{"id":25919,"date":"2024-10-16T09:00:28","date_gmt":"2024-10-16T16:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/?p=25919"},"modified":"2024-10-11T11:30:33","modified_gmt":"2024-10-11T18:30:33","slug":"gay-as-in-happy-a-queer-wonderland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2024\/10\/16\/gay-as-in-happy-a-queer-wonderland\/","title":{"rendered":"Gay as in Happy<\/em>: A queer wonderland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to my column, my queer wonderland, my fruit basket, my fairy world, or (borrowing from Tony Kushner) my gay fantasia on national themes. Here we will be exploring not only what it means to be an LGBTQ student at Camosun, but also what it means to be queer in the world at the moment. I will be your host\u2014a queer and genderfluid student who\u2019s undergone gender-affirming surgery\u2014and I can\u2019t wait to explore this topic together.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Gay as in Happy<\/em> is a column appearing in every issue of Nexus<\/em> (graphic by Mackenzie Gibson\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019ve definitely had a lot on my mind lately, and I\u2019m not alone. Victoria is a great place to be queer (to use an umbrella term), but locally, nationally, and globally there are a lot of high-stakes questions left to answer. While a lot of this is scary, I\u2019m not interested in just focusing on the things we have to be afraid of. I also want to spend time on what is working, and what it is we\u2019re fighting for. What does queer happiness look like? What exactly is it that we want to have understood? How do we handle the labels we\u2019ve made to navigate these spaces, and when are those labels no longer helpful? What does it mean to be a queer community?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I can think of 100 more questions I\u2019m curious about. I can\u2019t stop thinking about them, and I\u2019m always talking about them. This is why I decided to do a column on the topic: because there\u2019s just so much to explore here.<\/p>\n

Something else I would like to include regularly is suggestions on where else to hear queer voices. \u201cQueer\u201d is a massive label; I can\u2019t possibly represent every perspective and I don\u2019t want to try. I regularly go out of my way to find books and movies and music and comics written by people with a different history from me, and I find my world is always richer for it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here in my first column, I\u2019d like to share a particular favourite of mine: A History of My Brief Body<\/i> by Billy-Ray Belcourt.<\/p>\n

This memoir shares Belcourt\u2019s experiences at the intersection of being gay and Indigenous. Written in often funny and often heartbreaking poetic prose, the book is a powerful collection of vignettes from Belcourt\u2019s life. If you read with a highlighter, keep it at the ready for this one.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m so excited to explore these topics together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to my column, my queer wonderland, my fruit basket, my fairy world, or (borrowing from Tony Kushner) my gay fantasia on national themes. Here we will be exploring not only what it means to be an LGBTQ student at Camosun, but also what it means to be queer in the world at the moment. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25920,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,319],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-october-16-2024"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t