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Readings Mon Oct 07 2013
Ellie June Navidson Brings Spider Teeth and Trans Performance Artist Pals to Quimby's
In her new zine Spider Teeth, Ellie June Navidson calls it simply "the surgery"--an operation she traveled to Thailand to obtain, and which other similarly situated women might call gender confirmation surgery or medical transition. But for Navidson, those terms suggest a straight-line journey that doesn't reflect her own messier experience. In Spider Teeth's 90 pages, she has plenty of space to complicate the cultural picture of trans womanhood with precise descriptions of the shifting gender boundaries she inhabits.
Navidson will read from the zine at Quimby's Bookstore (1854 W. North) on Thursday, October 10, at 7pm, joined by other trans women with deep roots in performance art. Anyone who's attended the Northern Lights queer variety show at Parlour more than a couple of times is likely to recognize A.J. Durand, who only recently hung up the otherworldly mantle of her character Trandroid. Also on the lineup is Kokumo, a South Side native who's not only a writer but a musician, publisher, and community-builder focusing on black transfeminine perspectives.
Navidson's been doing some impressive community-building herself--this will be the second Spider Teeth reading she's put together in a week, with different supporting readers each time. One suspects they're just beginning to build momentum toward bringing a profusion of complex, underexplored perspectives on femininity to a wider audience.
