It Is Complicated

Being ourselves can be complicated - and it is so freeing! In a special episode, we interview the amazing Max Marchewicz (wheeliequeermerbabe on insta) - a BSL interpreter, access consultant, and fellow member of the Queer House Party crew - talking about the joy of being able to be yourself in your workplace, the fun of working online and how that makes a more queer way of working, 

How have our disabilities, our neurodiversity, and our queer life experience helped us navigate the changes the pandemic wrought upon us?

Also covering what a diagnosis can mean around neurodiversity.

Now with improved accessibility - we have a transcript for this episode

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

Give us feedback - we’re on twitter - https://twitter.com/ItIsComplicatd - we’d love to hear your thoughts on the concepts of Social Media.

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

Social Media is complicated - and trolling can be fun! The way we use social media is different when you are non-heteronormative - we use social media to connect to people we don’t know and have never met - more heteronormative people tend to connect to people they do know and have met.

Why do we have these differences in how we use social medias? Are we only creating bubbles?

What are trolls, how do we react to them, and how can we use their tactics for good?

Now with improved accessibility - we have a transcript for this episode

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

Give us feedback - we’re on twitter - https://twitter.com/ItIsComplicatd - we’d love to hear your thoughts on the concepts of Social Media.

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

Value is complicated - How do we value ourselves and each other in an imperfect world that all too often undervalues us? We talk about how to value our time, each other, our differences and our similarities. 

We talk about mutually valuing is a wonderful way to exchange what we value in each other. And we also talk about making sure that we are not undervalued when making those exchanges.

We know it can be really hard to value ourselves, so please know that we value you. And we take a little over 30 minutes this week to tell you just how and why.

Now with improved accessibility - we have a transcript for this episode

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

Give us feedback - we’re on twitter - https://twitter.com/ItIsComplicatd - we’d love to hear your thoughts on the concepts of Gaming.

Image Description - Two people face a large microphone - on the left wearing glasses with blue hair is a person who is some version of non-Binary - they have a heart shaped necklace - on the right wearing glasses and bright red lipstick with white hair is a trans woman with a circular necklace - the mic between them is large retro and chrome styled. Above both of them are the words It Is Complicated

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Gaming is complicated -  How do we understand stories within games? Skyrim might be the only game according to one of us - that doesn’t prevent us talking about the ideas that make games work and how that allows us to make sense of our world. Games are more serious as media than we think - they promote discourse and participation. 

How does modding a game allow us to build on our experience, and build something that allows for us to represent ourselves more within games. 

Why creating the Bandit Protection Society in Skyrim would be a wonderful thing and why is this not a possible choice. Why thinking outside the normative rules of a game is creative and frustrating in turns.

Now with improved accessibility - we have a transcript for this episode

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

Give us feedback - we’re on twitter - https://twitter.com/ItIsComplicatd - we’d love to hear your thoughts on the concepts of Gaming.

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

Building Community is complicated -  How we form networks differs in “queer’ world from straight world. Common experiences help us bond deeply and quickly, and yet those can also be temporary. How does this style work when you try it in the more normative world?

How do we subvert the normative ways of networking to locate and bond with queers like ourselves? How does the description of ourselves and how we interact change when we use a normative lens? We describe queers as parkour runners through the social scripts of interactions.

We also describe the best practices we’ve seen - in Queer House Party - and how they are an exemplar of how these connections are built.

Dr J introduces the notion of using six words in all conversations:

Be Kind

Presume the Best

Empathise

It is also Trans Day of Remembrance on the 20th - there is a vigil online based in the UK - we wanted to remind everyone about this as we Mourn the Dead and fight like hell for the living.

Now with improved accessibility - we have a transcript for this episode

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

Give us feedback - we’re on twitter - https://twitter.com/ItIsComplicatd - we’d love to hear your thoughts on the concepts of Building Community.

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

Getting it out is complicated -  Why it’s important to have a rant buddy. We sometimes need spaces to vent, to get those things off our chest. To talk about what is worrying us, and processing it out of our heads. Without that space, and those people, we suffer - trying to hold things and working things through on your own is hard.

