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J Christopher on Fluidity, Masculinity, and Community
3.4k Plays6 years ago
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Music by Ross Mintzer
Graphic Design by Kaitlin Weinman
Edited by Moxie Peng
Produced by Moxie Peng, Matt Loomis, Alex Boyd, and Rob Cohen
A transcript of this episode is available at www.TwoBiGuys.com
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Transcript
Transition to Remote Recording
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, I'm Rob, and thanks for discovering Season 1 of Two Bye Guys. We hope you enjoy it. So in Season 1, we recorded everything in person. It was pre-pandemic, and we used professional sound booths. And as you'll hear, the audio quality is pretty great. But it was also very complicated and expensive. And when the pandemic hit, those booths became impossible.
00:00:23
Speaker
So in season two, we tried recording interviews locally while chatting on Zoom, which kind of worked. But the audio quality was spotty. Sometimes people made manual mistakes with the recording. It was a huge hassle for me to receive the files, convert the formats, compile the audio, edit by hand. I knew I needed a better solution if I was going to continue the podcast.
00:00:46
Speaker
And Zencaster was that solution. The thing that was most important to me, knowing how the process works, is that the audio gets recorded locally, not over the internet like Zoom does. When you get up to seasons three and four, you'll hear how good the audio quality is. It rivals what you're about to hear from season one, which was recorded in professional sound booths. And it's so much easier and cheaper. Everyone can record from home with whatever equipment they have, even just a laptop's built-in mic.
00:01:15
Speaker
And then there's the editing and post-production. I used to have to go through every track manually, reducing background noise, mixing volumes and levels, making sure my guest and I were synced. Now Zencaster post-production takes care of all of that and delivers ready to upload files. So if you're thinking about starting your own podcast, I highly recommend Zencaster. It's easy, it's affordable, and it's very reliable, and the sound quality is great.
00:01:40
Speaker
And now if you go to zencaster.com slash pricing and enter promo code 2BUYGUYS, you'll get 30% off your first three months. That's z-e-n-c-a-s-t-r dot com slash pricing promo code 2BUYGUYS for 30% off your first three months. It's time to share your story with Zencaster.
00:02:07
Speaker
Welcome to Two Bye Guys.
Introduction to Jay Christopher
00:02:09
Speaker
I'm Alex. And I'm Rob. And we are switching things up a little bit. The first two episodes we got to chat quite a bit about our stories and we are really excited to share with you an interview that we had with a different bye guy.
00:02:21
Speaker
Yeah, we interviewed Jay Christopher, an activist, an educator, an artist who identifies as fluid. He founded Fluid by Design, which is a support advocacy community for sexually fluid people of color. And in 2014, they began offering MenKind, the first ever monthly support group specifically for bi-identified sexually fluid men of African descent.
00:02:46
Speaker
It's kind of like that bi-request group that you and I met at. And I think Jay Christopher went to that group first, too, and then decided he wanted to start another conversation that wasn't happening. And you'll hear him talk about that. Both New York-based groups, very similar in purpose, but this was very focused in its audience, I think. Yeah. And also, Jay Christopher is perhaps best known as the first bisexual grand marshal of Pride. What is the grand marshal of Pride, Alex?
00:03:14
Speaker
Yeah, a grand marshal is essentially who Pride is honoring that year. Pride picks out figures or corporations or organizations to honor each year. And he was the first ever bi person to be honored in that way. So they marched right at the front of the parade, essentially.
00:03:29
Speaker
Wasn't a Trevor Project where you worked at Grand Marshal this year at World Pride? The Trevor Project was actually Grand Marshal this year. Very cool. So anyway, as you listen to this, I think what is really interesting about it for me was how many similarities there are in our stories and Jay Christopher's. I just think a lot of fluid and bisexual people go through lots of similar things. But then also it was very interesting to see where our experiences are different.
Exploring Sexual Fluidity
00:03:57
Speaker
Like, for example, as I've said, you know, I feel as I've explored relationships with people of different genders that it has actually felt very similar to me, that I've kind of been shocked by how similar it feels. Whereas Jay Christopher talks about having very different types of relationships with men versus women. And that's like, that's totally valid too. And actually, I've met so many people in Buy Request and in other places who have that experience. And you'll get to hear some of what that's like now.
00:04:26
Speaker
Yeah, but we won't delay any further. Why don't we we'll pass you along to the interview. Yeah, enjoy.
00:04:39
Speaker
We have a guest today, actually. We have Jay Christopher here with us. What's going on? Good to be here. Very good to have you. Jay Christopher is a native son of Detroit, Michigan. Chris is a mixed media visual artist who studied fine art, African-American studies, and women's studies at Eastern Michigan University, and then enrolled in Howard University's Master of Fine Arts program.
00:05:01
Speaker
He began his work in alternative spaces and with marginalized identities within communities of color. Chris's work as an artist, educator, and community organizer is focused on re-envisioning the psycho-emotional spaces that black men and other men of color have traditionally occupied, with an eye for re-imagining the creative and compassionate possibilities within masculinity. Very interesting stuff, Chris. We have a lot to talk about from that alone, don't we?
