Where did you come from? What were you doing before this?

To identify where I come from is a question I’ve always found complicated. To put it simply, to categorize it neatly into the chronologically linear template of a life, one might take several approaches. One could take up the question of space as to where I came from.

I was born and raised on unceded Sto:lo territory in what is colonially known as Abbotsford, BC, a conservative agricultural town in the BC bible belt. I was raised by my parents and grandparents under one roof, an only child.

Or, one could emphasize my institutional affiliations.

I received my BC high school diploma from the Abbotsford School of Integrated Arts. I then completed my BA (Hons) at the University of Victoria. I then went on to do my MA at Queen’s University, while co-instructing in the University of Victoria Gender Studies Department, before taking up a Teaching Adjunct position at Queen’s and a consulting position at Untapped Accessibility. I worked here, as a Operations and Special Projects Lead until I began this program. 

These approaches take up the question of where I’m from in the more literal spatial sense. What spaces do people trace on the details of my CV, read on my body, hear in my voice, see in the shake of my hands?

But, one could also ask about identity. Where did I come from? How do I locate myself not just in physical space, but social, cultural, political spaces. Where do my lineages of knowledge and community come from? 

I am a queer, non-binary, lesbian. I come from decades of activism of beautiful butches and femmes and queer folks who made my being myself possible. I am multiply-disabled. I come from a maternal line of deeply neurodivergent women and a paternal line of connective tissue concerns. I arrive in spaces with the knowledge of every other person with hEDS I’ve encountered, the crip wisdom of those who have shared their wisdom with me on how to receive care. I am white. I am a settler. As far as I know, most of my family is Irish, I’ve never known who my grandfather is. I grew up working-class, I’m more financially stable now while in grad school than I’ve ever been and I don’t know how to navigate it.

In tandem with the spatial pieces, the land, the place, the institutions I have been in, but not of, this begins to feel like a more accurate depiction of where I’ve come from. But to truly articulate where I come from, I have to speak of people, of structures. Of the ways I have been shaped by (un)love and (un)care).

I come from my best friend Jessa’s announcement in the 9th grade that they were non-binary, and the knowledge they gifted me of pronouns and a self-beyond binaries. I come from my ex-boyfriend’s assertion that “arts are useless.” I come from Dr. Chase Joynt’s invitation to “make the project that I feel I came to university to create.” I come from conversations with friends about the feeling that school was never made for bodies like ours. I come from histories of medical malpractice and denial and a stomach full of rage. I come from the first queer arts space I entered where I felt like I breathed for the first time. I come, misty eyed, out of the pages of Alison Kafer’s (2012) ‘Feminist, Queer, Crip.’ I come from friends turned family who have held me together and up throughout the years.

Ultimately, I come from a complicated desire to hold care in one hand, and fear and shame in the other. A commitment to ask those who have allowed me to hold these both/ands together what they need to be heard. To tell.

It is from this formation of self, that I explore both the competencies, knowledges, and experiences I bring with me into this program, and work to orient not just from where I come from, but where to go to, what horizon to orient towards.