| Abstract | My work seeks to uplift Black Queer deviance and disrespectability, a disruption of social standards of respectability to unearth new possibilities of existing and being, casting these concepts as abolitionist praxis. I utilize alternative collection practices, like communal oral histories, and self-portraits of the individuals who make up a community to revisit the past, reclaim Black Queer Representation, and reimagine gender holistically through visual and embodied storytelling. I document and explore the lives and embodied knowledge of Black gender nonconforming and trans folks, as they live and thrive within the presumed fugitivity of the South. I attempt to address the lack of Southern Black Queer Trans Narratives by centering Black Trans and Queer Individuals narratives within my work, coupled with the visual aspects of my zine. By centralizing alternative methods and the stories of a neglected portion of the Black community demonstrates embracing the disrespectful as a re-orientation created by Black Trans Queer folks through disrespectability can reorient the understanding of our Black bodies within a Black communal context. |