00:05:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's a run-on there. So perhaps a good place to start is actually, since you mentioned it, maybe you can tell us a little bit about how you identify. Yeah, so I identify myself as being, well, really at this particular point in my life, I identify myself as being sexual. Just being a human being is sexual. I think my overall feeling is that that's what defines most of all human beings and that there's these various categories that are based on socializations and culture and religion and the various things that bracket who we are.
00:06:00
Speaker
But for the purposes of the world that I live in now, I identify as a sexually fluid man of African descent, as opposed to a bisexual, because I'm not interested in uplifting the binary. So I'm interested in uplifting the spectrum. So sexually fluid means I get to move around in that as well. Cool. So tell us a little bit about kind of how your experience as a sexually fluid man of African descent has influenced the work that you've done. You know, your art and your educating of other people.
00:06:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think probably the best place to begin is with the art because I think before I started to educate other people or just hold space with other people, I was just having a conversation.
00:06:38
Speaker
in my work about my experiences and explorations. I think and feel that whenever you realize that you don't fit, so to speak, into whatever the category is or the box is, then whatever the things are that identify that become in question. I started thinking about, well, what is masculinity then?
00:06:58
Speaker
I feel pretty much like a dude, you know, feel pretty masculine, but I also like men. So what does that mean? I think that I started to have a conversation in my artwork that was an exploration of manhood and then masculinity, which is very different, and then myth, because I was also interested in how we tell our stories and just the whole notion of myth-making, you know, how myths are made. Because you can have personal myths. Like, I mean, all of us are one part.
00:07:23
Speaker
the truth, one part legend, one part myth, depends on who we're talking to, right? So, you know, how do we create myths that support and promote and make us feel good about who we are, as opposed to concern ourselves with myths that don't have anything to do with who you are? Like they don't speak to you at all, so how do you recreate all of that?
00:07:42
Speaker
I was in graduate school and I was working with a lot of artists working around a lot of artists who are female identified and they were doing all this work about womanhood and it was always this dealing with the sort of the sacred feminine like the idea that the
00:07:53
Speaker
the ovaries and the uterus and the creative center of a woman is sacred. And I realized how when men talk about their dicks, they talk about it like the third person, like, I'm gonna knock some boots, I'm gonna bang out, I'm gonna lay some pipe. Like, it's like this whole, like, it's a thing, it's a machine, it's a tool, you know, like, but not something sacred. And so I started thinking about, well, what is the sacred masculine? What does that mean?
00:08:14
Speaker
part of that work and taking these sexualized, objectified images of men that were either in sports magazines or in porn magazines and then flipping that narrative to something that is sacred or spiritual. Allow me to do a couple of things. One thing is play with the sacred and profane, which all artists do on one level. And then just really to interrogate some of these ideas in an effort to be self-determined and self-actualized.
00:08:39
Speaker
Yeah. So the way that mankind came about fluid by design came about as I was listening to the radio one morning
Perception of Bisexuality in the Black Community
00:08:45
Speaker
on my way to work. I used to development work for a nonprofit. And there was a young white woman who was on NPR on Brian Lehrer.
00:08:54
Speaker
And she was talking about bisexuality and she was talking about how, you know, there was this newfound acceptance for bisexual people and, you know, bisexual people, people are embracing bisexuality and all this like very glorious conversation. I was thinking, not in the black community, not in the black community, because in the black community, bisexual men are held as responsible for the rising HIV rates among straight women because of the DL, the down low and stuff like that, that there are so many bisexual men who are not open.
00:09:22
Speaker
And so bisexuals are looked at as being very suspicious. And then on the other side, suspicious to the gay community. It's like, well, what do you want to be? So you're saying you're like, it's this whole like threatening thing about bisexuality. And I think that at Howard,
00:09:38
Speaker
The fact that I was humbly and respectfully kind of popular with the women, but also openly bisexual was super threatening to my professors who were also trying to be with the students as well. I hate to say it like that, but I know that was true. So I think it was kind of like, well, who is this guy? Like he's openly bisexual and a black male was like really
00:10:00
Speaker
I think something that a lot of people weren't used to. In fact, my girlfriend at the time, she didn't mind knowing herself. She didn't want me to tell anyone, though. She didn't want anybody to. Her friends didn't know that she was dating an openly bisexual dude. Like, it was all of that kind of shit, so. How long have you been open about your fluid sexuality? And, like, when did you come to that understanding for yourself? And how? Since I told my mama, you know, that was the most important thing to me.
