Uncategorized – you are (queer) here

Abba, Amma, Adonai: An Australian Journey in Gender

“Abba, Amma, Adonai,” Peter and I recited, the Lord’s Prayer flowing from our lips as we read from the Koora Retreat Centre prayer books.

We were sitting in Peter’s home, a train car remodeled into a one-bedroom house with large, beautiful windows that looked out into the Western Australian bush. Outside was sheer wilderness—shimmering golden-brown dirt, scrappy bushes with thick leaves, a few thin trees twisting toward the sky. Birds soared in swirls of heat above.

Peter, a retired Anglican priest with a white, bushy beard, and his wife Anna (also an Anglican priest) run the desert retreat center, which I stumbled across last February. I returned in October to spend a month with them.

I joined them in their railway carriage for morning prayer at 7:30 a.m. each day, and though Anna was out of town this particular morning, Peter and I decided to meet anyway. Somehow, our conversation had turned to gender.

“So Anna tells me you use the pronoun ‘they,'” he’d said after we’d finished our Bible readings and before we’d launched into prayers of the community. Soon we’d run the gamut from the spectrum of gender to the limits of English pronouns.

Peter admitted he struggled with “they” as a pronoun but said, “To me, you’re just Alexis.”

We closed our prayer books after finishing the Lord’s Prayer and offering blessings to one another.

“That’s you,” Peter said a few moments after we finished.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Adonai.” He paused. “Well, it’s like ‘beloved.’ But it’s not male or female like the others.”

Abba, father. Amma, mother. Adonai.

He told me about the words for God–how the names the Hebrews had for God reflected God’s characteristics. El Shaddai–God’s nurturing and sustaining nature. Yahweh–God’s unchangeable, everlasting nature. Adonai–a loving bond.

“Yes,” Peter said, as I collected his prayer book from him and stacked on the bookshelf beside my chair. “Maybe the Hebrews had it right.”

Continue reading “Abba, Amma, Adonai: An Australian Journey in Gender” →

The Traveling Bookshelf: Five Books on Leaving and Returning

Reader-subway — *Photo Credit: ©* *Mo Riza*. Used under a Creative Commons (CC-BY-2.0) license.

This summer has been for me a time of leaving and returning, going home and leaving homes behind. Much of my now year-plus journey has been an exploration of what “home” is–how to feel at home where you are, what it means to have multiple homes, how to process conflicting feelings about “home,” feelings of simultaneous belonging and unbelonging.

I’ve also been learning how “home” often consists so much more of the feeling I get with certain people than it does with any particular place. Yet, at the same time, I know there are distinct places that resonate with me, places where I feel in step with the world somehow, sometimes for unknown reasons. And then there are homes I’ve left behind, thinking they weren’t mine, and upon returning, I have been surprised to find that “homeness” intact, and I have been left thinking, Yes, this is my place.

My reading list over the last few months has, without intention, reflected many of these ruminations and complications. And in some ways, the ways I found these books reflect my own wandering: I picked up two of them after hearing the authors speak at the Adelaide Writers’ Week in Australia last spring. Another I’d intended to read for a long time, but this summer I found it on the shelf of an English professor friend who I was housesitting for in South Carolina. Another was left for me in the car I borrowed from a dear friend in South Carolina this summer when she moved back to South Korea. Still another, I simply stumbled across.

These are stories of returning to homes and seeing them in new lights, of being exiled from the people and places we call home, of having a home but not feeling at home in it, and stories of having your home destroyed and changed by forces beyond your control–and making due as you can. I hope these books might give you glimpses into other worlds and perhaps help you along your own journeys to and from home. Continue reading “The Traveling Bookshelf: Five Books on Leaving and Returning” →

You Are (Queer) Here is Growing!

You Are (Queer) Here is growing, and we need your help!

This project began last summer as a documentary film following two queer, gender non-conforming/non-binary South Carolinians on a journey across the globe (currently in post-production–see teaser below). Since then, it’s grown into an active travel blog and social media presence with thousands of readers/followers.

