Episode Transcript
[00:00:13] Speaker A: I respectfully acknowledge the land I am speaking from as the ancestral homelands of the Beothic, whose culture has been lost forever and can never be recovered.
I also acknowledge the island of Uktahamgook, Newfoundland, as the unceded traditional territory of the Beothic and the Mi', Kmaq, and I acknowledge Labrador as the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Inu of Nitasinan, the Inuit of Nunatsavut, and the Inuit of Nunatuqavut. As First Peoples have done since time immemorial, we strive to be responsible stewards of the land and to respect the cultures, ceremonies and traditions of all who call it home.
As we open our hearts and minds to the past, we commit ourselves to working in a spirit of truth and reconciliation to make a better future for all.
My name is Erin Patey and I am a queer non binary therapist working in a family founded nonprofit called the Jacob Puttersur Memorial foundation that provides free counseling services to people ages 12 to 35.
I mainly work with the two SLGQIA community, which I will refer to as Queer Community. Moving forward throughout this work I focus on addressing the systems involved within issues, creating opportunities for double storied accounts, bringing to light the implicit and upholding the initiatives people take in their movements of life.
The Queer Joy Letter Writing Campaign is is a collective document that invites members of the queer community to share their experiences of cultivating Queer Joy in our province so that others can access this insider information through the form of a letter.
These letters allow space for co researching what Queer Joy is, recognizing hardship in creating Queer Joy and sharing only that which can be found through the connection with fellow members of the queer community.
I then offer these letters to participants of our Drop in program if they are experiencing similar contexts or struggles. As a writer, I am continuing to allow folks to contribute to this letter writing campaign in hopes of collecting an array of Queer Joy stories.
The Queer Joy Letter Writing campaign starts with an invitation to folks to share what they know Queer Joy to be and how they have cultivated their Queer Joy.
This was inspired by the influential stance of queer invitations that provide queer folks with the space to poke holes in normative discourses and the opportunity for collaboration within the space through insider knowledges.
This letter intends to both influence the conversation around Queer Joy but also create space space for the unexpected or experiences outside of the norm.
It is in this queer invitation that I hope for people to be inspired, complex, nuanced, and unabashedly queer.
The following is what I sent to those who were interested in contributing to the campaign hey there. I am writing to you with the hope of lifting up our community and bolstering stories of Queer Joy, love and connection.
I currently work in a non profit organization as a therapist supporting two SLGBQIA folks in a 10 session model and drop in capacity.
As a queer therapist, I feel a deep connection to the people I work with and the stories they share as they navigate the issues in their lives.
Something that has come to my attention through these stories is that many of us share a level of disconnection and isolation when we are taking up spaces that aren't welcoming to our gender and sexual identities.
To paint this picture, we live in the foggiest place in the world, on a small island in the Atlantic Ocean with less than ideal weather conditions and acidic soil.
In spite of this, Newfoundlanders are known for our kindness, wit, hospitality, resilience and work ethic.
However, queer and trans people have often lived in the shadows with conditional acceptance in the Newfoundland community.
Conditional acceptance is a word that I have heard in many conversations where folks from our community feel the need to code switch love secretly and battle with thoughts of not feeling queer enough.
Whatever the factors are, there is always another side to these stories of hardship which I am particularly interested in hearing about from you.
Despite these conditions, we continue to cultivate what I've come to know as Queer Joy.
This love shows up in my brain as a mosaic where each story complements the other and shines rays of hope for others who are trying to cultivate their Queer Joy and less than ideal conditions.
What I'm asking from you today is to share what Queer Joy is to you.
How did you cultivate this Queer Joy? What has it taken to keep Queer Joy alive in your life?
What insights would you give to those who are trying to create seeds of Queer Joy?
My hope from reading your response is to create a collective document that will act as a resource for others who are making efforts in Queer Joy.
This could be as simple as a warm smile from a fellow queer person in a difficult situation, an embrace from a queer platonic friend who loves you deeply, a partner who has shown you what Queer Joy is, or a hope for future Queer Joy not yet found.
