Gender Blender Tai Jacob

Tai talks to Ignacio Rivera about sex, kink, intimacy, polyamory, and their project HEAL (Hidden Encounters Altered Lives) which aims to end child sexual abuse.

Ignacio Rivera is a queer, trans, two-spirit, Black Boricua Taíno who prefers the gender-neutral pronoun “they.” Ignacio is an activist, writer, educator, filmmaker, performance artist and mother. Ignacio has over 20 years experience on multiple fronts including economic justice, anti-racist anti-violence and anti-imperialist work, as well as mujerista and LGBTQ movements.

Ignacio is the founder of Poly Patao Productions (P3), sporadically blogs on WhatTheySaidBlog.com and is one of the founding board members of Queers for Economic Justice. Ignacio is a 2016 Just Beginnings Collaborative Fellow. JBC is a movement building platform designed to initiate, cultivate and fund strategic efforts to end child sexual abuse. As a fellow, Ignacio founded and Directs The HEAL Project.
Ignacio was named one of 5 Trans Writers who are Redefining Masculinity 2016, one of Queer as Verbs, 7 Trans & Non-Binary Artists Doing the Work in 2015, one of the Honor 41 in 2014, Trans Artists of Color You Should Know in 2013 and recognized as on of the Trans 100 in 2013.

Links:
Ignacio’s website: http://www.igrivera.com/
More info on the HEAL project: http://www.igrivera.com/the-heal-project.html

cw: nonconsensual medically unnecessary surgeries, suicide, medical trauma

Tai talks to Pidgeon Pagonis about the interactions of intersex people with the medical industrial complex, their new film “The Son I Never Had,” the place of intersex people in the LGBTQI umbrella, and the need for support systems for intersex folks. Dr. Cary Costello from the University of Milwaukee also joins to talk about the words endo sex and ipso gender, and the opportunities for coalition building between trans and intersex communities.

Pidgeon (Chicago, IL) is an intersex activist, educator, and filmmaker. They are a leader in the intersex movement’s fight for bodily autonomy and justice. Their goal is to deconstruct the dangerous myths that lead to violations of intersex people’s human rights, including common, irreversible medical procedures performed without consent to make bodies conform to binary sex stereotypes. Pidgeon has a decade’s worth of experience giving talks and facilitating intersex workshops around the globe. In 2015, they received the LGBT Champion of Change Award from the White House. They can be seen on the cover of National Geographic’s January issue titled, Gender Revolution. This past Spring, they instructed Introduction to LGBTQI Studies at DePaul University.

Dr. Cary Gabriel Costello is Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of LGBT+ Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. An intersex trans man, ze researches and teaches in the areas of gender, sexuality, sociology of medicine and sociology of the body. Costello engages in public sociology and education, and you can find zir blogs here: http://trans-fusion.blogspot.com/ and http://intersexroadshow.blogspot.com/.

Links:
- Writing by Julia Serano http://www.juliaserano.com/writings.html
-Pidgeon’s Everyday Feminism article: http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/06/intersex-lgbtq-misses-the-point/
-I Want to Be Like Nature Made Me, Human Rights Watch Report: https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/07/25/i-want-be-nature-made-me/medically-unnecessary-surgeries-intersex-children-us
-Dr. Cary Costello blog post on the Ideology of Natural Sex: http://intersexroadshow.blogspot.ca/2016/08/the-problematic-ideology-of-natural-sex.html

Tai talks to LaSaia Wade, Stephanie Skora, and Glitter Millhouse Record of Chicago’s Trans Liberation Collective (TLC) about how they started organizing together and what work they’re doing in Chicago to create the conditions in which all trans people can be liberated.

The Trans Liberation Collective, or TLC for short, is a radical Chicago-based collective founded completely by trans organizers. Our goal is nothing short of full liberation for all trans people. We will tolerate nothing about us, without us! Our organizing centres trans people, and mobilizes cis accomplices to achieve liberation for every trans person.

-Photos of March 3 Rally
https://www.facebook.com/loveandstrugglephotos/photos/a.1927197657516609.1073741918.1729022184000825/1927202234182818/?type=3&comment_id=2003875336515507&notif_t=comment_mention&notif_id=1501632571617765

-Pride Disruption Demands and Coverage
(1) https://radfag.com/2017/06/25/happening-now-trans-led-coalition-shuts-down-chicago-pride-parade/
(2) http://www.teenvogue.com/story/chicagos-pride-parade-route-was-stopped-by-activists

-Redlining
(1) http://www.blackpast.org/aah/redlining-1937
(2) http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/04/11/473414348/talking-housing-segregation-and-chicago-with-wbez-s-natalie-moore

-UN report on genocide in Chicago
http://report.wechargegenocide.org/

-Donate to TLC and Brave Space Alliance https://bravespacealliance.org/contact/