Now, with your help, I’d like to expand You Are (Queer) Here to reach a wider audience, providing more content on LGBTQ travel and diverse cultures worldwide. Find out more about what’s in store for You Are (Queer) Here’s future below, and if you like what you’ve seen so far, donate today at www.gofundme.com/you-are-queer-here-winter-campaign. Continue reading “You Are (Queer) Here is Growing!” →

That Time I Woke Up and Donald Trump Was President

This morning, I woke up in Myanmar to a world where Donald Trump is President-Elect of the United States.

Yesterday, I spent half a day watching the results roll in, reading post and tweets cataloguing the dismay and heartbrokenness and fear from many of my friends.

Particularly my trans, queer, and LGBTQ friends. My friends of color.
Friends with disabilities, immigrants, Muslim friends, women—anyone
Donald Trump and his campaign have managed to threaten, alienate, or
otherwise harm.

Harm: emboldening supporters to burn black churches and torch the cars
of trans people.

Harm: encouraging Islamophobia and fear/hatred of Muslim people.

Harm: violence done simply by words—and yes, words hurt.

Harm: categorizing as “less than” or “Other.”

Yes, he and his supporters have done harm. I have no doubt he will do more.

I shared this grief and anger. As the wee hours wore on in the US and early afternoon turned late in Myanmar, I was struck by suddenly not knowing what to do. Not knowing how to put one foot in front of the other.

As I told my friend and colleague Jane, it was hard enough working for LGBTQ rights and working to end gender-based violence during the Obama years (the bulk of my career).

What now? Continue reading “That Time I Woke Up and Donald Trump Was President” →

Why, Hello, Sir-Madam-Sir

“I’m sorry I have to ask you this, but are you a ‘sir’ or a ‘madam’?”

The security guard at the Taj Mahal looked at me earnestly. He was helping me figure out where to store my daypack. The lockers were at another entrance, I’d found out. I couldn’t bring in my computer that was tucked in the depths of my bag.

But first, he had to know this one thing.

When I left for India, I had all the intentions of passing as a man. I was worried about safety. Boyeon and I bought matching rings so we could pretend to be a married (heterosexual) couple, if necessary. I was totally prepared.

Except that I was also totally silly. Continue reading “Why, Hello, Sir-Madam-Sir” →

Wild Haven

If I’d known how amazing Roshan’s family’s resort in Tamil Nadu would be, I might’ve asked that we go there first.

After all our driving, all our exploring, he finally took us to his home in Masinagudi, the place where he’d grown up, the village where he works.

And what a place it is. His father owns and runs Wild Haven Resort, an old colonial hunting lodge that he turned into a set of lodgings that would be memorable even for the most seasoned travelers. The accommodations were, of course, lovely and well-kept.

But more impressive were the views. And the nightly bonfires. And the calls of tigers we could hear while sitting around said bonfires.

Because, as the name implies, Wild Haven is in the wild, surrounded by mountains, almost encapsulated by the nearby wildlife refuge.

And if there’s one thing I love as much as water, it’s the mountains. Waking up to them. Breathing in their heights. Marveling at their beauty. Feeling that quiet invitation to come join them, wherever the path leads.

I think that’s one reason I loved my Korean hometown Yeosu so much—all those green mountains pressed right up against the sea.

But now, I had another place to love: Wild Haven. Continue reading “Wild Haven” →

The Backwaters of Kerala

There is something inherently peaceful to me about water. Be it rain, ocean, river, lake, or otherwise, being near water almost immediately soothes me.

I remember when I was younger and the summer thunderstorms would come in, and my dad and I would sit on our screened-in back porch in Raleigh and wait for the rains to come. We’d count the seconds between lightning and thunder and guess how far away the storm was. And when the clouds finally broke loose over us, there was something beautiful about the rain pounding on the roof, pooling around us, while we were watching from safety.

I felt the same comfort waking up every morning to the strait between Yeosu peninsula and the small island where I lived with my Korean homestay family in my early 20s, watching the water lap at the banks and the fishing boats puttering by. I would breathe in and out and feel inexplicably comforted.

