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“He’s so sexy,” he said, “that you want to stand near him, because you’re hoping a little of what makes him so attractive will splash onto you, and then it will work for you.” Black, white, gay, straight, male, female – it seemed everyone I knew either wanted to sleep with Prince or wanted to be him, or both…

Nik // Disabled // Queer // Femme // NonBinary Trans Boy (He Him His) // Punk

Happy Trans Day of Visibility!!!

I’m Nik, out here trying to represent other disabled queer/trans Chicanxs/Latinxs since we hardly get any representation. Being Mexican and queer has been hard. There’s not may places where I’m from to completely live in my truth without judgement. There’s so many layers to my intersecting identities. Most days it’s hard as hell. Living in a world where no one wants you to live. Ableism kills, so does queer/transphobia. Some days I’m like “why am I even trying?” Honestly, if it wasn’t for my support system, I don’t think I would be here.

Non Binary erasure and Binarism is rampant as hell in the Trans Community. Yes I’m NB, yes I’m on T, NO I don’t desire to look cis. (I’ve been on T over a year and still don’t “pass”) NON BINARY PEOPLE ARE STILL TRANS REGARDLESS OF HOW WE LOOK! Not all of us want hormones or surgeries, and that’s valid as hell. We still deserve respect and dignity!

Be gentle with yourselves, friends. Know that you are valuable and worthy of happiness, stability and love.  Don’t let this world erase you. Love yourselves fiercely and fully, even on days where you don’t think you can. This world is fucking tough. But we have each other. We have community – even if it’s just online. That shit is real, and meaningful. Know that you are beautiful with your mental illness(es), with your disabilities, with your queer/transness. not despite it/them.

Celebrate all the small victories in your life. Practice self care, acknowledge that you are more than your productivity. When you’re feeling shitty or dysphoria hits, be sure to take care of yourself. Wrap yourself in a blanket, watch something on TV, play video games, eat something you love. Nurse yourself like an athlete would nurse a sprained ankle.

Shout out to the crips, shout out to the spoonies, the mentally ill folks.

Every breath you take is a protest. We’re here, we’re empowered, this world will not silence us; no matter how hard it tries!

Heeeeeyyyy to all the lovely QTPOC out there! We’re sorry we’ve been so MIA lately! 2014 has been quite the busy year for our collective members. Just right now, BPP collective member Pidgeon Pagonis is at the Decolonizing Our Bodies conference in Mexico City with interactyouth, premiering their short doc, “The Son I Never Had”, a story of growing up intersex. Mika Munoz is in her 3rd year (only 2.5 more to go!) towards becoming an official union welder and has been working countless 12 hour shift days to make that happen. Monica Trinidad is preparing to travel to Geneva, Switzerland next week with 7 other young folks of color to present a shadow report to the UN on police violence against Chicago’s youth of color, and Sarah Gonzalez has been sharing her powerful storytelling and mind-blowing writing skills with youth. We’ve also welcomed a few new badass folks to our collective and we’re excited to share their work with you in the hopefully near future! 

With October being Domestic VIolence Awareness Month, the Chicago Alliance to Free Marissa Alexander (which two collective members are a part of) sought to make the connection between domestic violence, state violence and Marissa Alexander. We participated in a show of solidarity with freemarissanow by reading Nikky Finney’s poem “Flare” and uploading it as not only a reminder for Marissa Alexander’s case (retrial coming up Dec 8th), but as an important interruption in the depoliticized DVAM discourse, reminding us all that black women are constantly being denied the right to defend themselves (special shout out to the Save Wiyabi Project for creating dialogue around decolonizing the DVAM). 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJGuWWeUgUY

Just a couple of weeks ago, we went down to Champaign-Urbana for Mimi Thi Nguyen’s FABULOUS people of color punks event, featuring zine readings and musicking from Alice Bag, Cristy C. Road, and us! ~*Monica’s dream event*~ We made it through shitty Chicago traffic just in time for Cristy’s hot acoustic set, Alice did a kick-ass cover of David Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream” and interspersedly read from her powerful book “Violence Girl” (her Chicana punk story!), and then we got to close it out by reading a few of our group pieces we stitched together from On Struggling Identity, and On Struggling Bodies. Sarah also read a solo piece she wrote on the jarring consequences of gentrification in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago and how it has personally affected her, Mika gave us all an update on the current state of Ayotzinapapa and the need for solidarity actions, and Monica spoke to the importance of political punk music growing up while also noting the struggle with discovering latina/brown punk representation in a whitewashed punk culture. 

Powerful people, powerful event, and so here are some powerful photos! Thank you again, Mimi, for inviting Brown and Proud Press down! 

Alice Bag, Mimi Thi Nguyen, and Cristy C. Road. 

Alice Bags reads from “Violence Girl”. 

All of us post-event, pre-drinks!

Monica Trinidad, Alice Bag and Mimi Thi Nguyen!