Bina’s Oral History

Description

Bina is a white trans woman who was 21 at the time of recording. Bina talks about growing up in a small suburban town in New Jersey. She talks about her childhood, parents who argued, and a mother who exported her anger onto her kids. Bina covers what middle and high school were like experiencing bullying, having inconsistent friends who were mean and rough. She candidly discusses how hard she tried to fit in with these boys being as mean and rough as them knowing deep down she would never. Bina discusses growing up class advantaged and how she could enjoy recreational activities, extracurricular classes, and camps which shaped her as a person. Bina also covers race and how it defines her relationship to gender, class, and sexuality where whiteness acts as a shield from the worst aspects of gender based violence and bullying. She talks about gender growing up, especially moments where the world felt like it knew more about her gender than herself.

She recounts a desperation, a desire to want to fit in with the girls and yearning for things she could not name at the time and still feeling out of place. Bina discusses the importance of Judaism influencing how she views family, authoring, and a constant questioning of herself and the world. She talks about how clothing, piercings, and other body modifications affirm her gender and sexuality as a trans lesbian, sapphic poetry, and music. Bina covers books she read and literature she consumed made by Lesbians and how that influenced her understanding of Lesbianism. She talks about her activism and political organizing where her queerness and lesbianism are inseparable because she came into queerness while getting involved with radical organizing. Bina ends with deeper conversations about being a trans woman and a Lesbian, political organizing, what identifying as a Lesbian means to her, and what Lesbian spaces she wishes existed.