext them with. These hands type the words that drive them wild. These hands take the photos that make them hard. So no matter if I am sharing space with them or if they are hundreds of miles away, the same hands still make them feel so so good. The same hands are still fucking them.

Technologically-mediated sex begins to blur the boundaries between my hands and their hands, between myself and my partner. When I touch myself over the webcam, and I’m watching my partner touching themself and I’m watching me touching myself, who is touching whom? Are these my hands or theirs on my body? Are those my hands or theirs fucking them? What is the difference? Whose pleasure is whose? Is their pleasure mine? Is mine theirs?

A number of years ago, I read Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, and I distinctly remember the part of the book in which two characters, Joey and Connie, start having phone sex regularly. Franzen writes, “Joey, as he climaxed again, believed that he was with Connie in her bedroom on Barrier Street, his arching back her arching back, his little breasts her little breasts. They lay breathing as one into their cell phones.” Intimacy mediated by airwaves breaks down the barriers between two people. Joey confuses Connie’s body with his own, her pleasure with his own, her location with his own. They became one and the same. Just as sex that happens in person blurs the boundary between the people involved, sex that happens over the airwaves does too. Just as I can’t tell the difference between my hands and those of my partner’s, our bodies blur into one another, even as they occupy different physical locations.

Fucking with gender

There’s another part about Joey and Connie’s phone sex in Freedom that really caught my attention, and it was this particular fantasy: “One afternoon, as Connie described it, her excited clitoris grew to be eight inches long, a protruding pencil of tenderness with which she gently parted the lips of [Joey’s] penis and drove herself down to the base of its shaft.” I was particularly struck by this passage, all those years ago, because of the ways that Connie and Joey’s phone sex fucked with their genitals, made them do things that they could never do anywhere but in the airwaves.

As a genderfluid trans person, phone sex, sexting, and webcam sex function as sites of potential and transformation, where I not only fuck the person at the end of the line, I also fuck gender. Technologically mediated sex occurs through spoken and written words as well as curated images. These words and images create a world of their own. In the world that they create, my body can look and act in ways that fuck with common notions of gender. One minute, I can be getting a blow job from my boo, and the next, they can be fisting me. Sometimes we can even do both at once. In phone sex, I can have six different hands, touching my partner’s body everywhere at once. When I sext, I can have a cock, a clit, and a cunt. And these genitals may indicate my gender, or they may not – they may just indicate the kind of pleasure I want that day, or the way I am relating to my body that day.

Fucking with reality, fucking into fantasy

Webcam sex, sexting, and phone sex allow for different opportunities and transformation, informed by the specific medium within which sex is occurring. Sexting is mediated by text and images, phone sex by the spoken word and sounds, and webcam sex by moving images and sounds. Each of these media can be fucked with differently, each of them opening up new ways of relating to ourselves and each other.

Technologically mediated sex expands the possibilities for sex and intimacy available to us. The airwaves offer a site of fantastical transformation, where our beings and our bodies can do anything we ask of them. Exploring my body and others’ bodies through the immateriality of webcam sex, phone sex, and sexting has opened up new potentialities of relating to gender, touch, sex, and self.

Sex over the airwaves has the power to change how we define sex culturally. It can change the ways that we understand our bodies and their limit(lessness). It can challenge heteronormative modes of relating to one another. It can even allow for us to travel to different dimensions, fucking with time, space, place, and materiality. Sex over the airwaves is above all a conversation, and I believe it is one we should be having much more often.

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I am non-binary. I was assigned male at birth. When disclosing that I am transgender on dating apps, I usually put forward a trans female identity. People understand “trans woman” better than “non-binary.”

Disclosing that I am trans doesn’t always happen in the same way, since I don’t communicate being trans on my Tinder profile. To start, there’s the classic of simply telling the person “I am trans.” If you talk about trans-related topics, people often assume or ask. One of the ways I favour treating as a known or mundane fact, casually referring to my transitude when it’s relevant to the conversation. My absolute favourite has to be penis jokes, though! The guy says something about something being hard, to which I’ll reply: “…like my penis.” It’s doubly funny because I haven’t been able to have erections since I started taking hormones.

Reactions range, but you’d probably be surprised that outright rejection is not particularly common. The reality is that, for the most part, men are fine sleeping with trans women. The more conventionally attractive, the happier they are. It’s dating us and admitting to being attracted to us that’s the bigger barrier.

