by Jay Rafferty
In 1981 the film My Dinner with Andre released in cinemas and since then has acquired a cult following. The majority of the runtime is focused on a conversation between two friends, Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, as they have dinner together. What follows below is a transcription as unedited as possible of an experiment inspired by the film’s core idea: two friends (in this case the artist Eddie Bork and the poet Jay Rafferty) talking about life and having dinner together. No agenda, no expectations. Just a record button on Zoom and a few slices of leftover pizza.
JAY RAFFERTY: Yeah, so I was watching this film and it’s…it’s kind of boring, I’ll not lie to you. It’s just two guys talking and literally having dinner in real time. So, you’re like clearly this is just two guys talking shit and having dinner but apparently it was recorded meticulously over weeks and weeks and weeks on a soundstage that was made to look like a restaurant. And they order quail and pate and I thought if I had to eat that for a couple of weeks—
EDDIE BORK: Ew, yeah.
JAY: —my bowel movement would look terrible.
EDDIE: I’d get like a salad.
JAY: A salad yeah, uh well…I dunno. Rabbit food?
EDDIE: Well, I had this conversation once with people who were asking what do you eat on a first date if you go out to a restaurant and I said “You don’t eat a salad because no one looks attractive eating a salad.” There’s no way. Unless you sit there shredding your lettuce, there’s no way to get a good amount on your fork and not look ridiculous shoving it in your mouth.
JAY: I’ve got pizza. Everybody likes pizza. But um…sorry, I’m just chewing.
EDDIE: No, you’re ok.
JAY: What topping would you get on pizza? Let me gauge if you’re right or wrong.
EDDIE: If you think there’s a right and wrong then I’m definitely wrong cause I do like pineapple on pizza.
JAY: Absolutely disgusting. All that should be on pizza is meat and cheese.
EDDIE: My favourite is actually the margarita pizza with the tomato, basil, mozzarella.
JAY: Allie gives off to me about that kinda stuff. I’ll make a sandwich that’s just like a snack, it won’t be a meal, it won’t have chicken or veg in there. No, it will be bread and butter if I am in a hurry and she will tell me I’m disgusting.
EDDIE: That’s something Kevin describes as white people food. Bread and butter, buttered noodles, that sort of thing. White people things.
JAY: Do you— I mean this is stupid me asking you this, but do you consider yourself as white white? Cause when folk talk about white people, like Americans talk about white people, I don’t consider myself in the same bracket.
EDDIE: Yeah, American white is a whole different thing. We have no culture at least you have your country’s culture like every other country has some kind of culture. American white people are just stupid, our culture is like white picket fences and secretly hating your whole family.
JAY: Take away the white picket fence and we’re pretty much there.
EDDIE: The stuff he [Kevin] considers generic white people is Live, Laugh, Love quotes on the wall and thinking going to a restaurant with your family is the best thing in the world when in actuality it’s so stressful. What are other white people things?
JAY: “What are other white people things?” she says to Kevin off screen! Sorry. Sorry, I always fuck that up. I am so sorry about that. I always misgender you and I want to get it right. I’m trying to be better at it.
EDDIE: I think there’s phases that non-cis or even gay people go through. Right when they start coming out, they aggressively want everyone to refer to them by exactly what they choose, like “my name is…” I’m trying to think of something cringey as an example but that feels rude.
JAY: Your name is Slim Shady.