With your permission, I hope to gather these findings and share them with others, confidentially of course, in hopes that we let our Queer Joy grow and make roots in our community.
I look forward to reading your letter and sharing space with you as we celebrate our Queer Joy with Queer Joy, love and care. Aaron, the cultivation metaphor has an embedded double story account connected to Newfoundland's living conditions and was meant to create room for decolonizing knowledge systems surrounding queer experiences.
This was inspired through conversations with my dad and pop who spoke of specific learnings that connected them to the land and sea which gave them confidence despite the harsh conditions they would traverse.
Their stories and teachings gave me access to the collective experience of people who had to create lives despite harsh conditions.
I found comfort in this knowing that generations before me have built ways of living that allowed them to endure, resist, and thrive.
This comfort is something that I hope for members of the queer and trans community and a hope for this Queer Joy letter writing campaign.
We are subjected to conditions that I would consider harsh that require insider knowledge to navigate effectively.
It has been interesting to see the parallels between how my pop or dad would talk about how they learned to navigate harsh conditions and how the queer community speaks about their insider knowledge.
It was here that I felt compelled to include the context of our living conditions and with Queer Joy.
This context led to the conceptualization of what Queer joy could represent. In times of hardship.
Queer joy could look like acts of resistance, care, connections, or knowledge that allow queer and trans people to endure harsh conditions.
This understanding of Queer Joy creates a double story that sheds light on the hardship while tending to the specific skills it takes to endure the hardship and maintain queer identities.
For this next section, I will share the responses from three of the folks who participated in the Queer Joy letter writing campaign.
This first letter is written by Rosa Dear Friends in Queerness I came to understand my queerness later in life.
Of course, when I look back, it was there all along.
I assumed for most of my life that women were attracted to women for me. This assumption led me to believe that I was straight for a lot of years because obviously I would be attracted to and find loving relationships with women. But because I also felt attraction to men, I assumed I must be straight. Heteronormativity at its Finest I was in my 30s and married with children when I had a casual conversation with a close friend.
She was in the dating scene and I encouraged her to date women.
She laughed and I continued my query about her dating choices and finally she said, I hear you. Women are wonderful. I love my female friends, but I like penis.
A light bulb went off in my head. Wait, what?
All straight women don't fantasize about sex with other women.
Other straight women don't envision how their life might be different if they were in an intimate partnership with another woman.
Other straight women don't have crushes on their friends I was shook. It took a little time, but I eventually came to realize that I am bisexual.
This was not my entry into queerness. This was a confession of some sort.
I found my queerness in, through and with my queer friends.
The more relationships I had with other queer people, the more I saw myself reflected in their way of seeing and being in the world.
I also found my queerness in my relationship and marriage to my partner.
He was open hearted to my full, authentic self and to me. Bringing my queerness into our relationship.
This partnership helped me to find a special kind of queer joy. The way we together defied gender norms and gendered parenting roles and shifted our relationship with sex and monogamy allowed me to find my queerness right there in our straight presenting relationship.
We queered our marriage together and it is awesome.
Through these experiences, I've come to realize that my queerness is so much more than who I am attracted to, to who I sleep with or what other people perceive me to be.
Queer joy to me is feeling fully myself, feeling loved and accepted as I am, and having people to share my queerness with.
Queer joy is also the pure pleasure of being in relationship with other queer people. Queer Culture and Queer Art I cultivate queer joy in a lot of ways. I make space for my queer friendships. I talk about my queerness when it is safe to do so, and I follow folks throughout the world who inspire me with their interpretations and expressions of queer joy.
I work as a mental health therapist and when working with other queer people, I also get to witness the beauty and the pain that is often involved with the queer experience.
Being able to create a space for folks to be their full and authentic self also contributes to a sense of queer joy. Being able to reflect back to people that I see queerness as beautiful also often creates moments of queer joy.