Whether they’re interested in sleeping with transfeminine people or are on the fence, one can discern a persistent discomfort. They’re attracted, and they’re afraid that that makes them gay.

The easy answer, of course, would be to reassure them. No, no, you’re not gay. How would being attracted to women make you gay? It wouldn’t. Some women have penises. Women’s penises are not male genitalia, but female genitalia. They’re all small and pink and cute.

However true that may be, it’s not the perspective I want us to take. What I want us to consider is the “what if…” side of things. What if it were gay?

“I don’t want to sleep with a trans woman because that would be gay,” says Gary. Gary is not attracted to trans women, and when asked about it, links it to the fact that he’s not gay.

“I don’t want to sleep with a trans woman because that would be gay,” says Jonathan. Jonathan is attracted to a trans woman. He doesn’t mind that she has a penis as far as attraction goes; if anything, it’s a bit of a turn-on for him. However, Jonathan identifies as a straight man and believes that trans women are men. So he refuses to sleep with trans women.

I suspect that more cases fall under the second scenario than under the first. Genitalia is a small part of the totality that constitutes sexual attraction and most people will be attracted to someone or not before they know which genitalia they have. Although one may prefer certain types of sexual acts to others, it’s implausible that a small body part would negate the (strong) attraction that was already established. Cisheteronormativity runs deep in our society, and people experience strong conscious and unconscious pressures to conform to those standards, which sheds doubts on the authenticity of swift changes in attraction. You don’t usually go from being attracted to someone one minute to not being attracted at all the next.

This is also confirmed by my experience with dating apps. The more conventionally attractive I appeared, the less men seemed to care. If genitalia were a strong determinant of attraction, we would expect the rate of people changing their minds to remain stable. Were they balancing their desire with the risk of appearing gay for their sexual interest? Probably.

The more conventionally attractive I appeared, the less men seemed to care.

Sexual orientation is about attraction, not behaviour. If you’re attracted to men and women, you’re bisexual whether or not you’ve slept with both men and women. Imagine if experience were necessary. Could anyone be pansexual given the endless variety of non-binary genders?

Remember, we’ve assumed for argument’s sake that there’s something gay about liking or sleeping with women who have penises. We’re forced to conclude that Jonathan is gay. Or, if we understand sexual orientation, either bisexual or pansexual. Either way, he’s not straight.

When Jonathan tells us that he doesn’t want to sleep with trans women because it conflicts with his straightness, we would have to conclude that he’s in bad faith. He’s not straight, and he’s only denying his own attraction in order to put up a facade of straightness in a world that devalues queerness.

That’s pretty gay.

Should Jonathan deny his own attraction in order to maintain his identity as straight? Should Jonathan avoid sleeping with people he’s attracted to in order to avoid admitting his own queerness? That seems wrong. He may not want to tell others, but that’s another issue. We’re talking of self-denial here, not of privacy. Jonathan is queer whether or not he sleeps with trans women, so he might as well. Sex can be fun! There are plenty of good reasons not to sleep with people. “It’s gay” is not one of them.

We’re a small portion of the population. A bit over 1/200. Perhaps around one per cent for our age group. Chances are you won’t sleep with a trans woman even if you want to. Plus we’re really bloody picky and tend to sleep with other queer and trans people, which makes it even less likely for you. So I want to point out another sex act where my argument is relevant.

Pegging.

The precise definition of pegging is unclear once we stray outside the boundaries of cis existence. From a cis perspective, pegging is when a woman puts a strap-on and engages in anal sex with a man as the receptive partner. It’s lovely, and also works for transfeminine people who are unable to have erections. I particularly appreciate it, on a personal level, because of the dysphoria I experience regarding my penis. The strap-on seems to confirm, symbolically, that my penis doesn’t belong there.

I’ve talked to men and women who were interested in trying pegging with their partners. Women are often concerned that their partner will refuse, whereas the men are concerned that it’d make them gay. See how my analogy works? Yeah.

The same rationale applies. It’s immaterial whether pegging is gay. If it’s gay, then congratulations you’re gay–or more likely bisexual or pansexual. If it’s not gay, then it’s not gay.

Either way, whether you’re gay or not isn’t based on whether you engage in pegging. So go ahead. You have a prostate, might as well use it!

The point I want to make here is this: it doesn’t matter whether sleeping with trans women is gay or not. If it’s not gay, then it’s not gay. If it’s gay, then you’re gay for being interested–whether or not you sleep with us. In any case, sleeping with us doesn’t change anything about your queerness. So, stop worrying and just do what you feel like doing. Don’t restrict yourself because of silly social constructs.

