Queer Suicidality, Conflict, and Repair
- Queer Suicidality, Conflict, and Repair
EDITORS' NOTE: Queer Conversations has been a staple of the journal since its inception. On October 10, 2016, QED hosted its first live Queer Conversation at Le Cagibi, in the Mile End neighborhood of Montréal. This conversation featured Morgan M. Page, a Montréal-based trans writer and artist with Sarah Schulman, a New York-based writer and LGBTQ rights activist. In this Queer Conversation, Page and Schulman read the eulogies that they gave at the funeral of Bryn Kelly, a friend of both who took her own life in January 2016. Prior to the event, the Facebook event page included information about several suicide prevention resources including Suicide Action Montréal, Trans Lifeline, and the Trevor Project. Because it was a live event, we decided to purposely include in the published version the engagement among Page, Schulman, and the audience. We were heartened by the turnout and the deeply engaged audience participation that ensued. We hope, as was noted by Schulman and Page toward the end of the event, that this conversation about Bryn Kelly's life and death will motivate us all to reconsider conflict, care, and community.
I'm Morgan. I'll more fully introduce myself in a minute. I just wanted to, like, say hello and get the attention of the room and let you all know that this event is Queer Conversations: Suicidality, Conflict, and [End Page 68] Repair. Obviously, this is a very emotionally loaded subject for probably most of us, right? So, if you feel like you need to leave at any point, don't feel bad, just, you know, do what you need to do to take care of yourself. We've also posted, albeit not a comprehensive list, a small list of resources for follow-up afterwards, if you feel like you need counseling or anything like that. I also wanted to begin by saying by acknowledging the fact that not only is it Indigenous Peoples' Day today, we're also, obviously, I hope obviously, on occupied indigenous land, the traditional territories, I believe but I may be wrong, of the Haudenosaunee and Algonquin, and any conversation that is about conflict on occupied territories really shouldn't ignore the fact that these conflicts are happening on conflicted land, right? That makes sense to everybody? So, I want to make sure that that was kind of the first thing we broached and hopefully it will also continue to be part of the conversation that we have later this evening. So, should we begin? Are we, are we good?
Hi everyone. I just want to say I'm really, really happy to be here with all of you. Morgan and I met in an airport and we clicked like crazy with a beautiful conversation and the beginning of a really authentic friendship that I'm really honored to be part of and I'm so happy that we're doing this together today. Thank you.
Hi, my name is Tom Nakayama. I'm at Northeastern University in Boston, and, with Chuck Morris who is at Syracuse University in New York, we co-edit a journal called QED. I'll pass around some information about the journal. One of the regular features of the journal—the journal aims to bring together academics and activists on issues of GLBTQ worldmaking—has been what we call "Queer Conversations," which pairs diverse queer world-makers for an exchange of ideas. This evening we are pleased to stage this queer conversation with Sarah Schulman and Morgan Page. And so, to begin this queer conversation, I wanted to ask them about their experiences at Bryn's funeral. Do you want to introduce yourselves first?
I'm Sarah Schulman and that's Morgan Page [laughter].
So, if you don't know us already [laughter].
So, I thought that I would tell a little bit about—a little background—to the eulogy that I wrote and maybe Morgan would like to do the same and let you in on what was happening for each...
