Living in this Queer Body

By Asher PandjirisSociety & Culture

Living in this Queer Body episodes

November 22, 2020 Becoming the Spell: Sarah Faith Gottesdiener
Sarah is an artist, writer, psychic tarot reader, teacher, & business owner living in LA.

@gottesss www.modernwomenprojects.com We talk about the lingering impact of childhood trauma, living as a queer adult with ADHD, queerness as ideology, accessing protective energy for oneself and much more. Shockingly we do not talk about TAROT but we do talk about the moon.

Sign up for Queering the Holidays (www.livinginthisqueerbody) QUEERING THE HOLIDAYS
Friday December 18th 5-7pm EST How do we navigate caring for ourselves, our partners and our friends during this pandemic holiday season? A portion of proceeds will go to The LGBTQ Freedom Fund How do we nourish ourselves? (In this first “holiday” session we will focus on food) How do we identify our needs when the demands of heteronormative, colonial settler and patriarchal holiday discourses threaten our self-determination and sovereignty?

LITQB Podcast: This is a podcast about the barriers to embodiment and how our collective body stories can bring us back to ourselves. This is a podcast for people who identify as queer or for people who might think of their relationship between their body and confining social narratives as queer. This can feel like an isolating experience. Our wounded bodies need spaces to talk about struggles with nourishment/disordered eating, body image issues, dysphoria, racism, heterosexism, transphobia, xenophobia, substance use/abuse, chronic pain/disability, body changes in parenthood, intergenerational trauma, the medical/wellness/therapy industrial complex and its lack of inclusion of queer bodies and much more. Hopefully this podcast can illustrate the connections, and resonant pain points, that we have with one another. Livinginthisqueerbody.com @livinginthisqueerbody

The Host: Asher Pandjiris is a Psychotherapist/ Podcaster/ Group Facilitator SUPPORT https://www.patreon.com/livinginthisqueerbody

Sound Editing: Barry Orvin www.talkbox.studio

Music: Ethan Philbrick and Helen Messineo-Pandjiris
57 min
November 06, 2020 "Check Your Past:" Eva Reign
In this episode, Eva and I talk about our shared hometown of Saint Louis, MO. We address the ways that Eva has`worked to undo her internalized homophobia, transphobia and anti-blackness. Eva also gives us her take on the current "trendiness" of transness and BLM. Eva Reign is an actor, writer and artist originally from St. Louis, Missouri. She is a columnist at the Condé Nast publication Them. where writes on Black trans life and profiles people across the country. Her work as a performer has been showcased in the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Modern Art through the films by Tourmaline. When she isn't performing or writing, she works as Digital Media Manager of the Marsha P. Johnson Institute.
IG: @msevareign

In this episode we discuss racial segregation in Saint Louis, MO
https://news.stlpublicradio.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2015-04-20/author-visits-10-segregated-cities-stops-in-st-louis

http://www.stlamerican.com/entertainment/living_it/walter-johnson-book-parallels-history-of-racism-in-st-louis-with-u-s/article_caa4205c-a618-11ea-a0c2-bf63aa08f5be.html

LITQB Podcast: This is a podcast about the barriers to embodiment and how our collective body stories can bring us back to ourselves. This is a podcast for people who identify as queer or for people who might think of their relationship between their body and confining social narratives as queer. This can feel like an isolating experience. Our wounded bodies need spaces to talk about struggles with nourishment/disordered eating, body image issues, dysphoria, racism, heterosexism, transphobia, xenophobia, substance use/abuse, chronic pain/disability, body changes in parenthood, intergenerational trauma, the medical/wellness/therapy industrial complex and its lack of inclusion of queer bodies and much more. Hopefully this podcast can illustrate the connections, and resonant pain points, that we have with one another. Livinginthisqueerbody.com @livinginthisqueerbody

The Host: Asher Pandjiris is a Psychotherapist/ Podcaster/ Group Facilitator

SUPPORT https://www.patreon.com/livinginthisqueerbody

Sound Editing: Barry Orvin www.talkbox.studio

Music: Ethan Philbrick and Helen Messineo-Pandjiris
1 hr 1 min
October 10, 2020 Disrupting Linearity and 2 Spirit Body Reclamation: Coyote Park
Coyote Park is a Two Spirit artist, oral historian, and educator. They are Yurok (with their ancestral homelands being near the Klamath river), German, and Korean. Coyote grew up in Honolulu, Hawai'i and moved to New York when they were 18. Currently, they have relocated to Los Angeles where they are doing online lectures, finishing up schooling, and multi-media work. They cofounded ENBY Spoken Histories with Angel Labarte. ENBY Spoken Histories is a storytelling archive with the trans community, as it centers nonbinary, 2spirit, gnc, intersex, and genderqueer voices. The archive is preserved within the Library of Congress and ENBY Spoken Histories has a partnership with Storycorps. In the past, they have had multiple recording sessions in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Hawai'i. There were set recording dates that had been pushed back due to Covid-19. However, on a digital platform ENBY Spoken histories has been hosting zoom parties with performances, book club meetings, and has done one healing circle run by QTPOC facilitators. Coyote's personal practice is documentary photography where they photograph the intimate moments within their daily life and trans family. They have also been curating a QTPOC dream zine, working on other written projects with artists in their community spaces, and have been utilizing social media as a tool for connection for Trans youth and emotional resonance for other trans folks. Coyote is passionate about building a framework of understanding of gender outside of the colonial gender systems and uses their work as an outlet to vocalize those narratives.