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Travis Alabanza is a “a performance artist, theatre maker, poet and writer that works and survives in London, via Bristol. Their multidisciplinary practice uses a combination of poetry, theatre, soundscapes, projection, and body-focussed performance art to scream about their survival as a Black, trans, gender-non-conforming person in the UK.” Last July, they released their first chapbook, Before I Step Outside [You Love Me]. In it, they talk gender, race, intersectionality, friendship, self-love, community care, navigating public space and transportation as a feminine, non-binary black person, and much more.

Self-care and reader-writer intimacy
The chapbook opens with a direct address to the reader, who is asked to fill in the blanks with their name, in order to receive Travis’ praise and validation:
“______, you deserve more than the violence you experience.
______, you do not deserve the violence you experience.
______, you are not defined by the violence you experience.
______, you deserve more than the violence you experience,
______, you are not the violence you experience.”

Self-care discourse tends toward an exaltation of the individual, the self-made person. When it does so, self-care discourse may lose its potential to solve the loneliness that causes our ills in the first place. Seeing self-care as a practice exclusively done alone prevents us from creating community and practicing community-care. Travis doesn’t fall into this trap. Rather, they directly engage the reader in a mutual caring system: Travis’ self-care recital is shared by both themself and the reader as we read their words. As the reader’s voice blends with Travis’ voice, we practice self-care together, disrupting the loneliness we, as trans and racialized people, experience as people of intersecting identities.

Travis’ chapbook is something akin to a diary. It is constructed as a conversation you might have with a close friend. They reveal stories of their day-to-day life, heavy with political consequence, but also intimately connecting the reader to them in shared hardships. One of the poems they share “was written in 3 minutes after someone threw a chicken burger at [them] in broad daylight. [They] have not re-edited it. It remains the same.” This poem transcribes the violence that gender non-conforming people experience on a day-to-day basis by direct aggressors and the heavier violence of silent bystanders. The simplicity of its creation creates a profoundly intimate connection with Travis — you could’ve been the friend they texted in the three minutes after it happened.

As the reader’s voice blends with Travis’ voice, we practice self-care together, disrupting the loneliness we, as trans and racialized people, experience as people of intersecting identities

Living non-binary
At the core of the chapbook is Travis’ experience of non binarity. Their poem “THE SEA” draws out this experience:
“Cis people ask me what my gender feels like and that never allows me to say what my gender really is.
My gender feels like something stopped halfway through.
A badly formatted tape to CD conversion, missing full potential.
The second character on a video game, without levels, no up or down.
It feels like an unfinished
A body of water, potential to do so much, yet eventually bottled.
Sometimes I stand by the edge of where the ocean meets the beach, and look out into the sea, that looks out over my gender, that pours over my body, and makes me feel like nothing.”
Travis expresses a feeling I believe is well-known to non-binary people. Performing and knowing one’s own gender(s) as non-binary feels infinite, but this incredible choice comes with a certain loneliness, unfinishedness, to having so much space to create one’s own gender and so few models to replicate and claim authenticity from.

“It is realising that we do not always meet people at the gender that they wish they could be. It’s opening the conversation up from ‘kill all men’ to — ‘maybe not everyone who says they are a man is one.’” — Travis Alabanza

Sketching trans-feminine futures
Travis’ often explores their experiences with transfeminity and follows with discussion of the associated systemic violence imposed on trans feminine people. They draw out of their experience to sketch a radically tangible trans future beyond the binary, and beyond punitive, exclusionary, and categorizing systems. “MOONLIT BROTHERS” is one of the poems where they describe an experience of transphobic violence, and go beyond the scene to point the reader to the source of transphobia. They write “You say faggot and I hear that I love you.” What if transphobes actually wanted to be trans? Regretted that they couldn’t be trans? Desired trans people? What if, as they say in the diary entry “ON FAGGOTRY,” “not everyone who says they are a man is one?”

Indeed, throughout their chapbook, Travis sketches the violence they experience as their aggressor’s projected gender anxieties and desires: if people weren’t so uneasy with their assigned gender, why would they bother with people who are? Seeing someone embodying a reality, presenting in a way that you desire but are too scared to embody yourself is triggering. Indeed, it reminds you of the fear of realising that something you desire intimately is possible. So Travis says that when they hear slurs, they also hear “I love you” — their aggressors are too scared to break away from the gender they were assigned, although they wish for nothing but to do so. Although this should not obscure the violence that the initial slur conveys, Travis proposes that what they are experiencing is not just violence; it is also their aggressor’s discomfort with their own gender and sexual desire for Travis.

