It Is Complicated

In the second in our Queer Voices series we talk with Dr Joe Parslow -  Lecturer in Popular and Queer Performance and Hashtag Doctor Husband Boyfriend Joe - about drag and queer performance, breathing and togetherness - and the complications around making space and getting to breathe in those spaces. 

The queer notion of breathing together, coming together, and aspiration. Reflecting energy between the performers and the audience. How this connects us all in the space.

We have a transcript for this episode - IIC Episode 55 Transcript

Our Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/itiscomplicated

Give us feedback - we’re on twitter - https://twitter.com/ItIsComplicatd - and Mastodon - https://ohai.social/@itiscomplicated- or leave us a rating or a review on your favourite podcast platform

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This is a special episode of a panel discussion recorded at eNBy City with Dr J, malakai, Haz and Lilly. We are talking to a room of mostly students. 

The event focussed on Queer Joy.

This is the third part of a three part recording.

We have done our best with the recording to clean up the sound during this last part of the panel discussion.

This was recorded for the Hear & Queer Podcast - https://www.youtube.com/@hearqueer5656 

We have a transcript for this episode - IIC Special 3 eNBy City Transcript

Our Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/itiscomplicated

Give us feedback - we’re on twitter - https://twitter.com/ItIsComplicatd - and Mastodon - https://ohai.social/@itiscomplicated- or leave us a rating or a review on your favourite podcast platform

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is a special episode of a panel discussion recorded at eNBy City with Dr J, malakai, Haz and Lilly. We are talking to a room of mostly students. 

The event focussed on Queer Joy.

This is the second part of a three part recording.

Be aware about half way through we pulled the recording equipment apart - and it means the audio quality drops - I’ve done my best to equalise it and improve it - malaki and myself still have a pretty much working mic, Haz, Lilly and the audience have a mic that isn’t working so well

This was recorded for the Hear & Queer Podcast - https://www.youtube.com/@hearqueer5656 

We have a transcript for this episode - IIC Special 2 eNBy City Transcript

Our Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/itiscomplicated

Give us feedback - we’re on twitter - https://twitter.com/ItIsComplicatd - and Mastodon - https://ohai.social/@itiscomplicated- or leave us a rating or a review on your favourite podcast platform

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is a special episode of a panel discussion recorded at eNBy City with Dr J, malakai, Haz and Lilly. 

The event focussed on Queer Joy.

This is the first part of a two (or more) part recording.

This was recorded for the Hear & Queer Podcast - https://www.youtube.com/@hearqueer5656 

We have a transcript for this episode - IIC Special eNBy City Transcript

Our Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/itiscomplicated

Give us feedback - we’re on twitter - https://twitter.com/ItIsComplicatd - and Mastodon - https://ohai.social/@itiscomplicated- or leave us a rating or a review on your favourite podcast platform

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When asked the question “where do you want to be in ten years?” we break down - why? We spend so much time surviving, how do we then look towards a future? Our futures we see are not chrononormative, and we often step outside of the standard expectations.

How do we see ambition, and its link to opportunity? Can you be ambitious when you can’t believe you can achieve it? What does ambition mean when you always think you won't have another chance to have a job? What does it mean when you have been knocked back consistently?

When opportunity is there and we don’t have the drive, or ambition, what does that mean? Is it about our difference? Our lack of linear progression? What does mainstream ambition mean when you’re non-normative? Does being trans and non-binary impact on our desire for mainstream success?

How does this impact on us in the workplace? In job interviews? Does a company seeing a place for us make a difference?

We then get into the breathtaking nature of Keanu Reeves in Cyberpunk 2077, voice acting, the tall stompy lady, and storytelling in games. We mention:

Cyberpunk 2077

Resident Evil Village

Thomas was alone

Hugwave (from itch.io)

We have a transcript for this episode - IIC Episode 54 Transcript

Our Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/itiscomplicated

Give us feedback - we’re on twitter - https://twitter.com/ItIsComplicatd and Mastodon - https://ohai.social/@itiscomplicated- or leave us a rating or a review on your favourite podcast platform

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the first in our Queer Voices series we talk with queer legend, writer and performer Kate Bornstein. We set off talking about Hope, flow through ideas of gender expression and authenticity, the nature of being authentic. If Hope and Fear are a binary, or can co-exist in a moment.

We enter the realms of superheroes and secret identities, why Batman is an Elon Musk wank fantasy, and why Neil Gaiman’s Endless are perfection as a theology to lean into. 

We land on queer joy as the connected reflections of our authentic selves, making our hearts sing! Queer joy may also have a Freddie Mercury moustache and a purple leopard print corset and heels!

We have a transcript for this episode - IIC Episode 53 Transcript

Your Get out of Hell free card GetOutofHellFree.jpeg

Our Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/itiscomplicated

Give us feedback - we’re on twitter - https://twitter.com/ItIsComplicatd - we’d love to connect with you about queer hope and authenticity

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’re back in a rare in the room together recording - We touch on the last six months for both of us - covid features prominently, as does fatigue and mental health. 

Talking about plans, having one, and ambition, or appearing not to have some. Why we want to keep doing this podcast and what plans we have into 2025.

How does it feel to have a three year plan? Well as queers, this is .. complicated.

We made 50+ episodes without any real plan - so why do we think we need one?

We want to be a “good” podcast - and we talk about what “good” means.

The plan then - includes a series called “Queer Voices”.

