I’ve never put much store in pronouns. Trans heresy, I know. Our pronouns are supposed to be near and dear to our hearts, defended with the same fervor as our chosen names. They can be flags, or weapons, or mirrors to reflect our deeply felt senses of self. They don’t always fit. Maybe it was …
I just confirmed that I will be performing 348 at the PsychOUT Conference! The free conference will be hosted by WE THE PEOPLE at CUNY Grad Center on June 20th and 21st. I’m really thrilled that this conference exists. It’s an opportunity for psych survivors, activists, artists, scholars, and radical professionals to get together and …
It feels like it was yesterday. They opened the door and I walked out of the building. When I had entered the institution, it was under a grey autumn sky, overcast and foreboding. Now, an April breeze caressed my lungs with my first breath of fresh air in seven months. It’s been ten years, but …
Yesterday, Sassafras Lowrey, Syd London, and I went on an incredible adventure. Sassafras and I were on a mission to get new publicity photos for PoMo Freakshow, as well as getting new shots for our individual work. For my individual shoot, we visited a deserted old asylum. I had envisioned some sort of abandoned hospital …
Read more “So, three queers walk into an abandoned hospital…”
Last week, the PoMo Freakshow Troubled Teen Tour took me back to Portland to perform 348. It’s sort of a full-circle story: when I was an undergrad student at Lewis & Clark College, I studied theatre and helped plan the Gender Studies Symposium. Now, years later, I returned as an invited guest of the Symposium, …
His name was Garrett. He lived a block and a half away, and walking in front of his house was the fastest way to get to Shumway Elementary School. Every morning, and every afternoon, I took the longer route. Garrett was a bully, and everyone knew it. Well, everyone other than his mother. Isn’t that …
I will grant that this New York Times article has good intentions. It wants everyone to remember that gay teens aren’t the only teens that get bullied, get depressed, and kill themselves. Unfortunately, it tries to do this by erasing the differences between the experiences of gay and straight teens, offering a diluted sort of …
In general, I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions. I appreciate the impulse to turn over a new leaf with the new year, but personally… I aim for ongoing self-reflexivity and goal-setting, so I don’t really ever line it up with the calendar shift. That, and the fact that New Year’s resolutions seem doomed to …
One of the most frequent questions I’ve been asked, since I started performing ‘348’ and talking about my experiences as a “troubled teen” within the psych industry is, “why didn’t/don’t you sue them?” This question comes from a belief that a legal battle could shut down an abusive facility, or at the very least eliminate …
Read more “Another way that New York’s psych hospitals are broken.”
A holiday wish from PoMo Freakshow (aka Kestryl Cael and Sassafras Lowrey), from us and ours to you and yours!