Living in this Queer Body

Gloria and I talk about the power of incubating yourself in your artistic practice, life as a queer first generation Sicilian, activism as identity, growing in power during in the Detroit punk scene and much more. Gloria was a generous and warm guest and I hope you enjoy this episode. 

Gloria Noto is the Founder of NOTO botanics - a non binary natural product line. 

You can connect with all things Noto at noto_botanics or notobotantics.com. If you are in LA, Noto now has a flagship store in Highland Park.

Enter promo code for a discount on your Noto botanics order: queerbody10

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

WAITLIST for LITQB Program Intensive

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

Music: Ethan Philbrick and Helen Messineo-Pandjiris

In this episode I talk with the heartfelt and fierce CJ Miller. We speak about her movement towards the dance/movement practice as a Pony Sweat instructor, inhabiting her body as intersex and trans, her relationship to empowered femme-ness and her identification as a Leopard Grrrl, amongst other things.

CJ Miller is a dancer, poet, illustrator, and musician. Currently she is the frontwomxn for agitprop Clueless Soundtrack worshipping riot grrl band dimber and plays bass for queer anarcho death rock band Remorseless. She is an instructor for Pony Sweat - fiercely non-competitive, body positive dance aerobics. Her most recent poetry collection LipsTick Vol. 1, a diary and emotional outpouring of intersex, trans femme history and experience, was released via Arts N Crass printing and distro. She has contributed interviews, reviews, and opinion pieces most recently to Razorcake Magazine, Maximum Rocknroll, and New Noise Magazine. CJ is also co-founder and an organizer for Presence, an all ages queer/trans/enby/GNC/intersex community and artist focus event based out of North East Los Angeles.

@spookymiller_

CJ has a really powerful self-portrait project that she is offering for print on t-shirts. I will post the image in my newsletter and instagram. The shirts are available to trans ENBY folks for free. CJ’s intention is to encourage acceptance and empower love for tans bodies outside the current model which presses folks towards surgery and alterations our bodies to conform to oppressive binary gender standards. In order to cover the costs of this project CJ is asking cisgender people to donate $20-40 at Venmo: dimber CJ Miller. It is really a beautiful exchange she is setting up so I hope you consider a donation.

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

Finding Pleasure in Purposeful Movement with Ilya Parker January 14:  https://www.livinginthisqueerbody.com/findingpleasure

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

Music: Ethan Philbrick and Helen Messineo-Pandjiris

I was so glad to sit down and talk with Andrea Glik. They are so many things including the creator of the wildly popular and deeply resonant instagram account @somaticwitch, where they give us frequent doses of wisdom about the nervous system and working through trauma.

Andrea Glik, LMSW is a psychotherapist, somatic healer, sex educator, and witch living and practicing on occupied Lenape territory (NYC). Andrea specializes in treating trauma and PTSD for queer & trans folks, using body based and feminist therapy practices to help clients come home to themselves.

insta: @somaticwitch

website: www.andreaglik.com

workshops for purchase: https://www.andreaglik.com/shop

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

Finding Pleasure in Purposeful Movement with Ilya Parker January 14:  https://www.livinginthisqueerbody.com/findingpleasure

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

Music: Ethan Philbrick and Helen Messineo-Pandjiris

In this episode we talk about queerness, body shame, disordered eating, Islamaphobia, pregnancy, questions around activism and self care and so much more. Rage does a million rad things and it was truly an honor to interview them in the midst of their last moments of pregnancy.  I am inspired by them and all they do, truly.  I hope you enjoy this episode. Rage is a queer Muslim migrant from Karachi, Pakistan. They’re a public defender and organizer around the criminal punishment system and prosecutor accountability with Court Watch NYC and 5 Boro Defenders. Since moving to Brooklyn almost a decade ago, Rage's work and activism has focused on queer and trans liberation, immigrant justice, and prison abolition. They are also a visual artist, media maker, hair stylist and co-host/co-producer of the podcast Bad Brown Aunties (@badbrownaunties) 

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 

Finding Pleasure in Purposeful Movement with Ilya Parker January 14:  https://www.livinginthisqueerbody.com/findingpleasure 

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

Music: Ethan Philbrick and Helen Messineo-Pandjiris

In this episode we talk about dissociation, choice and consent, gender as "all kinds of ways," life before punk, how adrenaline and traumatized bodies interact and the dull and repetitive conversations that led her to live life as a writer.

Cindy Crabb is the author of the long-running feminist autobiographical zine Doris and compilation book Encyclopedia of Doris. She edited the zine and book Learning Good Consent. She is a somatic experiencing trauma therapist living in Pittsburgh.