EDDIE: Yeah! “Call me Slim Shady and you have to use he/him, and I can only be called Ace. That’s my sexuality.” And then as you grow as a gay person or as a non-binary person you start to let it slide a little bit. I mean maybe some people don’t, but it’s just too exhausting to be aggressive over it all the time. I was never super aggressive over it. I had— “bless their hearts” as the southern people say— the most aggressive ally’s backing me up. So, I never had to tell people my pronouns I had a squad of people telling them. I literally tried everything. I was always kinda androgenous and didn’t know they/them pronouns were a thing for a very long time. I grew up having everyone tell me I sucked at being a girl and then I tried really hard “No, I’m a girl! I’m gonna do this! Gonna do what everyone says I need to do.” Didn’t like that at all. It was one of the worst decisions of my life, just trying to be generic white girl No.3 in a movie. I hated it. Everyone got along with me, but I felt like I was playing a character. Then I got to college, realized there’s more options out there that I didn’t know about. I’d heard about transgender being a thing before, but it wasn’t really talked about much. So, I go to college, meet lots of people who are trans and we start talking about how we feel. I was like “Oh, I feel the way they do.” I kinda knew about non-binary, tried to come out as non-binary but I got confused because people didn’t understand it and thought I was trans. I’d go “Oh yeah, it’s kinda like that.” Then, all of a sudden, trans was my new title and I just went with it. I was the first non-binary person at my college to join a fraternity. The school I was at before I was in a sorority and then when I transferred, I checked with my sorority (it was just a local one not a national one) to see if I could do this and they said yes. So, I’ve actually been in both a sorority and a fraternity. I went through the pledging stage at the fraternity and because of that I think my non-binary title got hidden. Everyone assumed I was just trans because I was trying to join a guy fraternity and I said “No, I’m trying to join a fraternity firstly, because I know there’s other non-binary and trans people out there that wanna do it and I’ll do it first, that’s fine. Secondly, I got along with those guys super well, it didn’t matter that they were guys.” I decided to just do it. I sometimes passed as a guy. I did all the generic things I was supposed to like dressing super masculine, got my haircut. I looked like a twink, like a gay twink. That worked for me for a bit. Then others decided I had to change my name, you know? Cause Paige isn’t a guy name. It’s actually pretty gender neutral, I’ve met guys and girls under the name Paige. But they thought I’d have a guy name in mind so my panic answer was the name I always choose for male video game characters, which is Edmund. That’s from the Chronicles of Narnia.
JAY: I was about to say that.
EDDIE: Yeah, he’s the worst sibling throughout the story though he becomes one of the better ones and I liked his character growth. I’d always play video games with name Edmund if I was a guy character and if I was playing as a girl character I’d use the name Raven.
JAY: From the Teen Titans?
EDDIE: Except I spelt it different to be, you know—
JAY: Edgelord?
EDDIE: Exactly. Whenever someone would ask what my name was I’d just say Edmund which got shortened to Eddie and I still go by that. Even though it started as something kinda terrible I guess, now it feels fitting. Although not all at the same time. It reminds me of all I’ve been through, after everyone slowly accepting me as trans it felt kinda awful saying “This isn’t exactly right.” It felt nice for a while, but I realized it didn’t feel completely right. Being part of the LGBT community is like a rollercoaster experience, both in finding yourself and in some of the things that get thrown at you throughout life. I’ve been all over the place. I think I like it though cause I’m a very hands-on type of learner so I don’t think I’d be where I am today or be as comfortable with myself if hadn’t have tried both extremes; trying to pass as a straight white girl or a queer guy. When Kevin and I started dating the first time he met me he hadn’t any idea whether I was a guy or a girl which was the exact look I was going for at the time. I thought it was perfect, he already knew what I was going for. Then he had a couple of people tell him that I was trans and he would go “That’s not what they told me.” One person he knew that I worked with told him I was “Trans asshole.”
JAY: I’ve been called that. Not the trans part but the last bit.
EDDIE: I didn’t understand what I had done to her! I was basically the supervisor, but I didn’t have that title cause the manager couldn’t afford to pay me that much, I’d been there forever though so I did all the training. I know I’m a very blunt person, so I skip some of the pleasantries in the workspace. I don’t go “oh could you please do this” or “would you mind doing that?” I just told them what to do.
JAY: Like, hey could you do your job?
EDDIE: Yeah but that makes me an asshole, I guess that’s fine.
JAY: You know how you said you before you looked like a twink? Allie used to tell me that I had the body of an otter which I was like “okay? Alright. I mean I’m not, you know I’m not, right?”
EDDIE: Kevin is a lot like a bear. Gay guys think he is a bear, so he gets hit on sometimes by guys. They love him cause he has the physique and he’s very comfortable in his sexuality. Metrosexual I think they call it? When we were messaging the other day, I laughed at something you said out loud and he asked me why I was smiling at my phone. I said, “I’m cheating on you with Jay.” and he said “Oh, I am too.”