00:10:27
Speaker
How old were you? I was in college. My first experience wasn't until like 25 or 26 years old. The first time I, you know, bought a Hustler magazine. So Hustler's porn from a long time ago for those who are not, who are young. Like an actual magazine? Like you actually printed on a page? A magazine. You know, I kind of graduated from like
00:10:49
Speaker
Playboy and all the like penthouse and these kind of porn magazines to Hustler. And I realized that when I looked at Hustler, one of the things I liked about is that they always had these like soft porn photo shoots where there would be a man and a woman there. And I found, hmm, I'm excited about seeing them two together. And then I realized, hmm, I'm excited about seeing him naked as well. So I think at an early age, the interest was there, like desire was there. And you know, and the funny thing about retrospect in hindsight is
00:11:18
Speaker
as a grown man, an older man, I can think now that, yeah, I remember my good friend in high school, I remember being aware of that he was attractive. I didn't know what those feelings were, but I was aware of his attractiveness. So I think as you get high and steady, you get older, you start to think, well, maybe I knew, well, maybe I knew, well, maybe I knew.
00:11:38
Speaker
Yeah. So the question of when did you know is, I think, a challenging question. When did I first feel something? When I was very young. When did I first know in college when I had the first experience that I had? I grew up around gay people. My mother and father had friends who were gay. That someone would live in a different kind of lifestyle was not new to me or new to my family. So when I had my first experience, I told my mother because I had met men who were gay and I knew many of them couldn't go home.
00:12:06
Speaker
They didn't have any relationships with their families, like their families had ostracized them. And so I decided, when I had my first experience, which I knew was gonna lead to more experiences because I'm the type two that if I taste something and I like it, it's on the menu. As long as it doesn't interfere with anybody else's rights or anything like that, it's like, if it's good for you, it's good for me, we can do this. So I knew it was gonna have more experiences. But if something happened to me, because this is,
00:12:32
Speaker
late 80s, early 90s. HIV is really on the rise and rapid. So if something happened to me, I wanted to know that I could go home.
00:12:40
Speaker
I didn't know what was going to happen. But my joke used to be that if the gay club burns down, I don't want my momma to be like, oh, my son wouldn't be in a gay club. I wanted to just come get my body because I was in the gay club. You know, like I wanted to know. So once my mother, once I told my mother, which was over dinner, one day I told her I wanted to share something with you. And she was like, OK, well, you want to tell me? I was like, well, I've been exploring my sexuality. And she was like, OK, well, what does that mean? And the waitress came to get our drink order. And I said, well, I've been sleeping with men. And then she looked at me and she said,
00:13:10
Speaker
Can you make that a double? To the waitress. And then we laughed and then she went on to like, you know, to give me a few tips. Like she was like, you know, you know, my friends such and such, they found him, you know, dead in his apartment, no sign of the fourth century, robbed, like don't pick up anybody you don't know, be careful. Once I knew my mom was good, I didn't really give a fuck about anybody else. Like my father never used any other word but faggot.
00:13:31
Speaker
So I did not tell him because we already had like a father-son kind of relationship, you know I mean cool, but like, you know, I didn't tell him, you know, and he died shortly after that period anyway, but um
00:13:43
Speaker
Once I knew my mom was good, I really, really clearly, really didn't give a fuck what anybody else thought. It's like, whatever. That's great.
Family Acceptance and Support
00:13:50
Speaker
Was she was supportive of the fluid identity, or had you figured that out when you told her? No, I mean, I just said I had been sleeping with men. I mean, I don't think, at least in my experience, you can have experiences for a while before you actually embrace something. Right. Yeah. You know, you can keep having, like, OK. Right. I'm sure the first few times that's some shit that went down, I was like, OK, that's not going to happen again.
00:14:09
Speaker
Yeah, that was that. And then it just keeps on happening and then you realize, okay, this is me.
00:14:17
Speaker
Well that and what you were saying before matches so much up with what Alex and I have experienced and we've talked about this is like we had these attractions and then even started having experiences but it takes a little while to add them up and realize what that means and come to that identity and it is like if you're not in the binary it's a slow process of realizing it because it's a gray area and it's complicated. This may have changed now I mean I'm a little bit of an older person now but this may have changed but you know a woman
00:14:46
Speaker
Traditionally can have like a an alternative sexual experience while she's in college and like There's no dude that's gonna be like, oh, I'm not gonna fuck with her anymore because you know, she's chasing pussy But you know you suck a dick you're gay yeah for a lot of people that is definitely still the perception yeah, so it's like, you know and Figuring out how to negotiate this
00:15:08
Speaker
apples and oranges things where just because I've now discovered oranges, I still enjoy apples. You know what I'm saying? What, how? And occasionally with like a fruit salad, you know what I'm saying? Absolutely. But like, you know, but it's like, how do I negotiate that space? And I think for me, that strategy became just being straight up. My joke used to be that if you even act like you're gonna give me some pussy, I'm gonna tell you what's up. Because that way, if it's a deal breaker, at this point, I'm not emotionally invested.
00:15:37
Speaker
You can't hurt my feelings by saying all that. I can't go for that. We can be like, okay, cool. If I get all emotionally invested because I'm an emotional person and then you're like, I can't do this because then I'm going to feel hurt and rejected and dejected and all this other kind of shit that I wasn't investing in. So my strategy just became.
