All year long, Atwood Journal invitations members of the music business to take part in a sequence of essays reflecting on artwork, id, tradition, inclusion, and extra.
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Right this moment, Matt O’Connor (of Fear Bead Data and the band Tuxis Large) gives a particular, intimate essay on magic, vulnerability, and the unconventional braveness of trans youth, to accompany the ‘True Names’ profit compilation for the Trans Youth Emergency Undertaking!
Matt O’Connor runs Fear Bead Data, a family-run, community-oriented DIY label primarily based in Queens, NY, with their accomplice, Jenny Ruenes. A profit compilation to lift funds for the Trans Youth Emergency Undertaking, ‘True Names’ brings artists like Bear in mind Sports activities, Squirrel Flower, 2nd Grade, and Pink Navel collectively.
“The title, ‘True Names,’ was impressed by Ursula Ok. Le Guin’s Earthsea sequence,” O’Connor explains. “On this planet of Earthsea, True Names are sacred, holding unimaginable and transformative energy. To know your True Title is to know your self. And to share your True Title is an excessive act of vulnerability and braveness. States throughout the nation are focusing on trans youth by proscribing their entry to life-affirming care. With this comp, we’re elevating funds for the Trans Youth Emergency Undertaking, which helps households of trans youth discover healthcare suppliers, journey to appointments, and pay for treatment. ‘True Names’ was an enormous crew effort. The songs – all unreleased b-sides, demos, and dwell cuts – had been collected from our music communities in Boston, New York, Philly and past. With this comp, we hope to do our half in supporting TYEP’s vital work.”
‘True Names’ is out Might 2nd by way of Fear Bead Data. O’Connor’s band, Tuxis Large, can be releasing an album by way of Fear Bead this August.
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by Matt O’Connor
I’ve been on an enormous fantasy kick currently.
It’s taken me by way of Tolkien, Gene Wolfe, Kelly Hyperlink. Actual heady stuff. However, in all my studying, there’s one creator who stands above the remaining: Ursula Ok. Le Guin.
My first Le Guin was The Left Hand of Darkness, a sci-fi opus set in a world of genderfluid aliens. The principle character—a human envoy visiting this world—is confused for a lot of the e-book. We’re, too. However Le Guin guides us with a delicate hand, asking we embrace our outsider standing and watch rigorously over the envoy’s shoulder. We be taught the folklore, really feel the political pressure, after which, finally, make some sense of all of it.
I learn The Left Hand of Darkness just a few years in the past, across the time I got here out as trans. The conclusion got here after years of confusion. It took love, work, and remedy to maneuver by way of the unknown and—like Le Guin’s envoy—lastly see issues clearly.
It’s laborious to overstate the risk our authorities poses to trans folks proper now. America’s right-wing regime has us of their crosshairs in what quantities to a fascist cliché: Scapegoat scapegoat scapegoat. One of many president’s first government orders this time period rebukes the very idea of “gender ideology,” implementing a inflexible binary within the title of “defending girls.” The transcript is so idiotic, it’d’ve been written by J.Ok. Rowling.
Jabs apart, I’m scared. So are my associates. However as scared as I’m, I can’t think about how a trans child feels. As if bogs and passports weren’t sufficient, state governments have begun stripping protections from trans folks, rising their danger of hurt in an already-perilous world. And hospitals—even right here, in New York Metropolis— have ended gender-affirming look after sufferers beneath 18. They’re going after our most weak.
That’s why my label, Fear Bead Data, is releasing the True Names charity comp, which can elevate funds for the Trans Youth Emergency Undertaking. The TYEP helps trans children entry healthcare, pay for treatment, and journey to appointments. So many associates confirmed as much as donate a track, present paintings, and unfold the phrase. I can’t thank them sufficient. I hope you, expensive reader, resolve to purchase the comp and assist TYEP of their vital work.
Now, if you happen to’ll indulge me, I’d wish to let you know about Ursula Ok. Le Guin’s Earthsea sequence. They’re the sort of books I want I learn as a child: episodic fantasy tales the place the magic is refined and the dragons are clever. There are not any bloody wars waged between good and evil. The battles fought are inside oneself.
True Names in Earthsea symbolize your core id; the sacred place nobody else can contact. To know your True Title is to know your self. And to share your True Title is an act of radical vulnerability.
And braveness. Actual braveness. – Matt O’Connor
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:: buy True Names right here ::
:: be taught in regards to the Trans Youth Emergency Undertaking right here ::
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A Profit for Trans Youth