 So I'm going to share with you excerpts from my Gender Studies comic series, which I think is probably going to end up being six comics total. I've got two already completed, one almost done, the third. And then there'll be about three others. They're autobiographical stories of my invention or my adventures in gender as a gender non-conforming queer black person. And then I also will share with you a little excerpt a poem I wrote about black bears. But first, gender studies. And I'll just walk you through a few of the pages. And I should say gender studies, too, the second part. When I get to that second section, I'll wave my hand. We'll be out, as you said, in the alphabet anthology from Prism Comics. So look for it sometime in May. It's going to have a lot of really cool work celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Prism Comics organization. So this is called Gender Studies. And this is the first one. And it's kind of about what happens when you are a queer person who really identifies strongly with masculinity. But you're not really out. And so it's a little bit confusing, especially when you're in college. So it starts out living in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 21st century. It's easy to take the variety of queer genders here for granted. And I am on the one side, a woman-identified gentleman scholar. And then there's my much taller partner, all-inclusive deluxe model gender queer femme. And that's a self-description. My partner is a lot more animated and creative than I am. I've been wearing the same clothes since I was in high school. Seriously. Thanks to my mom, who didn't mind buying ties. But it hasn't always been like this. So much has changed since my college years back then. In the mid-1980s, great time to go to college, by the way, the limits and possibilities of gender were a lot less clear, at least to me. During most of that time, since I was in college, I dated guys, which looked back on. It was kind of fun with a lot of funny moments, but it could also be pretty confusing. And so there I am. These are actual real outfits from the 80s. And I'm wondering, am I into this guy? I mean, I love the way he pairs those main hunting boots with that classic duffel coat. Squares the shoulder so perfectly, I've totally got to get one. And then I've switched the ethnicities, the names, the ages of the people I'm describing, but they're all based on real people, with whom I'm actually still friends for the most part. But this was 30 years ago, so we've all forgiven each other. Was I truly smitten by Gil, or was I just into the idea of seeing Harry Knuckles up close? Was I in love with Colin, or was I in love with his sweater collection? It was the sweater collection, actually. And then there was Micah. Did I really think he was the one, or did I just figure out how he got those, did I just want to figure out how he got those jeans to hang on his body just so? Was I really craving more quality time with Kwame, or did I just covet his super cool hot pink boxers, which were so cool? The thing about being a masculine woman with men was that we had a lot of unexpected things in common. And this was actually, once again, changing the names and the places. This one guy, who is actually now gay, gay identified. We actually made a road trip to L.L. Bean. So this is based on truth, but twisted a little bit. Freeport, Maine, yeah. And here is an example of, these are things that, once again, really happened. I was thinking maybe instead of going to the winter ball, we could just hang out. Just the two of us should know at my place with some becs, maybe, and listen to music. Beer, run. I was on the rugby team, so any opportunity for beer was very exciting for me back in the 80s. And then one of those debates you only get into in a dormitory. Apocalypse Now is so much better than Full Metal Jacket. Sheen versus Modine, not even a competition. No way, Kwame, Modine is totally underrated. And do you really think Coppola can measure up to Kubrick? I mean, the Godfather saga versus 2001 and the Clockwork Orange? Seriously? Our similarities were fun and weird and interesting, but without the language of gender, they were kind of hard to talk about. And this is all retrospective, realizing a little bit of what was going on. Male-identified cisgender guys with a male-identified woman who isn't really out in that way yet, and no one's really talking like that on our New England college campus. And this is the last panel, or the last two panels I'll show from this particular comic. Watching sports, for example. And you're a really cool girl, I mean woman, to hang out with, because we like all the same stuff. We both like watching sports. We both listen to Rush. You totally rock out to hardcore. I'm in a hardcore band. And I'm thinking, please shut up. We're on the 50-yard line. And then this last moment was one of the ones that comes back to me a lot. I think about this a lot, because my roommate who's also transmasculine-identified with my roommate back then, and I used to do a lot of air guitar. Not a lot of girls do air guitar. It's like you're a guy friend who's also a girlfriend. But then again, you're also my actual girlfriend, which is kind of weird. For the second issue of gender studies, and this story in full color is in the upcoming alphabet anthology, Requiem for a Hot Comb, I thought about the way that we talk about the body modification and the transformations that we have to make to feel like we really inhabit our gendered bodies. And although there are many reasons that women of African descent in the 1980s, which was the era of the hot comb and the relaxer, started wearing afros, some or dreadlocks, there are many reasons, some feminine identified women really felt like they inhabited their genders better when they fully could experience their hair in its natural state. For me, it was very much the kind of thing I needed to do to finally be able to truly inhabit my gender. And so gender studies, Requiem for a Hot Comb, kind of traces that transformation. And I start out by thinking about the different ways to be a black woman. And whether you're the nerd girl or the church girl, the ratchet girl, the diva, the prep, the grandmother, almost everyone who's ever been a black woman has had someone in some point