This is crucial to understanding why the politics of this chapbook are so important. Gay liberation movements have in part pushed for hate crime legislation, as a way of controlling and allegedly deterring homophobes. Travis proposes a more holistic project for trans liberation: what if we saw the aggressors as people in pain? What if we found, without disregarding the victim’s primary claim to oppression, a response not of criminalisation and exclusion, but rather a socially transformative process of breaking away from the gender binary? They write, “I am hoping for a world that does not just tolerate me, but actively loves me, uplifts me, protects me, and celebrates me. It is not enough to just be tolerated, I want to feel loved.”

“You say faggot and I hear that I love you.” — Travis Alabanza

Conclusion
Works like Travis Alabanza’s chapbook have contributed to my greater understanding and realization of my non-binary identity from across oceans. In sharing this open political project, Travis Alabanza offers legitimacy to everyone’s identity beyond the binary, beyond seas, across borders, and sketches futures where genders are never boxed, instead, they fluctuate and blossom freely.

Their chapbook can be ordered online at alabanza.bigcartel.com for only £7 plus shipping costs at travisalabanza.bigcartel.com. “Do not just consume us, support us!”

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For most parents, assigning gender roles to their newborn is a naturalized no-brainer, as many do not grasp the weight of their ruling. Our gender expression is the product of years of rehearsal, compounded with social rewards and, more significantly, punishments for straying from the script. Indeed, few of us exit the womb preferring racecars to ribbons — we’re drooling pudgy cherubs, after all. However, the stage is set by the colour of our nurseries, the plots of our fairy tales, and the forces of socialization that mold boys and girls into their roles.

But what happens when queer kids stray from cis-normative scripts and aren’t certain they want to tell their parents? In Alberta, it’s become a politicized issue — one so massive that the political right has triggered an aggressive moral panic. The United Conservative Party of Alberta has demonized Gay Straight Alliances in schools for exposing children to gender diversity and providing a safe space for isolated queer students. Conservative leader, Jason Kenney, is demanding that teachers break the confidence of vulnerable queer kids by outing students to their parents. What social conservatives who shudder at boys wearing makeup fail to see is that we are ultimately all drag queens.

What’s even more intriguing than the illusion of scandalous hyperfemininity in drag shows is the illusion of gender itself. The performance of masculinity, for example, in “duck dynasty culture” and amongst fraternity bros is equally as contrived. The difference, of course, is that drag queens intentionally present a façade, whereas chest-thumping jocks project a staged authenticity. In this way, the “realness” of gender, be it on drag queens, tiara-wearing toddlers, or hockey bros, is ultimately artificial. Subsequently, the absurd theatricality of gender implodes when conservatives shame queer kids, and valorize their nuclear model of “traditional family values.”

This theatricality had been explored by RuPaul long before he hit mainstream TV, through his performance of punk-rock “gender fucking.” Gender fucking was an iconoclastic middle finger to the script of gender roles — torching the lifetime of rehearsals that penalize femme queer youth. By rejecting the straightjacket of gender oppression, drag performers created a medium through which they could express their individuality.

This wisdom is shared weekly with toddlers at a library in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where drag queens present an event titled “Read By Queens.” The drag queens present a story hour and invite youth to question the seemingly natural gender roles imposed at birth. Through dramatic character transformations, the queens flaunt the artificiality of gender. The hours of gluing brows, padding hips, pinning wigs and artfully re-sculpting their bone structure satirically demonstrate the instability of gender codes. Therefore, given a safe space in libraries or Gay Straight Alliances, kids can subvert the gender binary in sequined gowns, and slowly wrench loose the grip of biological sex roles. How fabulous it is to break the rules.

Granted, flamboyant lipstick and contour can be rinsed away at the end of a nightclub performance, but for many nonbinary and trans folks, gender expression goes beyond a performative aesthetic, and is intrinsic to their very identity. In the same way that non-drag bodies are shaved, sculpted, and inscribed with gender codes, the body of a drag performer presents a stage for rebellious liberation. Rooted in a history of gay and trans activism, drag mocks the oppressive systems that violently punish queer youth.