This was no different when Boyeon and I went to Kerala. When we got there (after a long, arduous journey), with Boyeon’s friend Roshan as our guide, we went immediately to the water, where we stayed at a lakeside resort that looked out at the sunset moving swiftly across the waves and the boats criss-crossing their way to their finishing places.

When given the chance, we also decided to take a houseboat on the Keralan backwaters. For that, we have Roshan to thank. After his friends and friends of friends said that they were all booked up (Roshan’s social network is amazing), he managed to find a boat in Alleppey that had space for us for an overnight cruise. Continue reading “The Backwaters of Kerala” →

White People Problems (American Tourist Edition)

Let’s face it: I have a problem with being a white American traveling in India. Chalk it up to white guilt or simply a recognition of (historical and present) privilege, but my whiteness preceded me everywhere I went and reminded me of echoes of the past—the white, British colonizers who oppressed and dehumanized Indians for years, who demolished their culture and devalued their lives.

Admission: I am not an expert on either Indian history or British colonialism. But I couldn’t help but be aware of the damage wrought by people who looked like me, worshipped in the kinds of churches I attend, and spoke my language.

I guess it was a good thing to be aware of. But beyond awareness of privilege, I’ve wondered what I could do. Colonization is over, but the real inequalities are still there—because of nationality, class, place of birth, first language—all of those things.

Boyeon and I had some interesting conversations about this. How she, as someone from a country that had been colonized (by the Japanese, for those of you who missed out on East Asian history), felt a certain kind of empathy for (and to her, perhaps from) the Indian people. How walking down the street, she felt a kinship—both as someone from Asia and from a formerly colonized country.

For us, this sometimes played out in how we interacted with people on the street. For example, Boyeon frequently was ready to ask questions, get directions, and get answers for other basic travel information. I, however, was not. Granted, this is partly because she’s more extroverted than I am, and I’m self-reliant to a fault. But one of my major hangups, as I told her, was really my lack of knowing the local language and how imperialistic (and particularly American) it felt to expect everyone to know English. (And our cramming of Hindi did not help us at all in the Bengali-dominated Northeast or Malayalam-speaking South.)

And while I didn’t feel the Indian people holding me accountable for British failings, I did realize that I wanted to find a way to acknowledge those failings, to recognize my positionality within that space, to work to counteract any ways in which power and privilege became barriers between me, the place, and the people. Continue reading “White People Problems (American Tourist Edition)” →

An Inauspicious Arrival in South India

I knew I would like would like South India even before I landed there. I heard the Indian South described in a similar way to the American South—slower, friendlier, and with better weather. Sure, maybe the roads were worse. Maybe they were further from the seats of power that other states (though I was told that the southern state of Kerala is the richest in the country). But there was just something about it that was different—and different in a good way.

2016-09-15 00.40.32.jpg — Relaxing by the water in Kerala

Our beginning there was not auspicious, though. When we landed in Bangalore, where Boyeon’s friend Roshan was meeting us, we got a text from him telling us things were “a little tense” but he was on his way. Earlier, a friend of my sister’s in Bangalore had warned us that there was an impending conflict over water supply between two states (Tamil Nadu and Karnataka) that was about to get heated. Turns out, the conflict boiled over right in Bangalore. Continue reading “An Inauspicious Arrival in South India” →

Home (in My Own Skin)

I feel like I’m on a constant search for home—for “homeness,” that feeling of belonging, of alignment. That resonance that says, “Yes, I’m here.”

I feel that “homeness” more with people than with places. After a long dinner and longer conversation with a friend. After a long walk with someone when we’ve both allowed ourselves to be vulnerable. Or sometimes it’s just a look or a hug that makes me think, “You’ve come this way before.”

I’ve felt it in a few places—Korea, Ireland, New Orleans. I’ve often tried to figure out where it comes from. The loving community I have? A kinship in spirit with others around me? Similar personality types? Freedom? Love?

I can’t pinpoint it, and thus, I am always on the search.

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Continue reading “Home (in My Own Skin)” →

Category: Uncategorized