00:15:53
Speaker
saying it, here's what you need to know. Right, it's a good filter for who's gonna accept you or not, and if they're not, then why waste your effort on that? I think what I've been fortunate enough, for whatever reasons, is I've never been turned down by any woman for being bisexual. If they did, it was after they fucked me.
00:16:14
Speaker
really so like it wasn't before so like i think and i don't know what that's about other than the energy that you put out and what you draw to you but i just don't draw the woman to me who's like oh i wouldn't fuck around would i draw the woman who's you know like i'm an artist man i'm in the arts community you know i draw the afro punk uh you know queer community queer chick yeah you know who may be straight but you know whatever else you know like so i just haven't had the experience of being
00:16:41
Speaker
rejected around it, which is why I started the men's group. Because I knew that there were a lot of men who were really grappling with this whole thing of how to live this duality.
00:16:52
Speaker
And I felt like for whatever blessings I had been able to do that and do that openly. And at that time I was in a polyamorous relationship, which was going on while I was in the Grand Marshal. So there's like pictures all over the internet of me and my poly family. It was like four of us. And so I was just really living this life that I look back and think of, what the fuck was I doing? But like, you know, I was living this very open experimental
00:17:14
Speaker
experimental experiential life. I felt the same way that about that living that life as I felt about being Grand Marshal, which was for me being Grand Marshal was about humbly giving permission. Like saying to any other dude out there, because I realize I present I present masculine. I'm a bigger guy. Like, I mean, I present in a way that people don't think I'm anything but straight anyway, you know, most of the time. So I understood the power of that.
00:17:36
Speaker
I understood what that meant as a grand marshal. I understood what that meant in interviews. I understood what that meant in facilitating a group. So my intention was to create space for brothers to really, you know, talk this out, like, you know, and to learn to love and have confidence in themselves enough to know that, like, there's tons of women out here who are still gonna be down.
00:18:01
Speaker
We're talking a lot about women, but have you faced much rejection from men or challenges with men? No, I mean yes challenges Yeah, and maybe some rejection, but I have to say that I don't think that any two bisexuals are built the same Yeah, you know so there might be by the term bisexual Which again is not the term I use there might be some people that are right in the middle who?
00:18:26
Speaker
love and have the same connection to men and women equally and can have the same experiences equally.
00:18:33
Speaker
I think my emotional orientation still is largely with women. I've only been in one relationship with a guy before. And it was a great relationship for me. I don't think it was a great relationship for him. It was a great relationship for me. And so I think that, whereas I may have had challenges with guys, I have to admit that maybe it didn't mean as much to me emotionally. Like, it didn't affect me. Like, I was able to negotiate it. I mean, listen, my one and only boyfriend, Jesse,
00:19:00
Speaker
Shout out to Jesse. Hi, Jesse. We put up with a lot. There's a way that I might cuddle with my girlfriend on the couch. That's not how I cuddle with the dude I'm with.
00:19:14
Speaker
Somehow, whenever I'm with dudes, it's like we're still dudes. This is very heteronormative thinking, but I don't think to be kissing you on your neck or cuddling with you in that way or holding hands. I don't think I've ever reached to hold the hands of a man I was with, ever. I don't think I've ever done that. And I don't know if that's some line that I have that's fuzzy or some politics that I have that I haven't worked out. I don't know about all of that.
00:19:38
Speaker
I just know that what my boyfriend wanted, because we were also in this Polly thing, was for me to treat him in the same way that I treated my girlfriends. And I didn't, I guess I hadn't been socialized to do that, or didn't know how to do that, but I just didn't do that. Which was oddly enough though, whenever I saw him out in public, I would always go to kiss him in public, he wouldn't kiss me in public. So there was no, because of his stuff, because he came out with me. Like he wasn't out before he came, he got involved with me.
00:20:04
Speaker
It helped me to sort of work out where men sit for me and where women sit for me within this my fluidity. And I think you outlined well a point that I tell a lot of folks who are kind of like exploring their sexuality that it's not about trying to change anything or try to sway anything. It's just about kind of opening yourself up to all potential relationships and seeing what feels comfortable. And acceptance.
00:20:29
Speaker
Yeah. Because within the acceptance is healing. So in the healing part, and that's, you know, you tell yourself a whole bunch of fucked up stories about when you don't feel like you're supposed to be who you're supposed to be. Right. You know what I'm saying? Or doing what you're supposed to do. So I think acceptance has a lot to do with, you know, first comes acceptance, then comes healing. Exactly. You know, like, like I'm good. Yeah. But yeah.
00:20:50
Speaker
So can you tell us a little more about fluid by design and mankind? Like what actually are those organizations? How do they function? Who goes to those groups? Yeah. So the group is on hiatus now. Mankind is the monthly men's group is on hiatus now. But this was the first group that was actually for by identified men of African descent and African descent was intentional.