On a personal level, I began extravagantly transgressing the gender binary before I knew what it was. Photo albums can attest to 5-year-old Quinn strutting about Alberta in orange Anne of Green Gables wigs and oversized womanly regalia. I distinctly remember twisting bath towels into headpieces and lip syncing to ABBA in the mirror. Yet for many queer kids, the home is not a safe space to disobey gender roles. In Canada, LGBTQ teens are four times more likely to attempt suicide and comprise 40 per cent of the youth homeless population. Ostracized queer teens are frequently banished from their biological families and targeted for political points. Conservatives like Jason Kenney weaponize queer children in their deranged supposed defense of youth’s innocence. Through opposing Gay Straight Alliances, Kenney drags kids into the crossfire of the culture wars.

To their credit, some femme-shaming conservatives might grow jealous of queers. Not only do we have marvelous closets, but we constantly concoct colourful new language. And so to remedy this, I am proposing a new term for the heterosexual lexicon to describe the normalized gender performance of Jason Kenney, Stephen Harper, and the like: STRAG (noun): A heterosexual cocktail of “straight” cisgender expression, paired with the off-brand theatricality of drag. Used in a sentence: the strag couple grew uncomfortable at the sight of a drag queen, and hid their strag presenting child from the queen. And so to all queer-phobic strag performers who walk through the streets in their strag outfits, with their strag mannerisms, and strag rules imposed on strag children, I’m afraid your time has come to sashay away.

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Niall Carolan

Carolan is a U3 Strategic Management and Accounting student. He is currently the SSMU Club Auditor, the senior accountant for the Management Undergraduate Society (MUS), and a member of the Funding Committee. Outside of McGill, he worked as the Finance and Operations Manager for a chain of Tim Hortons franchises in the Greater Vancouver area.

Carolan has emphasized his desire to help as many students as possible through the VP Finance position. As such, he cites streamlining the club funding application process as one of the main pillars of his campaign, since many have expressed frustration over how long it takes for funding requests to be approved. This would involve standardizing event budget applications, holding a meeting with all available McGill club financial representatives at the beginning of each semester, and potentially overhauling the funding committee structure. Carolan also seeks to make SSMU’s finances more accessible and transparent for students by putting relevant information on the SSMU website.

As this is the first year that the VP Finance portfolio does not include operations, Carolan plans to work closely with the VP Operations to ensure the long- and short-term financial stability of SSMU. He further recognizes the need for constant communication with the VP Operations to ensure that operational decisions match the financial context in which they are made.

While Carolan recognizes the political nature of SSMU, he believes the VP Finance position should not be politicized, going so far as to say that if the VP Finance focused on politics this would be detrimental to their work. Carolan maintains that SSMU should represent all students’ interests, and thus only take a political stance if that is what the students want. Asked about the tension between leadership and representing a diverse student body, Carolan said that both should be taken into account when making decisions collectively.

Endorsement: Yes, with reservations

Carolan is an exceptionally qualified candidate, with impressive financial experience both at McGill and in external contexts. His platform directly and thoroughly addresses the issue of delayed and disorganized club funding – a major complaint – and demonstrates a robust understanding of the position’s responsibilities.

However, Carolan appears to subscribe to the common misconception that the VP Finance position is, and should be, thoroughly apolitical. He has also expressed a desire to seek out corporate sponsorships and wants to reprioritize the commercial tenants in the Shatner building, indicating a lesser emphasis on student-run services. Ironically, of course, these are deeply political priorities.

As such, The Daily endorses a “yes” vote, with reservations.

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Daniel Lawrie

Lawrie is a U1 Materials Engineering student with no formal experience in student government. Lawrie has emphasized that, to prepare for the role, he has been communicating with outgoing VP Internal Omar El-Sharawy, as well as VPs Internal from the past three years.

Lawrie is running his platform on the three tenets of “communication, organization, and trust.” Like many of his predecessors, Lawrie has noted that the SSMU listserv is largely ignored by students, which leads to an under-informed student population. Lawrie said this led to a turnout of “only” 900 people at the Winter 2016 GA. He proposes supplementing the listserv with information disseminated via the official McGill or MyMartlet apps, which he believes are more accessible. He also emphasizes the use of mobile platforms to “understand what students actually want to see in our school.”

