Queer (In)visibilities & the Perils of Inclusion

Update 5/17/23:

Dear supporter of the GoFundMe for Queer (In)visibilities & the Perils of Inclusion,

If you donated $30 or more to this GoFundMe back in 2020 or 2021 and you're based in the so-called U.S., we said you can get a copy of this book when it's out. Well, it has finally been published! The new title is Surviving the Future: Abolitionist Queer Strategies edited by Scott Branson, Raven Hudson, and Bry Reed with a Foreword by Mimi Thi Nguyen. And we'd love to send you a copy to thank you for your support!

Please fill out this form with your shipping address and contact information by June 1st, 2023, and we'll send you a copy. Copy and paste this URL into your browser: https://forms.gle/6WKzUwpW6SAMdXJ96

Thanks again and in solidarity, PM Press

UPDATE: We've extended the fundraiser to September 15th to raise a few more funds for contributors. Thanks for the support! See below for more information about our book.

Help us raise funds for queer & trans writers of this book!! The more funds we raise beyond our goal, the more we can pay contributors.

Fitting In, Sticking Out* is a collection of radical essays presenting the current set of ideas by young queer and trans organizers and writers on issues of abolition, assimilation, and liberation. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread uprisings against anti-Black police violence, we are reaffirming our commitment to compensate QTBIPOC organizers who would like to contribute. We would especially welcome any work that reflects on the current situation. If you are interested, please email [email redacted].

In April 2020, the University of North Carolina Asheville and Davidson College planned to host the Queer Studies Conference, a biennial event established in 1998, with this year's theme being the same title as above. The conference papers, presentations, and other selected works from it were to be curated into a book. Due to COVID-19, the conference is postponed until 2021––but work to publish this volume continues.

Fitting In, Sticking Out will feature academic & non-academic essays by scholars who had been accepted to present at the Queer Conference at UNC Asheville, as well as by scholars who have signed onto the project since the conference was cancelled. This project also has ties to the UNCA 2018 Queer Conference, whose theme was "Prisons, Borders, and Pipelines: Toward a Queer Abolitionist Movement"––a theme that continues to influence the work of this volume as well.

All of them write in response to the questions:

• What does "queer visibility" mean, and how––as queerness becomes hip and queer subcultural styles are being bought and sold––can the culture, lives, and sexuality behind the aesthetic survive and thrive?

• There may be more LGBT+ representation in movies, TV, and legislatures, but does that translate into safety or liberation for queer communities?

• What are the limits of freedom possible to us within the current regimes of settler colonialism, white supremacy, racial capitalism, and cisheteropatriarchy?

• and more.

We are putting together this fundraiser so we can compensate contributors to this book. Since we are writing from within a radical praxis—as well as the COVID-19 pandemic—we don’t want people’s labor to go uncompensated.

That said, we aim to prioritize paying those contributors who are in most need of the money. Because our liberatory aims must start from the work and thinking of black, indigenous, and brown queer and trans folk, we believe it is critical to work to support these writers financially. Especially contributors who work outside of approved system jobs, or who devote their labor to art and movement work.

Once we have raised money, we will pay contributors according to a sliding scale based on need. Contributors who have institutional support or full-time jobs with sufficient compensation will not be prioritized.

Your donation aids in these efforts and supports the community centered in this project.

Anyone who donates $30 or more will get a copy of the final book, which will be published in the Fall of 2021 by PM Press. When the book is finally printed, we will email you at that time to get your current shipping address and send you the brand new book!

*Title of volume subject to change