straighten your hair. Not everyone, but almost anyone who's ever been a black woman. And that's a picture of me back in the day with bangs. When I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, the hot comb was the straightening technology of choice. Today, women who wear straightened hair rely on weaves and chemical relaxers. And I had a lot of fun coming up with names like Colonial, Silky, and Bone, Strezate, and Black and Cummly. I can't stop doing the whole literary thing, so clotel, relax, or I have to invoke the 19th century literature. If you're a 19th century person, it's an in-joke, a hindsight joke. So today, a lot of people use relaxers. But back in the heyday, the hot comb was one bad sister. Paper towel, so if you're not familiar with the hot comb, I had a one-page guide. There's the hot comb actually on the eye of the stove. My mother had an electric stove. And so we spent a lot of time in the kitchen on Saturdays. I never really enjoyed it terribly much. There's a paper towel for testing the heat level. You can smell the acrid aroma of hot metal and burning hair. And that kind of metal can stand up to the eye of a stove, solid metal shaft for stability and control, a heat-proof handle, and pomade to protect the scalp sort of. It was an imperfect scalp protectant. And the hot comb could take a fabulous fro and fry it into submission. But as I say, her powers were fickle and straightened hair was a fair weather friend in all, both literally and figuratively, didn't really stand up well to humidity or rain or swimming pool. Getting your hair straightened for the first time was like being inducted into a Black women's secret society, the sisterhood of perpetual hair maintenance. And the sisterhood had an awful lot of rules. And so I really had a lot of fun with this panel. Different Black women, different kinds of Black women all with straightened hair to certain degree, giving you the rules. Don't sweat too much or your hair will grow back. Stay out of the rain. If your hair gets wet, your hair will go back to its natural state. If you're not familiar with that terminology. Do you have a raincoat? Do you have an umbrella? Does your raincoat have a hood? Don't let your hair get wet. If you have to go swimming, wear a swim cap or your hair will go back. And you get the general theme here. Didn't anyone tell you to stay out of the rain? And so rainy days, I spent a lot of time inside. And here's an example. I couldn't help but notice there was no brotherhood of perpetual hair maintenance. There's an example of a guy who kind of looks like my dad's ornamental boy who's head is a lot rounder than my brother's head. But there weren't any hair rules for little Black boys. And I couldn't help but notice that as a kid. When I was a kid, my mom straightened and styled my hair at home, but on special occasions we'd go to Ms. Chisholm's beauty salon for hours. I tolerated the elaborate procedure requiring to straighten my hair the same way I tolerated going to the dentist. I didn't like it, but it was apparently one of the things you had to do to your body in order to be in the world. It hadn't really occurred to me that you wouldn't do it because all the women around me, that's what they did. And for a lot of women and girls at Ms. Chisholm's salon, a day spent at the beauty salon was an indulgence, a bit of feminine self-care that made them feel more like themselves. And so I tried to think about just four African-American women and some of the things that they might be thinking that kind of signify this notion of being affirmed. I wasn't really interested in femininity. And the things that made me feel more like myself had nothing to do with beauty. And these are all real stages. My Huckleberry Finn stage, I'm going to be a naturalist like John Muir or Thoreau stage. My brides had revisited stage, which some would say continues even to this day. And my years as the beer captain of the rugby team at my institution. And so this is just an excerpt. If you want to read the rest, please pick up the alphabet anthology. But it was really interesting to kind of go back and walk through my experience of coming into a sense of myself. It was like a curtain being lifted the day that I got all of my straight hair cut off. And no one recognized me. All the people who'd seen me that morning, my friends, walked right past me. It was kind of cool. It's like being a new person. And then the last thing I'll share if I have a couple of minutes. Great, great. And when I'm doing zines, I also like to do rhyming zines. And for some reason, when I've told stories about both real and imagined men of African descent, I tend to do it in rhyme. I have one that's called the A Blues for Black Santa in which Black Santa tells the story of why. It's really hard to be Santa and Black when nobody believes Santa's Black. And this is an example. I did a whole zine about bears. And half of it is real bears. Oops, that's the alphabet cover. I guess I'll show that for a minute. There's the alphabet cover, yay. But the little book of Big Black Bears is a poem about humans, human men who are bears. But then at the end, I have this extra, the Black Teddy Bears Picnic. And I created these human bear hybrids of African descent. You know, there are black men who identify as bears, but they're not highly visible, particularly in a place like the Bay Area where there aren't actually that many people of African descent. And so I wanted to do a tribute. And so the Black Teddy Bears Picnic is I think the most fun part of this for me. So I'll read you my Black Teddy Bear Rhymen. The Black Teddy Bears Picnic. At the edge of the wood, you can hear them so merry, so raucous, so gleeful, so joyous, so hairy. It's the day when Black Teddy Bears gather together to picnic and frolic from dawn till whenever. There are teddies of chocolate and caramel hue, bears of mocha and tan and mahogany, too. Some teddies are chubby and pudgy and cuddly. Other teddies are muscular, strapping and studly. There are laughing and frolicing teddies at play, dancing dances of love, singing music so gay. So if you are enchanted by bears large and small and the beauty and grace of black bears above all, then come down to the wood for their annual rite. Join the bears as they frolic late into the night. Thank you.