Episode 5 - Identity, Part II The Space of Justice

In this episode, Shelvis Ponds sits down with Angel Collie, Assistant Director of the Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity at Duke University. Sponsored by the Division of Student Affairs at Duke University.
Beginning of Transcript:
SHELVIS PONDS: In this episode, we sit with Anglie Collie from the Center forSexual and Gender Diversity at Duke University to discuss how he navigated histransitioning experience in light of opposition and struggle.SHELVIS PONDS: It’s good to be with you, Angel, today. Thank you so much foragreeing to be a part of our Just Space podcast. The word identity often comes up inyour work. Could you share with us what you think the word identify means?ANGEL: Yeah, when I think about identity I think it can be the parts of how someoneshows up in the world, who they understand themselves to be, I think there’s aconstructed part of identity, some that we may identify with those things, it may bethings that have been assigned to us, or society has made meaning of and they impactour experiences and how we show up and how with the expectations are for us in theworld.SHELVIS PONDS: Thank you, thank you. I really think it’s a salient point to thinkabout identity that one self-identifies as as opposed to one identity that one is assigned.Could you share about that difference of identity that I live into because I self-identifywith that identity versus a identity I made just naturally be assigned by the outsideworld?ANGEL: Yeah, I mean I think about that a lot in terms of the identities that I hold. Ithink one of the salient, one of my salient identities would be my identity as a transperson. I was assigned female at birth, I was expected to conform to expectationsassociated with that sex assignment whether that was being forced to wear dresses andthere was a whole line of expectations and limitations and restrictions that came alongwith that. Down to the activities that I wanted to engage in or what my family and mycommunity wanted me to do so it’s kind of a general example, but growing up I alwayswanted to play football, I wanted to be in taekwondo, martial arts, my mom wanted meto like go to dance school and she always really wanted a girl so I think I got a lot of that- those hopes and yet that never really fit for me, there was always a way in which I hadthis internal sense that I was male, I am male and so I’ve had to come out as trans, I’vehad to like align my gender expression and how I communicate my gender into the
world to reflect my gender identity to reflect my gender identity because it wasn’t whatI was assigned so that’s one example. I certainly hold other identities that are impact myexperience and how I show up in the world and the access I have and the places where Idon’t necessarily have access, so I think about my racial identity as a white person whatdoes that mean and the privilege that it carries and the responsibility I have to beundoing that privilege. I think about my social-economic status growing up in aworking-class family, I think about my faith as a Christian in a society whereChristianity has been predominant religion for a long time and has at times caused a lotof harm for communities or have been used to cause harm - I think about that inrelationship to my queer and trans identities specifically and for me my faith is also thething that gave me the strength to be who I am so having to reconcile the Church I grewup in and the type of Christianity as a part of with who I need myself be and had apretty difficult journey doing that. When I came out, I was raised in a southern Baptistchurch in rural North Carolina, so I think that my grandfather was this beacon, I was inChurch every time the doors were open, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesdaynight. I’d be dragged along to women’s auxiliary meetings, where I learned a lot aboutother people in the church, but not necessarily a lot about the Bible, that’s where thenews was spreaded. So you know I thi