Living in this Queer Body

Deep gratitude to: @qweenamor, @blackqueerbaby and @love.gia 

$upport AND DONATE TO:

@btfa (Black Trans Femmes in the Arts)

Activation Residency @activationresidency (Venmo is Activation, PayPal is [email protected])

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)

As the global pandemic continues, I think we are all feeling quite deeply and concretely the barriers to embodiment in various aspects of of our life, perhaps more acutely than ever.  My guest today is someone who is very well versed in speaking about the body in pain and the multiplicity of embodied experience.  Today I have the honor of interviewing Sav Schlauderaff.

Sav (they/them) is a queer, trans, disabled PhD student in Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona. Their research in critical disability studies centers chronic illnesses, (embodied/felt) memory, pain, trauma and self care/community care for the bodymindspirit. Sav combines their academic training in genetics, molecular biology, and gender studies with poetry, autobiography, current research in molecular biology and genetics, and theoretical work in their writing.

Outside of research, they currently are the Graduate Assistant at the Disability Cultural Center, they work at the LGBTQ+ Resource Center at the U of A as a Safe Zone facilitator, they are a member of the Disability Studies Initiative at the U of A, and a co-founder of “The Queer Futures Collective” where they create accessible, educational & healing workshops and performances (in person and online) that focus on listening, vulnerability, learning through art, and collective community care.

You can find out more about Sav @savthequeer on instagram or www.queerfutures.com

DISPATCHES FROM OUR QUEER BODIES IN PANDEMIC TIMES

I hope everyone is finding ways to access ease and comfort in this pandemic time. If you haven’t listened already, there have been some beautiful mini episodes in the Living in our queer bodies in pandemic times series. If anyone would like to join this project, just record a one to two minute voice memo and email it to me at [email protected]

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

Music: Ethan Philbrick and Helen Messineo-Pandjiris

In this episode, which was recorded many months ago, Shira and I talk about what it means to not be able to “outrun” her Bipolar diagnosis and the long process of acceptance that followed this confronting reality. Shira shares about her early childhood growing up in Israel, noticing as a radical act, the mind as queer and a lot more. I am a such a fan of Shira’s book, her poetry and most recently I have taken such pleasure in watching her daily instagram stories in which she prepares iced coffee.

Shira Erlichman is a poet, musician, and visual artist. She was born in Israel and immigrated to the US when she was six. Her poems explore recovery – of language, of home, of mind – and value the "scattered wholeness" of healing. She earned her BA at Hampshire College and has been awarded the James Merrill Fellowship by the Vermont Studio Center, the Visions of Wellbeing Focus Fellowship at AIR Serenbe, as well as a residency by the Millay Colony. Her work has been featured in Buzzfeed Reader, The Rumpus, PBS NewsHour’s Poetry Series, The Huffington Post, The Seattle Times, and The New York Times, among others. Her debut poetry book, Odes to Lithium, came out in September 2019. She is also the author and illustrator of the picture book Be/Hold. When not on tour, she lives in Brooklyn where she teaches writing and creates.

@sheer_awe and https://www.officialshira.com/in-surreal-life

DISPATCHES FROM OUR QUEER BODIES IN PANDEMIC TIMES

I hope everyone is finding ways to access ease and comfort in this pandemic time. If you haven’t already, there have been some beautiful mini episodes in the Living in our queer bodies in pandemic times series. Most recently, my friend Cassie shared what they learned in the process of recovering from Covid-19. If anyone would like to join this project, just record a one to two minute voice memo and email it to me at [email protected]

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

Music: Ethan Philbrick and Helen Messineo-Pandjiris