JAY: You looked up from your phone and just told him “Your husband says hello.”
EDDIE: Its’s funny because I’ve been accused of trying to steal people’s girlfriends before, but I’ve never been on the other side. Are you trying to steal my fiancée? Are you trying to steal my boyfriend?
JAY: I don’t steal, they come to me. I’m the honeypot.
EDDIE: Ok, I will now refer to you as honeypot.
JAY: Please don’t. I feel uncomfortable now. I did not plan that out well.
EDDIE: Surprised you didn’t end the call right there! Have you ever seen a YouTube series called UNHhhh?
JAY: Oh yes, with Trixie Mattel.
EDDIE: And Katya! When you described how we would do this format that’s all I could think of.
JAY: So, like us sitting and talking shit to one another?
EDDIE: They have a broad topic, but they stray from it a bunch. I say always go for the weird. Always stick yourself with the weird.
JAY: Which, I think, is how we became friends. We met at a house party at Allie’s and when you showed up, I was already slaughtered. I had so much drink in me. We were playing King’s Cup and I was the only one paying attention, I was barking out the rules and I kept misgendering you— again, I am sorry about that.
EDDIE: That’s ok. Oh, that’s how that conversation started about some people being aggressive about it. I, on the other hand, am not. I’ve told other people I use they/them pronouns for myself, that’s what I prefer, but I understand when people don’t. I understand that’s difficult for some people so, I’ve half given up and am half comfortable enough that I don’t need to enforce it as much. I’m comfortable with who I am now, it’s taken me a very long time to get here. In the past if someone used she/her it made my insides cringe but now it doesn’t bother me anymore, because that’s not on me. I don’t have to convince everyone what I already know because I know it. When I started dating Kevin my dad got aggressive ally. He said “I’ve noticed that he uses she/her pronouns, is that okay? Should I talk to him? Have you talked with him?” I was like, yes, Kevin knows and he’s actually very accepting but sometimes because English isn’t his first language—
JAY: Oh, he’s using that excuse. It’s always that old nugget isn’t it?
EDDIE: But I think that’s true. I’ve met people who spoke other languages who have told me some languages do have non-binary options and some languages don’t. I think Spanish is one of those languages where everything is so gendered. You use certain words if you’re female, certain words if you’re male, everything kinda relies on that, it gets harder to defenestrate if you’re in the middle. The French do it too.
JAY: But, the first time I met you and Kevin, do you remember what I kept calling him?
EDDIE: KEY-HE-VIN!
JAY: I get very culchie when I drink. I suppose you’d call it redneck. My accent just reverts back to its automatic factory setting.
EDDIE: I don’t think we could tell if it was a joke or a drunk thing.
JAY: It was completely a drunk thing.
EDDIE: We both just accepted it. When he met my dad, he started calling him Kev. My stepmom at one point stopped him to say, “Did he say you could call him Kev?” and she turned to Kevin and asked, “Do you like being called Kev?” He was like no, not really but if he wants to call me that…
JAY: The way I would describe Kevin is if he was any more laid back, he’d be horizontal.
EDDIE: I strive to be that but I’m too anxious and uptight to fully get there. My brother is like that, he is horizontal. He just lets things happen to him in life.
JAY: I think they have it better than we do.
EDDIE: He’s five years younger than me and he’s the first family member I came out to. We were driving to the mall to get his girlfriend at the time a present. My mom had been making fun of his girlfriend for being bisexual. She was saying some really awful things like, maybe his girlfriend didn’t want to be with him, maybe she wanted to be with her. Stuff like that, because once she had told my mom she was pretty. Like, “Watch out, she’s hitting on me.” They were very ignorant things to say. She’s a lot better now, but she had to learn. I don’t think she knows what’s respective to say or what’s offensive and so she’s slowly learning. But anyway, my brother and I were in the car and I looked at him and said “You know, I feel comfortable with you so I’m going to tell you now but I probably won’t tell mom for a while. I’m bisexual.” I didn’t know what pansexual was, that’s more fitting but bisexual still worked at the time so I told him “I’m bisexual and I hope by the time I come out to her she knows not to say those things.” He thanked me for telling him but at the same time he didn’t care. He said it respectfully like “Thank you for telling me, but that doesn’t change anything. You’re still you.” I thought that was the best experience I’ve ever had coming out to anyone. When you’re gay, you’re constantly having to come out to people and it’s exhausting. If it comes up in conversation, if your doctors ask you if you’re sexually active sometimes having to come out to them. “Are you sure you aren’t pregnant?” and I say, “Yeah, I’m dating a girl right now, so I’m pretty sure I’m not pregnant.” It’s so weird. But coming out to my brother was the absolute best.
