Response to: Resisting Shame: Making Our Bodies Home by Eli Clare
In this speech given at the Gender Odyssey Conference, Clare highlights the idea of shame, an internal feeling that is invoked in many people who are struggling with gender and sexuality issues, or imposed upon them by individuals who judge them for how they identify; but also how it creeps up in daily life in situations such as job interviews, sexual intercourse, getting dressed, and even when looking at ones own reflection. Clare’s main emphasis in this speech is how we can challenge that shame and try to shun it from our being. Clare goes into detail about a personal experience he faced while on a biking tour, being self identified as genderqueer and disabled. On this trip, he overheared his partner being bombarded with questions from fellow bikers about what exactly is “wrong” with him. “Does he have MS or Parkinson's?” “He's so brave; what kind of trike does he have?” Clare also encountered people assuming that his partner was his caregiver or chaperone, all the while with no person directly asking Clare about his person narrative. Shame sets into Clare as he sees the distress in his partner’s face,thinking to himself “whats wrong with me, why won’t anyone talk to me?”
Clare ties this narrative into the statement he has heard that “trans people should have access to quality healthcare like any other disabled person”, with some likening it to a birth defect that is in need of a cure. He rejects that idea, and says that we should embrace our differences. When asked about if he would cure himself of cerebral palsy he said no, because he doesn’t know his body or himself any other way. Rejection of disability as a medical issue that needs solving and instead doing away with ableism is the real issue that needs to be fixed, because to claim ones trans body is defective, ignores the experience of many disabled people, but also leaves trans people “wide open to shame”.
I personally connected to this reading because the idea of shame and discomfort in ones body is not an issue that only pertains to gender variant people, but to cisgendered people as well. I look in the mirror and second guess ever feature of myself, from clothing, to body shape , to hair; almost everything. Reading this speech made me reflect on the uniqueness of my body, and how no one else in this world looks exactly like me, has the exact shape, personality, mentality, or daily life of me. And thats okay. This speech made me give a second thought to the shame that I carry with me, and why I carry it with me. Rejecting what we are told is ideal, what is considered, normal or abnormal, is the best thing that I-- that we can do. Embracing our differences, instead of obsessing on how we can fit into the mold.. Is what I took away from this Clare’s speech.
This speech impacted how I view gender variance because it made me think about how great it is that we are who we are, that we can be who we want to be and there is nothing wrong with that; and it is not necessarily always important to try and change these things. If anything, Clare’s speech made me loosen my mental constructs of gender even more; and made me see how the idea of what is normal and abnormal in terms of gender and sexuality is shame in and of itself. I hope that others who read Clare’s speech can take a away some solace and comfort from the words spoken. Understanding that whether you are gender variant, disabled, both, even cisgendered; that you are person, a unique person and that these differences do not make us weird, or abnormal; that they just make us, us.
Link to Clare’s speech
http://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/sjsj/vol8/iss2/2/