He would also work toward making the Old McGill Yearbook financially viable, since its annual deficit averaged $20,000 by Fall 2015. His suggestions include such options as making the yearbook digital rather than print, as well as introducing a yearbook fee for all students, an idea SSMU entertained this year. He would also work toward increasing attendance at events like 4Floors by returning to hard-copy ticket sales and publicizing the event more vigorously in advance.

Lawrie has expressed that SSMU should not have a political stance to avoid “polarizing” the student body.

Endorsement: No

While Lawrie is confident that the VP Internal role hinges more on enthusiasm than experience, The Daily is less convinced. His efforts to consult with former VPs Internal are commendable, but they are no substitute for first-hand experience with the inner workings of SSMU. Broadly speaking, Lawrie has shown a lack of understanding of SSMU’s operations. His platform is platitudinous and generic, and his opposition to SSMU acting as a political entity is deeply concerning.

As such, The Daily endorses a “no” vote.

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Erin Sobat

Sobat has been actively involved in student politics since 2012, most recently serving as an Arts Senator and Senate Caucus Representative during the 2015-16 academic year. He cited his working knowledge of McGill’s bureucracy as an asset, and said he hoped to “mentor” those newer to student politics.

He has pledged to continue the portfolio’s existing advocacy work with mental health initiatives and the Sexual Assault Policy, as well as pushing for more Indigenous course content. He has noted that as he is not Indigenous himself, his goal to increase Indigenous course content was informed by a report published by an Indigenous McGill student. However, he is also wary of placing too much of a burden of consultation on McGill’s small Indigenous student population.

Sobat told The Daily that, in his opinion, the administration’s view of the university is “disconnected from the student experience,” citing the most important part of the University Affairs role as “bridging that gap.”

Sobat describes his extensive platform as “ambitious.” Among other initiatives, he seeks to empower student advocacy through the “Know Your Rights” campaign, helping students navigate McGill’s confusing policies regarding regarding syllabi, exams, and assignments. He would also fulfil the yet to be completed mandate from the Winter 2015 GA to develop a policy on unpaid internships, which Sobat said would necessitate a summer research project by student staff.

Sobat noted that he’d also prioritize publicizing the advocacy work that SSMU does, calling the work “underappreciated.” He aims to launch a University Affairs website and listserv, neither of which currently exist.

Endorsement: Yes

Sobat’s term as a student senator has prepared him well for the role of VP University Affairs. This experience should allow him to successfully navigate McGill’s bureaucracy and to effectively advocate on behalf of SSMU members to an administration that too often fails to prioritize students’ interests. The care with which Sobat has formulated his plans to continue pushing for Indigenous course content – stressing the need for more Indigenous consultation while acknowledging the disproportionate burden this may place on Indigenous students – shows both thoughtfulness and pragmatism. The Daily also commends Sobat’s platform, which is among the most comprehensive and nuanced in recent years. His unwavering commitment to SSMU’s political nature and social justice priorities is not mere rhetoric, but clearly informs his platform in concrete ways.

In light of these considerations, The Daily wholeheartedly endorses a “yes” vote for Sobat.

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Here at The Daily, we firmly believe that SSMU remains an integral and worthwhile part of student life at McGill. That being said, however, the coming year’s executive team will have to work hard to earn the trust and respect of its constituents. At its best, a student society should foster a diverse, supportive, and accessible university experience, and SSMU certainly has the potential to enrich the lives of its members.

In preparing our endorsements, The Daily spoke to each of the ten candidates about their platforms, relevant experience, and understanding of SSMU’s political role. These interviews have been condensed and paraphrased in order to give a brief overview of every candidate, and the endorsements represent the consensus of our editorial board.

Each candidate’s stance on SSMU as a political actor was crucial in informing our decisions. In the wake of a contentious Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) motion at the Winter 2016 General Assembly (GA), there has been a troubling increase in calls for political neutrality on campus, culminating in a proposed amendment to the SSMU Constitution to screen GA motions deemed “external and divisive.”

We must remember that any stance, including both silence and so-called “neutrality,” is inherently a political one, and that such stances can have a disastrous impact on marginalized communities. Now more than ever, candidates must understand that the notion of an apolitical student society is a dangerous myth to cling to.

Finally, we were disappointed to note that the majority of this year’s executive candidates are white and men. Combined with the language of neutrality employed so frequently throughout this campaign, a largely white, male executive could create a leadership ignorant of its own privilege, and incapable of adequately representing women, racialized people, and other marginalized groups on campus.

Take the time to make an informed decision, and make your voice heard. The voting period runs from March 16 to 18.

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