Cranky Queer Online: New Articles, Poly Panel, Disability and Life Writing, and more
We're always "in person" because we're all people... but some of us are online when others are onsite.
I’m a broken record on this point: I bring my full personhood to everything I do, and a lot of it is online. So it’s not “in person” versus “virtual.” I prefer to say, and hear, that some people or events may be “onsite” and others “offsite” or “online.”
Skip down to the embedded video if you want to watch me on a panel about polyamory, or further down for an invite to this Friday’s hybrid Disability and Life Writing conference at CUNY Grad Center, where I’m a panelist.
Onsite more often
Since September, I’ve been “onsite” a lot more often, as I’m going to grad school at the CUNY Biography and Memoir program. I have pretty good accommodations that include the school ensuring an air filter is in my classrooms (I encouraged them to get the Air Fanta 3Pro, ), requiring professors to make an announcement about availability of masks, provision of KN95 masks for my professors and classmates. I also can take any of my classes remotely when I need to - the school has these nifty Owl towers that really improve audio and video quality, when they work. They don’t always work though…
I’m supposed to be able to remain anonymous, as far as not disclosing that I’m the reason people are being invited to mask — but it’s pretty obvious it’s me, as I’m the vigilant mask wearer in the N95 sitting next to the air filter… and in several classes so far, I’ve had to speak up and explain why I am asking people to mask. But in some other classes, the professors have been great about taking the lead, putting the masking info in the syllabus ahead of time, modeling showing up for class in a good mask, and not placing any explicit or implicit burden on me to disclose anything.
The rates of masking in my classes range from 100% (go Gender and Women’s Studies students!) to 25-30% in a core required class for my program, alas. But given that it’s optional, I’m appreciative to anyone who does it in this day and age…
I’m also hoping to start IVIG in the coming weeks, which would reduce my vulnerability to harm from infections as a person with immune deficiencies and infection-associated complex chronic conditions.
So here’s what I’ve been and will be doing with my onsite time:
CROI 2025 - HIV and other viral research and realities
I got a scholarship to go to CROI in early March. It’s the central US-based HIV science conference that bridges lab and clinical research, and also includes data and discussion on COVID-19 and Long COVID, mpox, hepatitis, TB and more.
It was remarkable to be at The Moscone Center in San Francisco and the fancy Hotel Intercontinental with my CO2 meter: both had tricked out air systems so the readings were in the 500s - close to being outside. Imagine if our schools could be like this…
Nonetheless, I watched the super big plenary sessions online from my hotel, to be on the safe side, rather than being with 1000s of unmasked people. I saw more people wearing masks on the streets of SF than in this conference of scientists, some of whom know better than most in the world about what can happen from repeated COVID-19 infections, alas.
There was a feel of widespread despair at the conference, as these are the people who are having their life’s work quashed, and know that it has already rapidly created more despair and loss of life worldwide.
Recorded sessions from the conference go public after 30 days, so you can find them here soon.
I wrote about sessions on trans people, on menopause and HIV, and on the incredible opening call-to-action speech from one of my earliest mentors, Rebecca Denison. Two of the articles are available now:
POZ: With Data and Determination, HIV Science Conference Urges Commitment to Trans Lives
TheBody.com: You Are (Still) Not Alone: HIV Long-Term Survivor Rebecca Denison Lays Out the Next Phase of the Fight
Polyamory Panel!
In this pretty awful time, how dreamy it was to speak at NYC’s Bureau of General Services/Queer Division with my beloved friends Jaime Grant — author of the new Polyamory for Dummies — and Kelli Dunham! It was also my first time at an event using a transparent panel mask, which seemed to go well.
I was honored to contribute some stories to this book, which is bringing ethical, feminist, queer sex-positive principles to many people who may not have access otherwise, given the broad distribution of this series of books. Even as a person with a lot of poly experience, I found the book very helpful.
Jaime has created a worksheet that invites people to consider “What might a more liberating, open sexuality or family form look like?” and here it is:
You’ll see it asks you to circle 3-5 terms that feel like the matter most for you. I circled 3, then added 6-7 others. She also shared this well-loved sheet developed by Mia Mingus for the Bay Area Transformational Justice Collective for pod mapping. Your pod is the people, groups and organizations you can count on day-to-day or turn to in a crisis. You go in the innermost circle, then enter names of those closest to you and move further out to include those that may be more distinct or broader — so, my chosen family is in the bolded circles closest to me, and the outermost circles include my writing community, my school, and even my favorite (online) radio station WFMU that gives me a sense of belonging.
In fact, after the panel, I drove to the Catskills to catsit for someone — but less than an hour into my journey, my car tire blew out and one of my partners had to drive back from the house in the Catskills to come rescue me — go pod go!
This Friday: Disability and Life Writing Conference
Really excited for this day-long event at my school AND online this Friday. Maybe even a little nervous. I will be wearing a new outfit with a thread count, as advised by one of my partners. Come count the threads or just listen!
Here’s a direct link to register for online viewing.
My understanding is that it will be NOT recorded, due to the nature of topics that people are speaking about. I’ll be talking about life as a chronically ill and disabled queer and trans “illder” who has turned into a Sex God during the COVID-19 pandemic — which is the focus on the memoir I’m working on at the CUNY program.
Here’s the description for my panel (which is from 1-2:30 pm):
Roundtable: Disability & Life Writing: Speaking of, Speaking from, Speaking for
1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.
(Moderated by Julia Miele Rodas) Macael Bowles, JD Davids, Sonia Gonzalez, Lisa Napoli, Mathew Rodriguez
Six writers speak to the significance of disability in their ongoing memoir projects, as a central feature, as a glittering thread, as an inescapable but elusive presence in their written lives. Participants will alternately read short fragments from their work-in-progress and engage one another in conversation around the ways we choose to unfold or contain disability in our own life writing, exploring experiences of psychiatric disability and addiction, parent-child disability relationships, interpersonal violence, sexual celebration, and, persistently, questions of representational ethics.
And here’s the description for the event itself:
La Marr Jurelle Bruce writes of his own disability exploration as “a procession without end, without rest, without closure,” as “always in process, always awake, always open.” In addition to an efflorescence of recent scholarship on disability studies, life writing has been central to this “procession” with works addressing issues related to disability justice, intersectional experience, destabilizing stigma, and expanding popular conversations about disability and chronic illness.
This interdisciplinary and hybrid one-day conference will be devoted to addressing individual lives, lived experiences, and the social experiences of disability and chronic illness through all forms of life expressions. With two roundtables and a conversation with renowned research scientist and MacArthur fellow Joshua Miele, the conference will address the subjective experience of disability, matters of social vulnerability and equality, and possibilities of social change affected by life writing.
I am so impressed by your school! Sounds way better than most !