Cindy wrote her zine, DORIS, like she is figuring out the human condition. She makes writing about the simplest and most common things - playing music, childhood, cooking, or sex- resonate with universal understanding. She helps us make sense of more complex things like the satisfaction of doing useful work, natural curiosity, the ability to use logic, gender dynamics, introspection, the need for challenge and change, combating depression, and creating art and literature. She shares and explores the emotions that go along with having an abortion, rape, dealing with the death of family, or sexual harassment in a context that is enlightening and personal, feeling like a close friend opening up to you. What's most impressive though is that she relates these things into every article in her zine seamlessly.

You can find out about all the amazing things she does at:

www.cindycrabb.com

http://www.dorisdorisdoris.com/

@cindy_crabb

https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/1212/

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 

Queering the Holidays Virtual Workshop 

December 8th:  https://www.livinginthisqueerbody.com/virtual-group-workshop 

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

Music: Ethan Philbrick and Helen Messineo-Pandjiris

This is the inaugural episode of the WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE: A LITQB reading series.

In this excerpt we hear Ellis Martin read several passages from Lou Sullivan's diaries.

WE BOTH LAUGHED IN PLEASURE: THE SELECTED DIARIES OF LOU SULLIVAN (edited by Ellis Martin and Zach Ozma) narrates the inner life of a gay man moving through the shifting social, political, and medical mores of the second half of the 20th century. Sullivan kept comprehensive journals from age 11 until his AIDS-related death at 39. Sensual, lascivious, challenging, quotidian and poetic, the diaries complicate and disrupt normative trans narratives. Entries from twenty-four diaries reveal Sullivan’s self-articulation and the complexity of a fascinating and courageous figure.

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 we discuss generative somatics as an activist and healing practice, the power of reclaiming our bodies, complicating queer belonging, the spiritual and disruptive possibilities of queerness and Prentis's particular focus on being authentically oneself. 

Prentis Hemphill is movement facilitator, Somatics teacher and practitioner, and writer living and working at the convergence of healing, individual and collective transformation, and political organizing. Prentis spent many years working with powerful movements and organizations, most recently as the Healing Justice Director at Black Lives Matter Global Network. In 2016, Prentis was awarded the Buddhist Peace Fellowship Soma Award for community work inspired by Buddhist thought. Currently, Prentis is a teacher of Somatics with Generative Somatics, which is focused on bringing a politicized Somatics practice to movement building organizations, and with Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity, a training program for Black organizers throughout the US, and works as a facilitator and consultant for organizations and groups looking to center healing justice and transformative justice into the very core of their work to build more well and self-determined communities. Prentis has served as a board member for National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network (NQTTCN), a network for connecting communities with representative mental health practitioners and an effort at bringing frameworks of healing justice more soundly into current mental health provision models; and on Black Emotional and Mental Health (BEAM), an organization committed to removing the barriers for Black people to receive mental and emotional care. Prentis is also a deeply committed practitioner and healer who utilizes Somatics methodology, intuitive and ancestral practice into their work to heal trauma, and unlock the unique brilliance and contribution of each person, body and being they work with. 

https://prentishemphill.com/ @prentis.h 

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 

Queering the Holidays Virtual Workshop December 8th:  https://www.livinginthisqueerbody.com/virtual-group-workshop

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

Music: Ethan Philbrick and Helen Messineo-Pandjiris

Frankie opens up about their journey with disordered eating as a way to manage dysphoria and the things they are finding to assist with anxiety without extreme orthorexia. Their relationship to rigidity has evolved as a result of their study of Chinese Medicine along with giving themself permission to speak openly about their body’s experience. Frankie breaks all sorts of rules in the spirit of providing an open and safe environment for queer, trans and non binary patients. 

Frankie is an acupuncturist and herbalist with a focus on trans affirming health practicing out of Brooklyn. They offer a sliding scale for People of color, trans people and sex workers. You can find out more about their practice @yarrow_medicine on instagram. 

I hope you enjoy our conversation and find ways to support this podcast and the very important work Frankie is doing in the world.

They speak about a NYC community health resource for trans healthcare: Apicha @apichachc 

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 

Virtual Workshops available every month:  https://www.livinginthisqueerbody.com/virtual-group-workshop 

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

Music: Ethan Philbrick and Helen Messineo-Pandjiris  

Audio Production: ganym3d3.com and https://talkbox.studio/

Josh Hersh is an entrepreneur, writer, seeker, and community architect. Over the years, he’s focused on creating mindful, heart-centered spaces for queer people, such as The Thoughtful Gay Man and queeret (pronounced queer-it), a global community for queer introverts. He believes in the power of belonging and connection as a means to bring healing and a sense of togetherness to queer communities. @queerintroverts @joshhersh

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 

Virtual Workshops available every month:  https://www.livinginthisqueerbody.com/virtual-group-workshop

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

Music: Ethan Philbrick and Helen Messineo-Pandjiris Audio Production: ganym3d3.com and https://talkbox.studio/