00:21:11
Speaker
It was not people of color. It was African descent. Because I really wanted to have a conversation with black men. You know, the first meeting, I had a few people at it and most of them were people who have worked at GMAT who were like curious about this meeting. And I just kept having more. And I think I had sort of a field of dreams attitude about it. Like if I build it, they'll come. So I built it. And then because it just needed to be a space. And I think as around the city, the word of my brother started hearing about this, like,
00:21:38
Speaker
a black bisexual meeting that goes on in Brooklyn. And through that first three or four years, we explored a lot of topics from meditation and spirituality to we had dialogues with the trans community because there was a lot of folks in the group didn't know anything.
00:21:54
Speaker
And what's interesting is that it was a bi-identified group, a sexually fluid group, but a good deal of the brothers that were there would have probably identified as gay. Because what I found really interesting is that I felt like there were a lot of brothers who didn't necessarily know if they were gay, they just know that they had to make a choice at some particular point, so they made a choice. Like, they didn't see how they could negotiate the duality.
00:22:18
Speaker
And so it was easier to deal with men than it was to find women and still feel like they were integrity and not lying and stuff like that. So I felt like there were a lot of guys at the group who were re-exploring that aspect. I think for a lot of brothers, it was just cool to have a space where you could talk about sucking a dick and not feel like somebody was going to look at you crazy.
00:22:39
Speaker
as part of a conversation. We didn't have like dick sucking forums or conversations about that. But you know, like being able to just freely express yourself as a bisexual man and not have other folks. So that's what mankind is about.
Role as Bisexual Grand Marshal
00:22:58
Speaker
Maybe you can talk a little bit more about being a grand marshal for Pride. That kind of elevated your platform. What led to that?
00:23:06
Speaker
So the visibility was kind of getting around the city and the world was getting around the city. And then when the Grand Marshal thing came up, someone recommended me. That's how I got there in the first place. And in all actuality, I think one of the reasons why they chose me is because the bisexual community had been
00:23:23
Speaker
you know, going to bat with Heritage Pride, who runs the Pride events for a long time about biodiversity, for a long time. And every year had been like, we need to have a by Grand Marshal, we've never had a by Grand Marshal, we've never had a by Grand Marshal. And so finally, when it came time to decide who it was,
00:23:41
Speaker
the new guy who didn't have any baggage attached to him, literally, you know what I'm saying? Like there was no baggage attached to me. I was just a new guy, fresh on the scene. I had a, I think a story that they found interesting being working in youth development and working with young people and building this new organization and whatnot. That's why they approached me about it.
00:23:57
Speaker
I sat with it for a minute, because I wasn't sure if I really was never interested and still not interested in being on the cover of the book. And so I was really curious about that level of outness and openness. And I had been teaching for years. I had been teaching all over the city through all kinds of arts programs and for the DOE and stuff. So I knew that making this very public decision was going to have a lot of people be like, what?
00:24:23
Speaker
Like, what? I didn't know, what? And I'm sure that there were faces in that crowd along Fifth Avenue who were like, that's Mr. Neil from Global Studies, you know, from Global. And then also people who had dated me and been with me and known me and who maybe might feel some kind of way about whatever. So I sat with that for about 10 or 15 minutes.
00:24:46
Speaker
I'm being jokingly about it. I didn't sit long with it. I also felt that I had an opportunity to have the mic. And so that meant that I could raise consciousness around sexual fluidity and around spectrums and around this as a part of the black community's sexuality and experience as well and people of color and all of that. So I had an opportunity to do that. And so I jumped on that.
00:25:11
Speaker
It's kind of crazy how Pride was founded by a bisexual person, right, Brenda Howard? And yet there hadn't been a by Grand Marshal. Like, did you feel any pressure to meet certain expectations as the first one? Yeah, I didn't feel any pressure. I felt a responsibility. I had a lot of great mentors who told me all of this and got me up to speed on all of this information. So once I had the mic, it was kind of like I was very clear.
00:25:34
Speaker
I felt more of a responsibility to talk about the disparities in the LGBT community, like around almost all the health and well-being disparities. Bi-identified people are at the lowest end of that in terms of alcoholism, drug addiction, homelessness, like all of those disparities within the LGBTQ community. It's bi-identified people, then after that, trans folks.
00:25:57
Speaker
So I got a chance to really raise those disparities. I went to the White House with the Med Obama and when the bi community was working with Obama to make sure that there was bi visibility in his agenda. And so just having an opportunity to add a PowerPoint and all this to raise some of those statistical variables and talk about the amount of money that goes to gay and lesbian agenda within the LGBT community versus everybody else's agenda. Fairly any for bi stuff. It's really an agenda controlled by well off
00:26:26
Speaker
white gays and lesbians, like control the agenda of the LGBTQ community on some level, particularly around funding. So the chance to have an open discussion around those disparities, which are racialized, you know, and so then that's where you have the intersection of race in this conversation. And even now, the thing, unfortunately, is black trans women being shot in this country, right? They're even further below by people in that respect. And part of that is their race, you know, creates that target on them.
00:26:50
Speaker
Yeah, well, and also bisexual people are less likely to be out and that causes a lot of internal damage and mental health issues. And I think that's racialized also. I think there's an intersection because you were talking about the DL. Like, I think it's probably even harder for non-white people to come out as bi or trans. Yeah.
