RIP Miss Major Griffin-Gracy. It was a gift to have you while we did, journey on safely auntie!
Thinking about Miss Major gets me thinking about the many ways 2SLGBTQ people have had to hack their lives in order to survive…we all deserve some respect and letters after our name, for sure.
Our talk, our speech, language is just one example. These things fill up my brain and I want to always connect back to building with words, and it might be that that’s the manifesto?
As the title suggests, all this in my mind turns into codes and of course our language (including all slangs/vernaculars) and how we grow our understanding of the world around us via words, but we also have codes–different speech(es) that we use to communicate in our distinct communities.
Which brings me to codes and code switching and maybe spells? I keep coming here with questions it seems so I hope you are thinking too on these things and how we use our skills in hacking and code-making and breaking that’s part of the process of building a safe future for all of us.
Some questions I’m considering: when and where do we switch or change our speech to match our surroundings (so we are understood by those around us), and what do the tensions between codes and how and when we switch tell us about how we understand each other while we do the business of world building.
I’m choosing to look at language as fluid (as gender is, which makes sense since our language moves with our ever-changing understandings and expressions of gender), it’s constantly being updated and shortened/augmented, certain words become obsolete or meaning/definitions change over time to meet our communication needs. And I see this as heavily influenced by music and art and where all three intersect, anywhere imagining is relied on to build.
I’m still pondering and coalescing my own language (in Diné Bizaad and in English), I’m still considering (and changing) the way I talk about myself as a Diné, non-binary lesbian who identifies as nádleehí and at times dilbaa.
Relearning my language is slow-going at times but I am learning more about Diné theory and practice of community as the meaning(s) of words like dilbaa and nádleehí become clear-ish. These two words in particular have lives in both everyday speech/conversations and in ceremonial contexts. What does that point to? For me, it leads us to conclude that: dilbaa and nádleehí are essential to their community’s wholeness and functionality and we have always been here, all up in your community and business.
I’m coming to more questions, though, all the time. But I’ll hold on to those for next time.
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