Instagram: @nativeboytoy

QUEER THE WELLNESS INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX LECTURE: GET TICKETS here.
LITQB Podcast: This is a podcast about the barriers to embodiment and how our collective body stories can bring us back to ourselves. This is a podcast for people who identify as queer or for people who might think of their relationship between their body and confining social narratives as queer. This can feel like an isolating experience. Our wounded bodies need spaces to talk about struggles with nourishment/disordered eating, body image issues, dysphoria, racism, heterosexism, transphobia, xenophobia, substance use/abuse, chronic pain/disability, body changes in parenthood, intergenerational trauma, the medical/wellness/therapy industrial complex and its lack of inclusion of queer bodies and much more. Hopefully this podcast can illustrate the connections, and resonant pain points, that we have with one another. Livinginthisqueerbody.com @livinginthisqueerbody
The Host: Asher Pandjiris is a Psychotherapist/ Podcaster/ Group Facilitator
SUPPORT https://www.patreon.com/livinginthisqueerbody
Sound Editing: Barry Orvin www.talkbox.studio
Music: Ethan Philbrick and Helen Messineo-Pandjiris

1 hr
September 23, 2020 What a cute girl: Joon Oluchi Lee
JOON OLUCHI LEE lives and writes in femininity and feminism, whose latest novel is "Neotenica," published by Nightboat Books in June. The author of two other works of fiction, "94" (2015) and "Lace Sick Bag" (2013), both published by Publication Studio, as well as various essays on queer theory, feminism, and fiction writing, including "The Joy of the Castrated Boy," and the blog "lipstickeater," Joon is Associate Professor of Gender Studies and Creative Writing at Rhode Island School of Design. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner Roderick Schrock and their rescue dog Nella.

Neotenica

Lambda Literary Interview

LITQB Podcast: This is a podcast about the barriers to embodiment and how our collective body stories can bring us back to ourselves. This is a podcast for people who identify as queer or for people who might think of their relationship between their body and confining social narratives as queer. This can feel like an isolating experience. Our wounded bodies need spaces to talk about struggles with nourishment/disordered eating, body image issues, dysphoria, racism, heterosexism, transphobia, xenophobia, substance use/abuse, chronic pain/disability, body changes in parenthood, intergenerational trauma, the medical/wellness/therapy industrial complex and its lack of inclusion of queer bodies and much more. Hopefully this podcast can illustrate the connections, and resonant pain points, that we have with one another. Livinginthisqueerbody.com @livinginthisqueerbody