00:27:07
Speaker
And that's why the group was so important. Because community, part of those disparities, as you said, have to do with not having a place or community or fellowship. Or there's no bi-club. There's no bi-clubs. We just kind of weave in and out of the environments we want to be in, depending where we are. But there's no space. And so creating an actual space. Speaking of space, we could have gotten free space at the LGBTQ Center in Brooklyn. But we didn't meet in any LGBTQ spaces because many
00:27:36
Speaker
Men who are grappling with this are not gonna go to a space that has LGBTQ on the door, right? So we met in museums and we met in like, you know We met in spaces that were did hat that you know were just spaces I totally identified that cuz the first time I tried to go to buy request I walked up to the center and just kept walking I couldn't go in the door of the LGBT Center and then I a month later I worked up the courage to go to the next meeting
00:28:03
Speaker
I think it's especially important kind of seeing mankind and what the work mankind has done, you know, by request and other spaces. Almost in any community, there becomes kind of the white space. We have a tendency as white people to consume a space, right, due to our privilege and just the ability to overlook any need for another conversation. Right. And I think it's unfortunate that, you know, the communities with so many people being closeted, with so many people being erased in general, right, because we're not identifying by people on the street in the same way.
00:28:33
Speaker
that it becomes so much more work to identify those spaces and those spaces are also so much more required, right? Yeah, intersectionality is a bitch, you know, sort of be bi and black, you know, like, you know, and or and whatever, whatever else is in your identity, I think all of those things, which is why the conversation in mankind was not
00:28:56
Speaker
I always said it was a space that privileged the voices of bi-identified and sexually fluid people, but the conversation was not just about that.
Community Collaboration
00:29:05
Speaker
Because I knew there were a lot of things that folks needed to talk about and share about and be with others about that had to do with just surviving as men of color in America. I don't know what that means.
00:29:24
Speaker
I'm curious what your perception is of the connection between fluidity of sexuality and fluidity of gender and especially like within those spaces you created and within the Black community. Do you see innate understandings and collaborations or where do you see clashes? I see collaboration and understanding facilitated, but not necessarily innate.
00:29:48
Speaker
In fact, I used to just say fluid. And then when someone said to me, well, do you mean sexually fluid or gender fluid? And I was like, oh, gender fluid. Didn't think about that. You know what I'm saying? So there was a blind spot even for me and like, okay, yeah, people can be gender fluid. You know, like I didn't think about that. So a lot of the conversations that came out of mankind, dude, had to do with conversations that I just fucking wanted to have myself. I want to know more about this. Maybe other people want to know more about this. I think that's a great question. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer to it, except that as someone who
00:30:18
Speaker
is part of a, air quotes, marginalized community. You know, there's not a lot of room at the margins to be at each other's throat about shit. So if we can get into some of that conversation, or at least agree to disagree, or at least agree to, you know, like, I don't really understand, but I can't put my head around what it means to be a trans person.
00:30:37
Speaker
Because I'm cis. So for me, it's like, boy, I feel like a boy. I can't possibly know what that feels like, but I don't have to know. I just need to acknowledge that it is what it is, and I honor and respect it. That's it. And so that was the spirit of the conversation, is that we don't have to agree. We can agree to disagree, but let's be in community around it.
00:30:59
Speaker
I think something my bisexual identity has helped me learn is that when somebody else tells you something about their identity, believe them. Because especially when it comes to your gender identity, in addition to sexual orientation, it's not easy to come out and say that you're not the gender you were born under or that you're exploring that. And so you don't have to exactly understand what that is like, but you can believe that person and believe in their experience that they're telling you.
00:31:28
Speaker
and hold conversation more than anything and learn conversation and listen. Right. Yeah. Part of my work is implicit bias work and that's all about that. Like you don't have to really understand. You just have to, you know, like you don't have to get it. Right. But it is. Right. And my personal belief, you know, it's I think I started off this interview by saying that I really identify as sexual because in my belief it's like we can keep adding letters to the end of LGBTQ as people discover various
00:31:54
Speaker
ways in which they express themselves and eventually we'll get to human beings are sexual. That was always my goal that one day you'll open a human development book in junior high and it'll say human beings are sexual. Here we're going to explore a few ways. It really has to do with how the Western paradigm is constructed. This idea that everything has to have a category and a
00:32:15
Speaker
a way of measuring it and a way of understanding it. That's a Western paradigm. And this is, you know, when you look into Indigenous cultures where they have two-spirited, you know, and different kinds of ideas around gender identity and whatnot, like there's this sense that there's a fluidity in a lot of Indigenous cultures anyway. This is about the West, and the West need to name something.
Understanding Identity and Privilege
00:32:43
Speaker
Is there anything that you would want white people, especially heteronormative white people, but also maybe queer white people to understand about the non-white queer experience that isn't talked about or that is like treated in a harmful way?
00:32:59
Speaker
So you know that I'm an anti-racist educator. So this is what I do. So, you know, hell yeah, there's a whole bunch of things you can say. But you know, I think a lot of times when whenever white folks ask me questions similar to that, I say that what I would want white folks to spend time doing is understanding who they are in all of this.
