Interviewing intersex people | Activism and joy with AMANDA

Today I have my friend, colleague, and comrade... - My name is Amanda. I live in Seattle, Washington. I'm a non-binary intersex immigrant from Central America. - You know we've known each other since we were, what... like 15, 17... - Oh my god, yeah. - and like, now we're colleagues. We both do intersex activism work full-time, which is wild. How did we start doing this? - Well, there's there's an organization that does annual intersex support group meetups. And I started going to these when I w

as, like, 15 years old. It was overwhelming. By the end of the second conference I, right, was able to recognize the harm that had been done to me and the harm that had been incurred by my community members. I walked into a room and Pidgeon Pagonis was... - [snaps] - Snaps for Pidge! They were, like, actually kind of mobilizing young people, right... And I walked into this room and Pidge was like, "Amanda, take this!" They, like, shoved this sign up sheet into my arms, and I was like, "what is

this?" - Sign up for activism! - [laughs] Basically! Little me, I was like, "yes!" I had no idea what that meant, right... But working towards justice, that was a huge part of my upbringing. I was primed and ready. I was like, it was just really good luck that I happened to walk into that room at that time. - Actually, Pidge was also my first intersex person. [chuckles] Just so much love for them. Like, they know what they're doing. - Yeah, they know. - I feel like this identity for me has first

been an intersex person, but then second been a person who is an activist around this thing. But we can't do it unless we also have spaces to be people and to have play. Like, I was struggling the other day to think of, like, examples in my life where I have play... [horse lip noises] - I have to go out of my way to create that for myself. - You recently purchased a Nintendo Switch. - [laughs] I really did, thanks for calling me out. We're not sponsored by Nintendo. For me video games kind of l

ike serve this dual purpose of entertainment, but then also, like, rest, where I don't have to think about activism, and I don't have to think about intersex. - Because you should be allowed to be both an intersex person and a Legend of Zelda player. - [laughs] Yeah. - Is that the term that the youth use, are you a "game player?" - Gamer. - Gamer! I'm dating myself here. [laughs] - Sometimes I actually just feel really pigeon-holed into being intersex, whether it's like in activist spaces, or ac

ademic spaces, or dating. And that's actually also one of the reasons why I haven't been able to feel like I can fully detach from the work. Right, like... - "The work." - It's not even about productivity in a capitalist sense. It's for me more about change-making. Can every moment be an affective moment where I'm able to practice the values that I am, you know, developing, which are usually like anti-capitalist, anti-racist, toward social justice, right. But, at the same time, I don't think tha

t creating space to be playful, creating space to exist in a different type of headspace, takes away from that. I don't think that they're mutually exclusive. Both contribute to our vitality. - You need time to, like, run around and smash clay pots. - Yeah! - Isn't that what one does in in Zelda? - You're like, "oh my god, there's a pot over there, I wonder if there's some money..." And you like, [clicks tongue]. - I throw this hotel trash can on the floor and I get $5. [pot smashes loudly] - Y

es. - [laughs] - The more valuable the object is that you're destroying, the more money that you get. - What are we doing filming a video? We should be smashing this camera. - Hans, I think we need to be smashing the patriarchy. [pots crash down loudly] - We could be Super Smash Brothers! - [laughs] Listen! - We've been reading "Pleasure Activism," right? So, like, this book that's talking about how centering yourself and finding play and finding joy and doing things like imagining a future of j

oy instead of focusing on trauma... That these things are radical. - Well, one, we're not meant to be productive all of the time. And that's what produces burnout, so. [fire alarm ringing] In activist spaces we need room to play, right? - Yes please. - Please. - I'll take 12. - Does it come with a toy? - A boy toy or a girl toy? - Oh my god. - I want a Hot Wheels™ toy! - I was also that kid! - I mean, I don't know, what we're doing now is like a little bit of secret work, but I feel like it's a

lso playful. - This is kind of one of the premises of the book that you're reading, right? Where, like, Adrienne Maree Brown is sort of saying like, how can we re-frame work so that it doesn't feel like it's draining or stressful, but it's something that is life-giving, we can find joy in. Doing, like, fun meme-y little things like this is exactly, like, how we can achieve that. - Thank you for playing with me and meme-ing with me. - Anytime, absolutely. You don't have to work if you frame it as

play. Thank you for being present with us in this space today. - It's time for bed. - Oh, yeah. - Goodbye. - Bye. - Hey, thanks for watching. When I think about it, the number of times that I've seen examples of media of intersex people talking to each other—not educating other people, not telling a sob story— I can count these examples generally on one hand. So "Very Interesting" is an attempt to fix this problem. Thanks for bearing with me on the quality. We had one hotel room at 10 pm... so

, future episodes of this will hopefully be in a lot higher resolution, and I would love to know what you think. [Amanda] So much continuity here...