JAY: I think pansexual, bisexual and ace— and I don’t mean to diminish the struggles of lesbians or gay men or gay individuals but I do think that they have it worse, because you guys are always under scrutiny and you always have to justify living in the grey rather than in a black or white label. Like what you said earlier about people calling you trans instead of non-binary and you just accepting that because that’s the way they’re comfortable describing it. I do find it a little shitty that we have two bisexual women on staff at Sage Cigarettes and yet I’m the one that actively sought out the Pride Features because we do want to showcase and uplift everyone but especially creators from backgrounds that are traditionally considered minorities and LGBTQ+ voices. I just find it sad that it’s me, a is gendered straight guy, doing this. It’s struggling with that question internally. Is this allyship or is this taking advantage of Pride? I don’t know how it looks and I’m not sure I’m comfortable in this position.
EDDIE: You heard me use the term “Aggressive allyship” earlier. I’m not sure if that’s something I came up with myself or if it’s something everyone has experienced at some point, where they want to be so supportive that they take it over, like “Look how good I’m doing.” So long as you keep aware that it isn’t about you, it’s about the queer person. I had someone overstep it so much. She was essentially outing me wherever we went because she wanted to be the “Good Ally,” to be supportive, tell people my pronouns. But unless the person has given you the ok, if they’re gay or especially if they’re trans, you do not go to people and say, “This is my trans friend.” Unless you have their permission, especially if they’re passing. I know passing is a controversial subject or maybe it is just in the non-binary realm because passing makes you have to accept this standard of being male or female. So, passing has been spoken of in terms of “Is this what we want?” But if someone is passing successfully and you out them as trans they’re immediately getting looked at differently, you didn’t have to do that. That’s not how you be an ally. As long you check with the person you’re trying to be an ally for. Ask. Just ask questions. Is this what you would like me to do? In this situation what should I do? If someone misgenders you would you like to correct them? Would you like me to correct them? How would you like me to do it? As long as you make sure that you aren’t making it about you, like those missionary trips that white people go on like, “Look how good I’m being!” If you aren’t being that I think you’re being a good ally and not an aggressive one.
JAY: You were meant to do a different kinda piece for the Pride Feature that you were excited for but because of life and other commitments you couldn’t. That’s ok, of course. I just thought that this format would be a bit more laid back and fun for you. It’s us trying to be horizontal.
EDDIE: Yeah, when I first thought of a bunch of ideas of what I could do to participate back when I was originally going write something myself I wanted to talk about ally’s and being a good ally but I didn’t know if most of the readers would be straight people or queer people, and I thought “Wow, Happy Pride! Offend all the straight people!” I tend to do that a lot.
JAY: I mean that’s the point of Pride right? To offend the straight people.
EDDIE: I mean I’ve always taken Pride as a we’re-queer-deal-with-it mentality. Like, “I’ll deal with the repercussions of this later, for now I’m going to be very happy about who I am.” Cause sometimes, we don’t always have the ability to be happy about who we are. So, take the time. It’s Pride month! Be your best queer self.
