Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Seo-Young Chu

Quote by Seo-Young Chu

Work

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018: New Fiction, Poetry, and Category-Defying Literary Gems

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Seo-Young Chu

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Seo-Young Chu. more

You May Also Like

“MUTANT BLAZON My rapist’s eyes remind me of the sun. To look at them will mean that I go blind. His mouth beside my ear—they form a gun. Each breath: a bullet targeting my mind. My rapist’s eyes remind me of the sun. His throat: a fist to silence mine designed. His reason: a ventriloquist’s illusion. No tenor in the end could hearing find. My rapist’s eyes remind me of the sun— Too close for any vessel with a mind. Survive or get to die—that is the question. No longer have I any will to mind. My rapist’s eyes remind me of the sun— Not dead, not living, neither keen nor blind; A daily haunting; memory rebegun; Disaster in some future undivined. I write, rewrite, a “sonnet” about rape To hunt that voice I wish I could escape.”

SonnetSexual ViolenceMetoo MovementJae In DoeMutant BlazonRape Sonnet
Book:The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018: New Fiction, Poetry, and Category-Defying Literary Gems
Create image

“I actually chafe at describing myself as masculine. For one thing, masculinity itself is such an expansive territory, encompassing boundaries of nationality, race, and class. Most importantly, individuals blaze their own trails across this landscape. And it’s hard for me to label the intricate matrix of my gender as simply masculine. To me, branding individual self-expression as simply feminine or masculine is like asking poets: Do you write in English or Spanish? The question leaves out the possibilities that the poetry is woven in Cantonese or Ladino, Swahili or Arabic. The question deals only with the system of language that the poet has been taught. It ignores the words each writer hauls up, hand over hand, from a common well. The music words make when finding themselves next to each other for the first time. The silences echoing in the space between ideas. The powerful winds of passion and belief that move the poet to write.”

GenderLgbtTransgenderTransNonbinaryGender Binary
Author:Leslie Feinberg
Create image

“Living authentically in a world that takes every opportunity to squeeze you uncomfortably into a box of someone else's design...that is the most radical act of self love. Blossoming in an environment where the odds are stacked immeasurably against you is a beautiful act of defiance.”

InspirationalSelf LoveAuthenticityGender Binary
Book:Homebody: A Graphic Memoir of Gender Identity Exploration
Create image

“No one trans story is better or inherently more “radical” than another, but that hasn’t stopped cisgender media culture from deeming certain trans stories to be more valuable than others. Those of us who don’t fit the classical narrative end up either having our stories edited and reedited until they fit, or end up having our voices silenced. And that’s fucked. At its best, this narrative is just an oversimplification of the trans community. At its worst, this narrative is used as a tool—reinforced by cisgender editors, curators, movement leaders, and gatekeepers—that continues to pressure trans people into fitting into one of two binary genders. By showing how desirable it is to be gender conforming and “pass” as a man or as a woman, this narrative reiterates the idea that gender nonconforming trans people are less-than and should be lucky to be treated as the gender with which we identify.”

Gender Binary
Book:Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story
Create image

“Often, the moon in witchcraft is equated to the divine feminine, but in a Queer Craft we might step outside of the gender binary and remind ourselves that the moon itself has no gender. It need not always be considered a goddess and contrary to some people's assertions, the moon has sometimes even been seen as a god.”

MoonWitchcraftGender BinaryMoon GoddessMoon GodNo Gender
Book:The Satyr's Kiss: Queer Men, Sex Magic & Modern Witchcraft
Create image

“Traversing borders is a threat – and in the colonial mindset, the borders of class and nationality are at one with the borders of gender. Binary gender is a colonial and capitalist project, what feminist theorist Gloria Anzaldúa called the ‘absolute despot duality that says we are able to be only one or the other’.”

ColonialismTerfGender Binary
Book:Me, Not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism
Create image