00:33:20
Speaker
I think a lot of the paternalism of whiteness is around racism and things like that being something that white people are going to help get rid of for the benefit of black people. But racism collapses everybody's identity, steals everybody's imagination. As you probably know, Jews weren't always white. Italians weren't always white. Irish weren't always white. They were invited into whiteness as a part of
00:33:44
Speaker
the making of this country and white supremacy within the American context. And so with doing that, then you leave your Italianess behind and you leave your Irishness behind. So whiteness has robbed white folks of a lot. So there's a lot to think about in terms of how the intersection of white supremacy and queer identity is for you.
00:34:04
Speaker
And then how you act upon, how you show up in the world as a result of that would be the thing that I would offer. I think the thing that's really interesting is, and I may have said this to you already, is that my sexual orientation is not my lead identity marker anymore. There was a period of time for a couple years, particularly within when I was doing all of this work in the LGBT community, when I was like Chris, the bi guy.
00:34:31
Speaker
But first and foremost, a black man. And that, the specter of racism and the way that it impacts every aspect of existence for people of color, you know, when I was looking at the disparities, there was still within that LGBTQ tent, a lot of disparities around race. I mean, I think my biggest disappointment, and not that I had any kind of pie in the sky deal about it, was how racist I found Heritage of Pride to be.
00:34:59
Speaker
Yeah, like as an organization and a lot of the other LGBTQ community organization when I went to things the conversation was framed from a privileged white perspective almost always And everyone else in the audience was trying to get another identity a kind of conversation in there I thought the part of reason why my the space that I created was so valuable was because there were a lot of folks who went to these other spaces and just felt like I
00:35:22
Speaker
It's a white space that I'm included in like my work and everything else in America. I'm saying not a space for me. Like people talk, you know, in feminist discussion, people talk a lot about white feminism, for example, right? And I feel like that's for the last couple of decades, even that's been a term that has been coined, you know, used appropriately and understood.
00:35:41
Speaker
I think that's the next stage potentially in the queer discussion, right? Because that's a huge piece that's missing, especially, you know, here in New York, the most diverse city in the country. And I still have the feeling that like that gay white man is going to take any queer space and make it his own, right? I agree. I agree. I agree. And that is the most difficult part of all of the discussions that I have in anti-racism spaces is the conversation around whiteness.
00:36:07
Speaker
Like that's where all my pushback comes from. That's where all the uncomfortable feelings and the fragility and the tears come from because it's very rarely our white folks really asked to even think about what that is or what that is or what that means or how it shows up or any of those kinds of things.
00:36:24
Speaker
I do think you're so right and that is so important for white people to think about and talk about. You know, I framed the question sort of from that biased point of view, but I agree with what you're saying so much because a lot of those white privilege and white supremacy and also heterosexual privilege was totally invisible to me until I started having sort of a crisis of my own identity and that.
00:36:50
Speaker
forced me to think critically and interrogate myself and my identity. And it came out first in terms of my sexuality. But then once I started looking at that and breaking down the structures that were in place and the things that I had been taught, that then gave me a new understanding of white supremacy and of my white privilege.
00:37:12
Speaker
and it all felt connected. And I think unless you have that kind of crisis like I had, it's relatively easy to go through life and not think about any of this stuff and for your privilege to be totally invisible to you. I agree. I mean, being identifying as a sexually fluid person and being involved in all this stuff I was involved in,
00:37:33
Speaker
didn't stop me from being a patriarchal asshole from time to time. You know, I was still very heavy, heteronormative practices, very, you know, like my masculinity was structured and constructed in a way that was, would be considered a toxic, you know what I'm saying? Like I was still doing all of that stuff, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, me too, I still probably do. Even, I think the work that I've done, like, you know, the work that I've been doing in, particularly in the Center for Racial Justice and Education, which I put a plug in for,
00:38:00
Speaker
is that there's a lot of very diverse identity in that organization and working with, we always work in cross-racial teams. And I have, a lot of my white co-trainers have said to me, you know, I'm really happy to work with you because you teach me so much about, then show me so many things I didn't realize. But I'm really happy to work with some of the female-identified trainers I work with because they catch me on shit that is man-shit that I have complete blinders on.
00:38:30
Speaker
never think about it. Even down to pronouns. I used to say this joke in my trainings. When I introduced myself, I said, my pronouns are he, him, and bruh. And everybody would always laugh. And then one day, I was out in Seattle when a person who was trans identified said, introduced themselves, and said, and I appreciate if we don't make jokes about pronouns. Well, pronouns, they mean shit to me because I'm cisgendered. And in the norm, a pronoun didn't mean that much to me.
00:38:55
Speaker
And my point is that, you know, all of this work and identity and justice is illuminating. I was saying to my friend the other day, my colleague the other day, it's like it's the gift that keeps on giving in a lot of ways because I never walk away from any experience having not had an aha moment out of something, like either in my own transformation and growth or my understanding of the work that I do.