JAY: In that same vein, I was talking with Allie today. She was working this morning and she wanted to go the Pride celebrations later on. She was hmming and haaing about it for a while being like, “I don’t know if anyone is going to be there” or “what if I’m tired” and I told her don’t flake on your own happiness. If it’s going to make you happy do it, so yeah. You know I can’t just let a sentence die? I do that thing from The Office headshots where they end every sentence with “so..” and just let it trail off. Something I did want to talk to you about, just cause it’s been in my mind for other different projects, do you have any feelings of spirituality? Not necessarily organized religion or that kinda witchy crystal stuff but—
EDDIE: Yeah, the witchy crystal stuff! I call myself lazy spiritual. I have the same attitude with myself and my gender that I have with my spirituality. But I am Pagan, I believe in witchcraft, I have an alter setup and I don’t practice as much as I should. I try to work it into my everyday life. Sometimes my meditation turns into naps, sometimes I just work on my intentions when I’m doing something and if I have time for a more complicated sit down to do some witchcraft that’s great, but I don’t often. I’m a very anxious person and while my spirituality kinda frees me, at the same time I get so anxious about upsetting the gods and goddesses by doing something wrong that I just kinda don’t do anything that I don’t already know how to do.
JAY: It’s like Catholic guilt but times a pantheon.
EDDIE: Yes! I grew up Lutheran and Baptist, so I blame that. I blame growing up Christian for why I’m so self-conscious about everything. I know that’s not fair, but for my own upbringing I think that’s accurate. I have gay people in my family on my dad’s side. My great-aunt is a lesbian we just never talked about it. It was a hush-hush thing that we didn’t talk about. Her partner has lived with her since they were in college and they’re just “roommates”, that’s what they’d be referred to as “roommates.” Her family hangs out with ours at family gatherings, she’s a part of the family but they’re “roommates.” That’s how I thought it was supposed to be. I thought gay wasn’t allowed and you were meant to keep it to yourself and lie about it. I remember the first time I found out she was a lesbian. My dad blurted it in front of me cause he was so angry. We’d just come from a family event where my great-aunt’s partner had done all the cooking and he was saying that they don’t get enough support: “Why don’t we talk about it? It’s so rude that we call them roommates. They’re lesbians!” and I gasped. They’re lesbians?! I was so excited, cause it made sense. Something I didn’t understand, something wasn’t right here, I finally had the word for it. I knew what lesbians were, we’d had lesbian neighbors before but to know there were lesbians in the family and they still got to be in the family was very important to me. It was a hush-hush thing but still they weren’t kicked out immediately. That was a big thing for me. Growing up seeing gay as a thing you don’t talk about or in TV shows where either the villain or goofy side character was queer coded, I thought gay people were meant to be the villains. You aren’t the main character. You’re either not talked about, it’s a secret or you’re a bad person and a weirdo. While I come from a huge family of weirdos I didn’t think that being the gay weirdo was going to go well. I think the first bit of pop culture I saw where being gay was an ok thing was The Sims. Isn’t that weird? They didn’t make a big deal out of it. Characters could just Woo-hoo whoever they wanted and it wasn’t a big deal.
JAY: That sounds wonderfully innocent, you know that?
EDDIE: I grew up pretty sheltered. I had a lot of friends who were my parents’ age (my parents were teen parents) and I felt like I had to grow up fast so I was always very mature for my age. I had thirty-year-old friends in Highschool. One of my mom’s friends that I was also close with, we’d hang out sometimes and she’d been playing Sims since the first one. She thought I’d really like it and it changed my life. I’m now a cozy gamer for one but also gay people were just gay people! It wasn’t a weird thing, they just existed. So, I would make these characters and, just incase my mom saw me playing the game, they weren’t me, but they were based on me. They were different versions of me and they got to be gay, they got to dress how I wanted to but I couldn’t. They were all goth gay characters. And I’m now living out that life that I had for my sims when I was in Highschool.
JAY: Something you said there unlocked a deep memory in me. When I was a kid, I think my first proper Pokémon game was Sapphire for the Gameboy and one day I started a new save. I really liked the characters from the show, especially Team Rocket so I decided to play as a girl named Jessie and my brother teased me mercilessly for it. He thought I was gay and for the longest time I’m pretty sure he still thought that whereas I’ve always been comfortable in my sexuality, I’ve always known I’m not. Like I have nothing against— why am I doing that straight person thing of “oh no, no I’ve nothing against them!”
EDDIE: There’s a specific brand of straight person who feels they have to clarify because their sense of humor is flirting with people of the same gender.
