Zoe Samudzi is a black feminist writer whose work has appeared in a number of spaces including The New Inquiry, Warscapes, Truthout, ROAR Magazine, Teen Vogue,BGD, Bitch Media, and Verso, among others. She is also a member of the 2017/18 Public Imagination cohort of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) Fellows Program, and she is a member of the Black Aesthetic, an Oakland-based group and film series exploring the multitudes and diversities of black imagination and creativity.

She is presently a Sociology PhD student at the University of California, San Francisco in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences where academic interests include biomedicalization theory, productions of race and gender, and transgender health. She is a recipient of the 2016-17 Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship. Her dissertation "'I don’t believe I should be treated like a second citizen by anybody': Narratives of agency and exclusion amongst male and transgender female sex workers in Cape Town, South Africa" engages hegemonic gender constructs in South Africa as they affect identity construction and health of transgender women and cisgender men in sex work.

Zoe sits down with Brett to discuss black feminism and queer theory.

Topics Include: black feminism, marxism and anarchism, schools as institutions of white supremacy, rape culture, queer (and quare) theory, cis-normativity in medical science,  dominant constructions of womanhood, the Jezebel Myth, and much more!

Here is Zoe's website: http://www.zoesamudzi.com/

Follow Zoe on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ztsamudzi

 Recommendations by Zoe for further research:

 

“Ok wanted to shoutout Black trans women doing dope work (in no order):

- Raquel Willis (an amazing writer and a national organizer with the Transgender Law Center)
- Lourdes Ashley Hunter (Executive Director of the Trans Women of Color Collective)
- Reina Gossett (writer, director, and producer of Happy Birthday, Marsha)
- CeCe McDonald (a fundraiser for her: https://www.youcaring.com/cecemcdonald-1003185)
- Miss Major Griffin-Gracy (an iconic community activist and organizer, former Executive Director of the TGI Justice Project)
- Venus Selenite (a writer, performance artist, and cultural critic)
- Kat Blaque (a YouTuber making content and commentary around trans rights & social justice in general)
- Monica Roberts (a blogger/writer and trans rights activist)
- Janetta Johnson (activist/organizer and current Executive Director of the TGI Justice Project)
- L'lerrét Jazelle Ailith (a blogger/writer and Communications Manager for the BYP100)
- Ahya Simone (classically trained harpist and activist)
- Elle Hearns (founder and Executive Director of the Marsha P. Johnson Institute)
- Janet Mock
- Laverne Cox

Also wanted to give a non-exhaustive list of black queer and trans/non-binary thinkers that are doing great writing and scholarly work related to identity that I've really appreciated (again in no order):

- Barbara Smith
- Che Gossett
- C. Riley Snorton
- Hari Ziyad
- Tyler Ford
- Kortney Ziegler
- Derrais Carter
- Lynée Denise
- Kai M. Green
- Joshua Allen
- Jamal Lewis
- TJ Tallie
- Shay Akil McClean
- Kopano Ratele
- Darnell Moore
- Myles E. Johnson
- Zanele Muholi
- E. Patrick Harris
- Lyle Ashton Harris
- Cheryl Dunye

- Ashleigh Shackleford

- Devyn Springer

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Outro Music: 'Badu' by Blackerface, off the album "Mississippi Goddam". You can find their WONDERFUL music here: https://blackerface.bandcamp.com

Follow them on FB here: https://www.facebook.com/faceoppressors/

Intro music by The String-Bo String Duo, you can find their music here: https://tsbsd.bandcamp.com/releases 

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