It's important to acknowledge that my experience of queerness is laced with so much privilege. I am in a straight passing relationship.
Most people assume I am straight before they get to know me. This has been a gift and a burden.
I appreciate that I don't have to experience so much of the violence hurled toward queer, especially trans people, just for being themselves in public.
I also sometimes find it tiresome that other people don't see my authentic self.
I sometimes feel like I need to prove my queerness or feel like I'm constantly coming out.
To offset this tension, I take time to affirm my own queerness.
I read books and engage with art that is queer centered. I also prioritize my relationships that see me fully and authentically and love my queerness. I correct folks who make unhelpful assumptions about me.
One thing I think that has helped me is to allow myself to find queerness both in my unique experience of being human and in my witness of other people's quotes Queerness we live in such a heteronormative world. For me, spending time in and with queer culture, queer art, etc. Helped me discover layers of my own queerness.
What has helped me to stay connected to queer joy is relationship fighting and maintaining my relationship with my own awesome queerness, fostering friendships and collegial relationships that also honor my queerness, limiting relationships with folks who deny or don't accept my queerness, and staying curious about how my queerness might evolve and grow.
I guess I would also like to share with others that within your queerness it is the potential for joy.
For me, joy is an inherent part of queerness because in queerness we can discover authenticity and and authenticity is often a friend of joy.
For people who believe in your beautiful, authentic self and who will help you cultivate, attune and love your queerness.
With so much love for you and your queerness, Rosa this second letter is from Hunter.
I didn't know how much I value, love and appreciate queer joy until I really knew what it was. For me, it is being witnessed by complete strangers as a person who simply gets is in small moments when I talk about my partner and people assume I am talking about a woman.
It is knowing there is a community of people in my life and all around me who support and encourage the reality that I am actively choosing not to have children.
It is knowing that questioning my sexuality and identity is encouraged and not question.
It is feeling celebrated when I express myself in how I choose to dress and wear makeup.
It is knowing that I have a community of people all around me who are not heteronormative in how they see and exist in the world.
It is the option to be creative and expressive in my perspectives, my hobbies, my interests, my experiences, and how I live in the world.
It is a relief I feel when I walk into a room and know that there are other queer people in the room.
All of these examples are just fleeting moments, just minutes or seconds that I clock as being witnessed and seen as a queer person.
I didn't know I was missing that in my life until I started working with queer people, until I found some of my favorite hobbies were primarily also occupied by similar queer queer people who see the world through a lens similar to mine.
I didn't know I was missing Queer Joy until I felt the absolute ease of being myself and having people share how much they value me and see me in a lot of the ways I previously would try to hide or change things.
Queer Joy has provided me with the vulnerability and confidence to be the joyous version of myself first full time, not just some of the time.
The above examples once made me feel fearful of how I was being perceived by others.
Now it makes me smile, it feels authentic and I am living into a part of myself that is real, welcomed, encouraged and loved. I can only hope that some others share these moments and feel the same worth that I feel.
Your Ally in Queer Joy Hunter to me, Queer Joy is Britney, it's Madonna, it's Beyonce, it's Gaga. It's feeling fierce and getting lost in the anthemic courses of the kind of music that wasn't meant for me.
It's not having to hide your love and fascination with the epic girl pop song. Queer Joy is coming to terms with all aspects of yourself and not only acknowledging them, but also realizing it's what makes you unique. Queer Joy is getting the joke, but it's that little extra bit of funny you get from living in so many different worlds or playing so many different roles. We can laugh at the jokes that everyone gets, but we also get camp and that is a joyful gift to have been given.
How did you cultivate this Queer joy?
This is such a hard question to answer.
In some ways I feel like I never cultivated Queer Joy until I came out and began to build a life with a same sex partner.
Some days it might feel like that.
