Help Cassia Attend a Writer Residency in New York

Hello people! I'm Cássia Siqueira, and I am a transgender woman holding a master in philosophy from Rio de Janeiro’s UFRJ - Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, and am currently a Ph.D. candidate at the same institution. In addition, I am an experimental musician as Nome Morto belonging to Seminal Records. Some of my texts can be found at my blog TEXTURABERTA. I am asking for your help to benefit from a rare opportunity to attend a residency in New York as part of my intellectual and professional development.

In January 2022, I received an invitation to participate in the Machines Seeking Connections residency in New York City during which I’ll spend a whole month working on my new theoretical project on transsexuality as a technology of the self. I’m certain that this residency would be a major opportunity for me to ground the research and writing I will be doing during my Ph.D. studies, get in touch with people I have already been collaborating with in a virtual environment, and to have a close contact with different perspectives. This residency will be integral to my Ph.D. research by allowing me to leave the most transphobic country and network with some of the most important philosophers and theorists residing in New York and working professionally on related topics.

I understand gender transition as a technological experiment with the self as an open-source code, with which one navigates introspective and social relations of cognition and re-cognition. In this way, I conceive of transness as a radical technological process of transformation – both material and conceptual – which can be integrated in a project of revision of what it means to be human.

I’m currently living with my mother, who’s a local housekeeper, and we survive solely with her income – equivalent to 210 USD/month – to cover rent, food, energy, internet, water, and my hormones. My father has been unemployed for six years now and is living with my grandparents, with whom I lost contact since the beginning of my gender transition. I do have a part-time job, but I certainly cannot cover the costs associated with this residency with my income since in the meantime I’ll have to pay debts and help my mother with the basic expenses.

I can't appeal for financial help to anyone in Brazil, since the economic situation here is quite terrible. So I am making this crowdfunding to whomever it may concern and who could afford to help and feels the need to help a low-income trans woman to get the chance to expand her research and her theoretical and practical scope of knowledge, and build her career in both academic and para-academic environments.

Please share with your friends, family, and also on your social media!

Thank you for your attention, help and support!