JAY: Oh yeah, that’s me. One hundred percent.
EDDIE: Which is also, I think, how a lot of gay people get their start. I think you feel like you have to clarify. Especially when we were young, I know I did it in Highschool. I just flirted with girls for the humor. Then later they’d find out that I’m super, super gay. So, I associate that with clarifying it. I’m not offended by it.
JAY: I think it probably falls back on going to an all-boys Catholic school for eight years. It’s just filled with this toxic masculinity. If there’s two things I learned after coming out of that environment it’s that: A) Catholic school is great for making atheists and B) there was a lot more gays in my class that couldn’t come out or wouldn’t come out because of that environment. There were obviously theatre kids. We had a trio I’d call Glee. I didn’t do this because they were gay, I did this because they were assholes. They were the type to walk into a classroom and give you a backhanded compliment or say something nonchalantly then turn and giggle amongst themselves.
EDDIE: The kind of people that think they’re in a TV show?
JAY: Yeah. That’s why I chose Glee, like I could smell the Glee off them.
EDDIE: I know exactly the type you’re talking about.
JAY: So, that’s probably where that comes from. Humor is how I survived in Highschool, so I get where you’re coming from but also a background of guilt if we’re talking about spirituality. The reason I asked you about it is I’ve always said I’m a bad Catholic. I don’t believe everything the church says or that there’s particularly a God, but you know still Catholic. It takes a lot to get kicked out. Recently I’ve come back around to the idea of being Catholic spiritually, like I’m not going to go to church, no extreme measures like that but I do think, when you’re raised with those ideologies, especially with Roman Catholicism, it worms its way into you and it doesn’t let go.
EDDIE: Yeah. Like with my gender growing up I just thought I was a bad girl. I thought I was being bad at being a girl. That guilt is so heavily engrained from when we were kids that it doesn’t even cross your mind that there’s another possibility. I’m just bad at being a Christian. Well, maybe you aren’t a Christian. You should check out Paganism. I saw a quote one time that said, “You don’t convert to Paganism you just find out you always were one.” That’s kinda how it happened with me. I didn’t go along with everything the church was telling me. One of my great-uncles is a pastor and I went to his church for a very long time and he was amazing, answering all my weird questions and basically saying it was ok to have questions whereas everyone else was telling me to never question faith, absolutely not. He was very open with me about those things. His wife not so much. I was a very depressed child— I’m still a depressed child— so I started to have questions about the church’s view, God’s view on suicide. Her answer was “You go to hell!” Telling that to a very depressed kid is not the way to go. I remember that being so upsetting. I couldn’t help the way that I felt and if God made me like this why would I be sent to hell for acting on the feelings He gave me constantly? That didn’t seem fair. That started my spiritual search. I did the same thing with my gender, I thought I was being bad at it so I started to get heavily into it. I started going to Christian camps, I started re-reading the bible, I went to youth group and all these things but I realized that it all felt fake. I’d always been questioning these things, my sexuality, my spirituality, my gender, my religion but college is where I got to sit by myself and figure them out without people, specifically my family, telling me I was wrong. After making all these changes in my life I thought I was going to be booted out of my family but surprisingly enough they’re all ok with everything. Most of them know I’m Pagan, most of them know I’m gay, most of them know I don’t identify as female.
JAY: I don’t think I ever really considered Paganism but I do understand the history of how Catholicism adopted a lot of the iconic symbols from different ancient Pagan cultures.
EDDIE: Like the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
JAY: The Trinity.
EDDIE: The Trinity got it’s start from the Celtic knot. The Wiccans have Maid, Mother and Crone. But what Christianity decided to toss completely was the duality between feminine and masculine. Christianity was like, “Nah, lets just keep the masculine. Let’s make all feminine things feel terrible even though Jesus was birthed by a woman. Let’s forget all that.”
JAY: I’m probably biased saying this, but I do feel like that is a particularly Protestant ideal to forget femininity. Don’t get me wrong a lot of Protestant churches are massively progressive in terms of allowing women to become pastors whereas the Catholic church only allow nuns. I think Catholics though have an acute understanding of masculinity and femininity through the lens of suffering. I think there’s something very primal built into us that understands suffering as a spiritual experience. I don’t know if that’s my religious upbringing.