The Host: Asher Pandjiris is a Psychotherapist/ Podcaster/ Group Facilitator

SUPPORT https://www.patreon.com/livinginthisqueerbody

Sound Editing: Barry Orvin www.talkbox.studio

Music: Ethan Philbrick and Helen Messineo-Pandjiris
54 min
September 16, 2020 DISPATCHES FROM OUR QUEER BODIES IN PANDEMIC TIMES (#17)
Deep Gratitude to @annefacee
These pandemic times have been a time of interrogation, reflection, learning, and unlearning–which for me, includes exploring my gender identity and the ways in which I can get so tied up in how others may hypothetically react to it, let alone perceive it. I sat on this recording for several months as my fear of not “succeeding” kept me discouraged and apprehensive. Perfectionism–a very old learned behavior of mine from childhood– is the antithesis of everything I believe gender and queerness to be. For me, gender and sexuality are not fixed, and there is no right or wrong way to express those parts of you, as long as you aren’t harming others while doing so. Yet, sometimes what we know to be true in our hearts isn’t always present in our internal dialogues and the way in which we treat ourselves in private.
IG: @annefacee
3 min
August 26, 2020 The Unseen World is Trying to Liberate Us: Lama Rod Owens
We are back with full length interviews!! I'd love to hear what you think of the conversation.
Episode 34 features Lama Rod Owens, a black queer Buddhist Lama and author of the recently published book Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger. In this episode, we discuss the dangers of disembodied anger, what it feels like to navigate transhistorical trauma in the body, anger, and the woundedness beneath anger, as an entry point to embodiment, and Lama Rod's relationship with depression and much more. It was a true honor to speak with Lama Rod Owens. I really encourage you to read or listen to his books and follow him @lamarodowens.
Lama Rod Owens is a Buddhist minister, author, activist, yoga instructor and authorized Lama, or Buddhist teacher, in the Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism and is considered one of the leaders of his generation of Buddhist teachers. He holds a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Divinity School and is a co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation. Owens is the co-founder of Bhumisparsha, a Buddhist tantric practice and study community. Has been published in Buddhadharma, Lion’s Roar, Tricycle and The Harvard Divinity Bulletin, and offers talks, retreats and workshops in more than seven countries. In, Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger (June 2020), Lama Rod shares his personal journey with rage—how, at a young age, he internalized the belief that his anger was dangerous. “I have seen over and over again,” he tells us, “that anger can get me killed. I know that this is how I have survived in a Black queer body in America. My fear of death and policing has translated into a self-policing of my anger to such an extent that if it weren’t for my meditation practice, I wouldn’t know how to find my anger.” You can find out more about Lama Rod @lamarodowens on instagram or www.lamarod.com
REGISTER for EMBODIED TESTIMONY (REGISTRATION ENDS 9/20/20)
LITQB Podcast: This is a podcast about the barriers to embodiment and how our collective body stories can bring us back to ourselves. This is a podcast for people who identify as queer or for people who might think of their relationship between their body and confining social narratives as queer. This can feel like an isolating experience. Our wounded bodies need spaces to talk about struggles with nourishment/disordered eating, body image issues, dysphoria, racism, heterosexism, transphobia, xenophobia, substance use/abuse, chronic pain/disability, body changes in parenthood, intergenerational trauma, the medical/wellness/therapy industrial complex and its lack of inclusion of queer bodies and much more. Hopefully this podcast can illustrate the connections, and resonant pain points, that we have with one another.
Livinginthisqueerbody.com @livinginthisqueerbody
The Host: Asher Pandjiris Psychotherapist/ Podcaster/ Group Facilitator
SUPPORT https://www.patreon.com/livinginthisqueerbody
Sound Editing: Barry Orvin www.talkbox.studio
Music: Ethan Philbrick and Helen Messineo-Pandjiris
1 hr 3 min
August 21, 2020 DISPATCHES FROM OUR QUEER BODIES IN PANDEMIC TIMES (#16)
Deep gratitude to: Nalo @nalodarling (@blackgirlmasculine and @yaziclothing)
9 min
July 10, 2020 DISPATCHES FROM OUR QUEER BODIES IN PANDEMIC TIMES (#15)
CW: mention of suicide Deep gratitude to: Erin (@erin_everett15), Meg (@lamplight.space), Daniel (eyes_of_daniel) and Lex (@the.days.eye). As much as possible I aim to center the voices and experiences of BIPOC queer folks. That being said, I know that participation can involve significant emotional labor, both in generating a dispatch as well as opening up publicly and sharing often marginalized and discarded voices.
24 min
June 24, 2020 DISPATCHES FROM OUR QUEER BODIES IN PANDEMIC TIMES (#14)
Deep Gratitude to: Abby, a Nanticoke Lenape and a 2-spirit lesbian (@asfk.art) and Kbb is a white, queer, non-binary professor of Performance Studies in the Theater Department at Wesleyan University (@brewerball).
11 min
June 16, 2020 DISPATCHES FROM OUR QUEER BODIES IN PANDEMIC TIMES (Trans Folks Fighting Eating Disorders @transfolxfightingeds)
This episode features voices from the organization TRANS FOLKS FIGHTING EATING DISORDERS (@transfolxfightingeds)
Deep gratitude to: Kacey, Kian, OJ (@thirdwheeled), Scout (@wickedlittletown) and Ethan (@heartshapedhickies).
This episode features non-black voices, in part, because food/nourishment and dysphoria are things that take time and energy to talk about. These topics are particularly vulnerable to talk about publicly. White trans people have privilege and, in this episode, they are using this privilege to draw attention to the depth of pain and struggle that is housed in trans bodies. There is so much more to say about the impact of a culture that devalues specifically black trans bodies and how this traumatic impact lives in trans bodies, how it troubles one's relationship to nourishment and safety.
There are many trans, non-binary and gender queer BIPOC people who struggle with dysphoria, disordered eating and other challenges to nourishment. There are SO MANY additional barriers, challenges and systems of oppression (white supremacy, transphobia, heterosexism, diet culture, fat phobia, toxic masculinity, settler colonial late stage capitalism) that these communities must contend with when trying to come to terms with, attend to, and find support around nourishing trans and BIPOC marginalized bodies and communities.
There is righteous rebellion happening right now. We are in a time of great and sometimes emotionally overwhelming change and pain. And, our black, trans, femme leaders MUST be nourished. Food, rest, hydration, deserving. It is time to center nourishment in our discourses about radical systemic transformation. Diet culture disguised as "wellness" or "spiritual" coaching has NO PLACE in this revolutionary moment.
A few Health at Every Size, trauma informed resources include: @sonyareneetaylor, @the_bodylib_advocate, @blackandembodied, @chr1styharrison, @fit.flexible.fluid, @covid19eatingsupport, @heydrsand, Dr. Sabrina Strings (author of "Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia), @lamplight.space, @decolonizing_fitness, @iamtianadodson, @badbadprettygood and of course, @transfolxfightingeds.
As much as possible I aim to center the voices and experiences of BIPOC queer folks. That being said, I know that participation can involve significant emotional labor, both in generating a dispatch as well as opening up publicly and sharing often marginalized and discarded voices. I will be collecting stories all summer so please, if and when you feel moved and spacious, send along a 1-5 minute long dispatch via email ([email protected]) or text (email or DM me for my cell).
10 min