It can be really hard being a little gay boy when the world around you tells you that you shouldn't be. But I think about those women. Britney, Madonna, Beyonce, Gaga and countless more. I'm looking at you too, Spice Girls. I think back to times when I had to quiet my love for their discography in public. When privately escaping to a much more fun, exciting and free world, I put my headphones on and press play on my stereo discman mp3 player or iPod.
I suppose in a way I have been cultivating Queer Joy my entire life in whatever small ways I could.
It kept me alive, it kept me hopeful, and it prepared me for the queer joy I'd experience experience later in life with my partner.
What has it taken to keep Queer Joy in your life?
You have to keep letting queer joy in to keep it alive.
As a kid living in a small town and feeling like you didn't belong, it was the little things like music.
As I have gotten older and more open with my sexuality and myself, it's become so much more.
What insights would you give to others who are trying to create seeds of queer joy?
It's just like any other seed. You have to plant it, you have to nourish it, and you have to protect it. It's a struggle, but it doesn't have to be marching in the streets and getting militant. Sometimes it has to be. But it's also important to remember it can be as simple as having those you love most around you while being your most unabashed, unapologetic, joyful version of yourself because you worked hard to get there.
From Surf Spice I have been providing these letters to the people I work with and noticed that there were three main themes in their responses.
The first was feeling seen within isolation.
The following statement was from Kyle I thought because I was in a straight passing relationship that I was not allowed to express experience queer joy. I can see there are ways I can have this now.
The second theme was instilling hope through the possibilities created after reading the letter. The following quote was from Stan I felt alone for so long and didn't know how to begin.
After reading these letters I feel like I know where to start and it doesn't have to be as big as I thought it had to be.
The third theme was a feeling of connection to the queer community.
The following quote is from Lily I thought I could only experience queer joy in an intimate relationship.
After reading these letters I feel as though something has shifted. I look for queer joy in the smallest things. Now I'm hoping to have follow up conversations with folks about their experiences of accessing the queer joy letter archive.
From these initial responses, people could engage with counter stories that allowed them to move forward in the problem they initially identified with.
They also gained words to name their experience and that which they were longing for so they could speak to the implicit.
It was powerful to see how a queer invitation can spark generative ideas to face complex problems and increase people's connection to the 2slgbtqia community.
The isolations and silos that were previously noted seemed less lonely and more accessible for folks as they engaged with the letters. I look forward to seeing how others resonate with these letters.
The writers experience who contributed to the letter writing campaign was surprisingly impactful.
Several people noted a sense of communitas and felt connected to the greater queer community.
Communitas was what was hoped for to address the silos and disconnections. People have been reporting in the drop in program.
Others noted feeling hopeful to continue resisting heteronormativity and feeling connected to their community with an extra sense of purpose to stay connected to their own experiences of Queer Joy.
This this purpose and attention to collective issues was palpable in the letters shared.
It was here that I noticed a strengthening in growth within the community as they responded to those seeking Queer Joy with their unique ways of living.
It felt like they were reaching their hands out to support and guide folks who may be lost within the problems they are facing.
Also, those who participated in the campaign shared the letter invitation to their friends who will be contributing to their archive. I look forward to seeing more diversified responses and to see how Queer Joy evolves with the collaboration of more letter writers.
It was my hope to show that this Queer Joy letter writing campaign was built mindfully to be an extension of the research in letter writing, collective narrative practice, and working with queer communities.
There was careful consideration given to the purpose of queer invitations to deconstruct the dominant discourse of normativity and create possibilities to work with the problem through ways that can only be discovered through insider knowledge.
My hope is that this project will continue to contribute to the lives of folks experiencing isolation in our community and that Queer Joy will be something that people can return to when they are experiencing disconnection from their joy due to isolation.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: Thank you for listening to this podcast from International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work published by Dulwich Center Foundation.
More about this recording and a treasure trove of articles, videos and multimedia works are available from narrativetherapyjournal.org it's all free to access and share with no login required.
Dulwich Centre is located on the land of the Kaurna people. We acknowledge the traditional owners of country and pay respect to elders past and present.