00:39:18
Speaker
I also think it's harmful to be a cog in an unfair machine, even if you're in a place of privilege within that machine, and especially when you don't see how that machine works. So when we recognize where we are in that machine, that's the first way to start to combat it. Yeah, and that's what creates the fragility in a room.
00:39:39
Speaker
I don't have a problem with white fragility. It's funny, the question that you asked me just a few minutes ago, the first thing that came to mind in the back of my mind was that
00:39:52
Speaker
We, and I mean this collective we, which I probably don't have the right to speak for, are tired of educating white folks on what oppression is. Like, go read a book. Go find out for yourself. I'm not holding space for you to cry about your aha moment just now that you're a white woman. Like, I've had people from training say, I just realized I was white like three years ago.
00:40:13
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I see I get it you know and at the same time in terms of emotional labor and Particularly women of color have held that space of like educating and holding emotions for everyone on this shit Yeah, like your moment of like taking care of white folks in the room
00:40:30
Speaker
You know what I'm saying? As they have this moment of transformation where they realize. So I think on some level, when you asked that question, I was thinking, I don't have anything to tell you. There's a whole bunch of shit everywhere. You didn't rob a D'Angelo book. That's what I'm saying. Go read that. Affirmative action was white. There's a whole bunch of stuff out here to get clear on whiteness and white supremacy. And it's not the role of the people of color in your life to
00:40:55
Speaker
to teach you that and to educate you on that. They may choose to in your relationship, but it's not their role. Yes, well, thank you for educating us on that at my request. But yes, I agree with that. We appreciate that. And thank you for giving us a little bit of that education and also just having a conversation about you and who you are and everything.
Reflection on Intersectionality
00:41:17
Speaker
Well, thank you for inviting me. It's been good. It's been fun.
00:41:25
Speaker
So that was our interview with Jay Christopher. You know, listening to it again, I feel a little awkward about the way that I asked that final question about race and intersectionality. But I also think it led to a really good and important conversation. And I actually think it reminds me of
00:41:43
Speaker
my bisexual experience and like sometimes the way that my parents or some friends have asked me, you know, what do you want me to do differently or what do you want me to say differently to you now that, you know, I know that you're bi. And like often my answer is really just, you know, I want you to learn more about queerness and what this stuff means. I want us all to have a better understanding of these issues. And so like his answer really made a lot of sense to me.
00:42:12
Speaker
Yeah, and I think I've experienced a lot when I talk with folks of color or with women or with trans folks, like a lot of that kind of like read the book response, right? Like just like go read a book, right? And I think that's super important to like validate that. Like that's the way I respond all the time to like, you want to know what it's like queer? Listen to the podcast in this case, right? Like, you know, I don't, I don't want to like have to educate the person right in front of me in that moment and like have that put on me, right?
00:42:39
Speaker
Yeah, right. And it's also how I learned about a lot of this is by doing my own research and learning about it. Yeah. And actually another thing that Chris said that I've been thinking about, he talked about these intersecting identities and he talked about Italian and Jewish identity and how you sort of set those aside to become a white in this country. And I've been thinking about that a lot because I am Jewish. And when I started coming out as bi or realizing it,
00:43:05
Speaker
it suddenly felt very connected to my Jewish identity in a way that I couldn't quite put my finger on. And I think this sort of is the way, which is that like, as a Jew in America, I can pass for white, right? Like, you know, I am a white person. And when I'm in a space where it may not be totally safe to identify as Jewish, I have learned from a very young age not to identify as Jewish and to pass as
00:43:31
Speaker
not Jewish, to stay safer. And I think that I learned that at such a young age that when I then did that with my sexual identity and my, you know, bisexuality and learned to pass as straight, it felt so similar. Maybe that's why you could kind of pass as straight for so long. Right, I felt comfortable doing that. Yeah, I don't think I would have had that energy to like pass for that long and to like hide that label.
00:43:59
Speaker
But maybe your label as Jewish has, your identity has just kind of trained you a little bit better. I think there's commonality amongst all those identities that are perhaps you can pass as something else, pass as the more privileged form of it. Right. And I think, you know, there are plenty of other examples of that. I think of right off the bat, like, you know, disability and disabilities that folks might have or, or various kind of gender identities, maybe like passing as, you know, male, as white.
00:44:27
Speaker
But yeah, I think that's an interesting observation. I don't know if I've ever noticed that one before. Yeah, well, thank you Chris for sparking that discussion and I hope you all enjoyed that interview. We will be back next week with another great interview. Dr. Jane Ward, who wrote an awesome book about fluid sexuality, mostly among straight identified men. So come back for that next week. It's really awesome. Yeah, super excited for that one. And thank you all for listening to Too Bad Guys.
00:44:56
Speaker
Our music is by Ross Mincer and graphic design by Caitlin Wineman. This podcast is edited by Moxie Pung and is also produced by Moxie Pung, Matt Loomis, Alex Boyd, and me, Rob Cohen. Thanks for listening to Two Bye Guys.