In preface to the collective 11 short queer essaysAnne Archet writes: “if we individually and collectively have a future, this future can only be queer”.
According to the writer, the collective effort to abolish heterosexuality as a norm and as an oppressive system would benefit everyone, since the rigidity of gender roles and sexual mores alienates and oppresses, on various levels, each and every one of us. us, and participates in a larger system of oppression from which emerges the climate crisis in addition to deep social and economic inequalities.
She adds: “Machines of destruction, the multiple systems of hierarchical domination such as patriarchy, capitalism and imperialism depend on our obedience and adherence to the strict social norms and identities imposed on us. To be queer is to be the sand in the gears of these death machines. It is to be a glimmer of life in a world that would otherwise be hopelessly dark. »
This manifesto for a queer world vibrates in every sentence, every word, every narrative choice adopted in the collective led by Marie-Ève Kingsley, each of whose eleven texts bear witness to a different facet of queer identity, and celebrate the plurality, the multiplicity, the heterogeneity of the human adventure.
Tell the body
When she was entrusted with the management of these 11 short queer essaysMarie-Ève Kingsley, who identifies as non-binary, surrounded herself with artists – very or little known – from the community, so that they bear witness to their lived experience, their physical, sensual and psychic experience of world.
“The way we live and how our societies are organized shapes our bodies. In the same way that a contemporary dance luminary will not have the same body as a truck driver, because gestures and labor power are not exploited in the same way, people who identify as queer have a relationship to the world different from those who identify with standardized identities. I wanted the essayists invited to contribute to tell about this queer body, posture and situated knowledge. »
The different stories – all immersive, evocative, clear and poetic – allow you to slip into the shoes of human beings who choose to walk outside the frame, to explode the boundaries of the norm to fully exist and claim their right to build zero their identity.
Alongside Maisie-Nour Symon Henri, we better understand the violence that accompanies a person wearing both a beard and a dress on a daily basis. With Maël Maréchal, we capture the encounter and self-recognition that queer allows. Elsewhere, Zed Cézard and Laura Doyle Péan reflect on rebirth and the sum of experiences that choosing a first name represents, while Éric LeBlanc explores the aborted possibilities of today’s world through the prism of film. Bridget Jones’s Baby.
It’s not serious not to understand, what is serious is to make people live with oppression because we don’t understand
Some of the texts are so accurate that we feel the weight of looks, judgments, incomprehension pierce the pages, gradually removing the possible withdrawal into oneself, the easy indifference.
“My goal is not to attack all heterosexual and cisgender people in the world, but to oppose the fact that this identity is a norm and that it breeds oppression. I hope that the various texts will arouse a form of empathy, if not an understanding. It’s not serious not to understand, what is serious is to make people live with oppression because we don’t understand,” emphasizes Marie-Ève Kingsley.
Deconstruct form, language, identity
The fragmented, non-gendered form of the various essays also reflects this desire to deconstruct the norm, to offer new ways of understanding the world, literature and language. Thus, the search for and the creation of an inclusive, epicene and neutral language also become essential so that everyone can name themselves and exist, and, ultimately, to emerge from oppression.
“You have to use non-standard forms to reflect non-standard realities,” explains the director of the collective. I wanted each story to make it possible to understand that identities are as complex as ways of saying things, that each of the “collaborators” be radically themselves, hoping that some readers will find in these voices new ways of defining and expressing themselves. represent. »
By the same token, the entire collection stands as a warning against this reflex that tries to lock the queer experience into a box, to delimit its borders and establish its definition. “Queer exists to bring together complex identities that did not exist in people’s heads and in language. There is no word to describe a trans man who wishes to maintain his lesbian identity, for example. Queer is about taking what exists — language, social constructs — and turning it upside down, reshaping it, making it your own. And I’m sure everyone would benefit from making the most of this range of possibilities. »