We cover why the podcast started and why we keep talking and talking and ranting. How Covid lockdown made this wonderful thing exist.

Common processing and knowing you're not the only one is so important to rebuilding some mental health. Conversations make a difference, hearing voices that haven't usually been included talking about things we've possibly all experienced, allows us to make connections and see different ways of coping with the same events.

This episode has a lot more silliness than we expected at times - laughing is a valid way of processing trauma.

Now with improved accessibility - we have a transcript for this episode

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

Give us feedback - we’re on twitter - https://twitter.com/ItIsComplicatd - we’d love to hear your thoughts on the concepts of Getting it out!

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

Production is complicated -  is it better to be paid or be heard. We talk about producing events, as a pair with over 35 years of production experience between us - we talk about the best ways we’ve approached production - and tell some tales of when it’s gone wrong.

We talk about Queer House Party - becuase it is one of the best examples of what happens when you centre accessibility and inclusion - in every part of it’s mindset and practices.

“The massive amounts of organisation that has to happen before anyone gets onto that stage or in front of that camera, or joins that particular party to enjoy the space – to have that public moment of support or to share their story – that process, from beginning to end has to have the same values that you would like to see on the stage.”

Now with improved accessibility - we have a transcript for this episode

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

Give us feedback - we’re on twitter - https://twitter.com/ItIsComplicatd - we’d love to hear your thoughts on the concepts of Production

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

Representation is complicated - Good Representation is wonderful when we locate it. There is a lot going on at the moment - we wanted to bring a happier viewpoint, and talk about our favorite ways of seeing queers and non-binary and trans people within the media. 

What it means to see yourself represented in media - in a normalised way - where your story is about things other than your gender. 

What it means to be a person who washes their socks!

Media we talk aboutL

Chuck Tingle (@ChuckTingle) - Trans Wizard Harriet Porber And The Bad Boy Parasaurolophus: An Adult Romance Novel 

Dyke Hard

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum

True Porn vol 1 - and volume 2 

Small Favors: The Definitive Collection: The Definitive Girly Porno Collection

Queer House Party

Ikenfell 

Now with improved accessibility - we have a transcript for this episode

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

Give us feedback - we’re on twitter - https://twitter.com/ItIsComplicatd - we’d love to hear your thoughts on the concepts of Representation

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

Class is complicated - Honorifics are the way it can show up. What it means as a non-binary person to rub up against the service industry. Do impromptu lessons on gender help? How can we disrupt the power differential and how can we as queers perform class in a way that has respect and safety for all involved. When the Service industry runs to scripts, how can we make them more inclusive, in a way that works for everyone?

Now with improved accessibility - we have a transcript for this episode

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

Give us feedback - we’re on twitter - https://twitter.com/ItIsComplicatd - we’d love to hear your thoughts on the concepts of Class

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

Art is complicated - Censorship and that narrative is made more complex by queers - how does talking about queer lived experience blur this boundary? Josephine and Dr J talk with Suzanne Shifflett, painter and tattoo artist, based in Long Beach, California. We cover the hustle we all face as queer and artists, and how we constantly hustle to survive and be seen. We are the glittery cockroaches who find ways to survive.

The systematic cis-heteronormativity in society means than censorship of pornography impacts more on queers and women. How can we make our point and show our lived experiences? How do we subvert systems to make spaces for our voices?

For more of Suzanne’s art- her website, and her instagrams - paintings and tattoos . 

As this is episode 20 (or 21 if you count the special) - we want to say thank you to everyone who has listened, shared, and enjoyed what we are doing. We make the promise, that should we get enough on our Patreon so that Josephine can do this full time, we will talk about what Suzanne calls “the most unusual tattoo I have ever done”

Now with improved accessibility - we have a transcript for this episode

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

Give us feedback - we’re on twitter - https://twitter.com/ItIsComplicatd - we’d love to hear your thoughts on the concepts of Art and Censorship

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