Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

Reply to comment

skumar's picture

writing and reading... as therapeutic?

Jessy,

In your generic experiment, you write: "I had been saying for months that I didn’t think of myself as a woman. I hadn’t pursued that line of thinking any further. Susan Stryker showed up – readings in two of my classes, and she herself there as well. Suddenly, there was a mirror, and I raised my eyes to it, and that’s how I came out." Then, in "See Minotaur Or, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Minotaur," you write:

 

And now I'm plowing through readings on trans/intersex issues in recent American history and googling all kinds of things, and I'm very quietly freaking out again. And I don't know why. My hypothesis is because I lack a vocabulary to describe my own gender identity, and this sort of thing gets it all stirred up. I suppose the best term is genderqueer, but … I guess I don’t know what I mean by that. I’m not transsexual. I don’t feel like my body is wrong, or that … I mean, I don’t think of myself as a woman, and I don’t like the word woman, but I certainly don’t think of myself as a man, either.

 

Thus, I would be interested in knowing how Stryker's essay was therapeutic for you. What exactly in the text resonated with you? helped you? comforted you?

 

Reply

To prevent automated spam submissions leave this field empty.
6 + 13 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.