J explains this in a non-linear musing on “Only an Octave apart” and how Mx Justin Vivian Bond and Anthony Ross Costanzo's voices blend and bring deeper meanings to the songs they duet. 

What happens when Queers are given space to give voice and starting to open that conversation and give space for that conversation to talk about what a queer voice is and what it means to have a queer voice and how those queer voices can change some of the meanings of what we're listening to. 

We get deeper into this.

We end on, as always, the breathtaking nature of Keanu Reeves. 

We have a transcript for this episode - IIC Episode 52 Transcript

Our Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/itiscomplicated

Give us feedback - we’re on twitter - https://twitter.com/ItIsComplicatd - we’d love to connect with you about being present.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Well 2022 has been a right nightmare already!! This time we talk (in Dr J’s case very excitedly) about the words we need to hear and what it means to hear them.

Dr J has four things they always wanted to hear - and by saying them to another person - they get to also hear them for themselves:

- I am proud of you

- I love you

- I think you are an amazing person

- I can’t wait to see your brilliant future

Josephine reflects what it means to hear these things - especially when you are struggling with recovery from post-covid fatigue and trying to work full time, teaching, write a PhD, have a life with her partner and child, and editing this podcast. Spending all their spare energy worrying about what they have not been able to do they needed to hear that they are worth spending energy on. 

We are resilient and powerful and have coping mechanisms that protect us. Our hypercritical voice overwhelms the outside voices and the negative voice grinds you down, and you get exhausted and they gain more power.

Coping mechanisms include shedding the skins of old selves, old ways of coping, and putting these aside and looking at what behaviours we do now. In the past help was not there, and we needed to get through, so we found ways. High standards and hypervigilance got us here, and might not be what gets us through now. 

We feel stressed and worried, our brain isolates us further and we forget we are not alone. We loose our connection with external voices and our ability to hear and engage with them. 

When we reach out, connect and are heard it is powerful. We start to connect to reality, we heal, and we get into better spaces.

We want to tell you lovely young queers - hey, it sucks, and I’m sorry you have to cope the way you are right now. I really do hope you find yourself in a position where you don’t have to cope with everything. It’s not about you, it’s about the culture and structures you are in, and your response to that is normal and natural. I am very proud of you, I am very excited to see what you do, and you are loved. And you are an amazing person.

Dr J then raves about the wonderful “Hello cruel world” by Kate Bornstein https://g.co/kgs/m2fsSp - and will send you a copy if you need it if you DM them on Twitter.

Earnestly expressing this, our want to make the world better for everyone is a good thing. Being there for you and for each other makes us feel really lovely things!

Note: There are some sound issues with Josephine’s recording - we decided the emotional content of the episode was worth putting out even if the sound wasn’t up to our standards.

We have a transcript for this episode - IIC Episode 51 Transcript

Our Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/itiscomplicated

Give us feedback - we’re on twitter - https://twitter.com/ItIsComplicatd - we’d love to connect with you about being present.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This time we celebrate creating 50 podcast episodes - or 51, or 52 depending on how you count. We are excited about this - and there are moments when Dr J is obviously super excited. Josephine maintains some sort of dignity. 

When we started the podcast we were both locked down in our spaces without structure from our day jobs (Dr J was furloughed, Josephine was between work), and 18 months later we are still in the same rooms, having conversations, and quite different lives in some ways.

In others not much has changed. The isolation, exacerbated by our queerness, leaves us reaching out for others like us, and reflections of ourselves in media.

This is why making space, and taking up space, in TikTok, in podcasts, and in the world is so important.

We then move onto a long and excited discussion on Matrix Resurrection - and the breathtaking Keanu Reeves (and Carrie-Ann Moss) and what we thought about the film. 

Links: The Matrix Sequels are good, actually - https://youtu.be/M0VnYcMHuDc

We have a transcript for this episode - IIC Episode 50 Transcript

Our Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/itiscomplicated

Give us feedback - we’re on twitter - https://twitter.com/ItIsComplicatd - we’d love to connect with you about being present.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Being in the room and taking up space is difficult. It takes a lifetime to believe that we should be in *this* room having *this* conversation, having self faith, self belief and humility is a challenge. Saying “I am here” is the hardest thing.

It is simply correct that it is this way - I am here is sufficient. It is right that I am included. 

Lack of self belief is a structural problem - there are those (Cis white men with a posh accent) who are assumed to belong, speak, take up space. It is not everyone who gets included by default. We are read when we go into those environments, how you walk in, how you talk, is all used to make judgments about the value placed on your words. 

“I am here, I am present, I am listening” - I am taking up space - how you read me, how you react to my presence in this space has nothing to do with me. That is a huge mind shift, removing that apology, those moments of dissonance, which reduce ourselves in the presence of structure.

Josephine goes on a rant/reflection from a talk on glamour from the Knutepunkt conference from Erik Winther Paisley (@ewpaisley) - which drives us into talking about how we can use the skills we have to boost our confidence and our feeling of correctness when we are here. 

We talk about the things we do to build that belief in ourselves that it is correct we are here. We share our tactics and how we build each other and ourselves up.

We also talk about how breathtaking Keanu Reeves is and why J has watched the Matrix Resurrections trailer many many times. Josephine presses “X” to doubt. 

We have a transcript for this episode - IIC Episode 49 Transcript

Our Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/itiscomplicated

Give us feedback - we’re on twitter - https://twitter.com/ItIsComplicatd - we’d love to connect with you about being present.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.