EDDIE: I’m connecting with what you’re saying. It’s funny because Kevin came from a Mexican family and upbringing, and he says that his version of Catholicism is very heavily influenced by the worship of Mary.
JAY: Irish Catholics and Mexican Catholics are very similar.
EDDIE: They are? Okay cause I think— I mean I don’t want to say they’re doing it right but they’re remembering, even having a feast day for Mary.
JAY: I don’t think women in the wider sense receive the same treatment, but certainly maternal figures are deified in certain branches of Catholicism, like Mexicans and the Irish.
EDDIE: Kevin tells me they call her the Queen of the South.
JAY: I don’t know why that sounds like a racist confederate thing. We call her Holy Rose, Queen of Ireland. I am sorry that we’ve steered from our topic onto religion. Like this is for me, I’m figuring some stuff out.
EDDIE: It’s ok, I understand that. I think some of the things I’ve said don’t just apply to queer people. Just growing up you start question everything. You’re finally able to make your own opinions and decisions so you try things and see what sticks. Oh, earlier you mentioned the struggles of bisexual, pansexual and asexual people. I think back to the times of Stonewall and AIDS when everyone was just fighting to be seen. Now though, we’re fighting to be understood. Gay and lesbian are easier for the masses to understand. Once you say, “I’m gay” or “I’m lesbian” that’s understood a little easier than saying “I’m bisexual.” People think bi or pan is a step towards gay or lesbian and not the final destination. They think you’re still questioning it. We’re still fighting for visibility, we’re fighting to be understood. It’s hard. I’ve even got my own guilt cause well, crap, I’m engaged to be married to a man. Does that make me look like a bad bisexual/pansexual person? Everyone told me I was going through a phase, that bisexuality is a phase, that kind of stuff. It isn’t. I’ve found that I like the label pansexual because it was more than gender, it felt for me like you can be attracted to anyone. It’s more about personality. For some people it’s just a base attraction, for others it’s not because they aren’t sexually attracted to people. I still have the gut attraction to people I think are beautiful but to be romantically involved with someone I have to like their personality and then they start to become more and more attractive. I’ve found that when I was dating women people understood it a lot easier but when I would date a guy they’d start to question my sexuality like “oh, you don’t like women anymore?” No, I do. But this guy has piqued my interest and I’m dating him now. I still do get that guilt. When I was growing up people would ask if I’d get married when I grew up and I’d say no. My stepdad clarified with me for a final time and asked why I didn’t want to. I was still struggling with my sexuality at the time so I just said “I don’t want to get married unless everyone can get married.” Deep down I thought if I did it would be to a woman.
JAY: When was this? I don’t really know your age.
EDDIE: I’m twenty-six.
JAY: Oh Jesus, you’re older than me! I did not expect that at all.
EDDIE: Kevin is twenty-three and most people think he’s older than me.
JAY: Cause you look like a toddler.
EDDIE: Yeah, a toddler. A little baby.
JAY: It’s alright. I have the wee fat baby cheeks.
EDDIE: My family has got pretty good genes so I’ll probably never stop being carded when I buy alcohol.
JAY: I mean I’ve got pretty good genes too. I think they’re Levi’s. I was gonna add on to what you’re saying about gay and lesbian being easier for straight people to understand. I think it’s because they’re just inverting their own sexuality. They’re not able to understand fluidity easily as opposed to a black and white divide.
EDDIE: I think people understand transgender a bit better because it fits into the same bracket as gay and lesbian. They think it’s a final thing, you’re just doing the reverse now. They don’t understand pan, bi, non-binary and I’m lucky enough to be all of them. It seems from an outsider’s perspective like a middle-ground. It seems to them like you haven’t quite made up your mind yet, especially with the way I went about it.
JAY: Like in a Venn diagram you’re right in the middle.
EDDIE: Yeah, you discover it’s a lot less like a Venn Diagram and more like a rollercoaster spectrum.
JAY: There’s this lovely old woman that comes into my shop. She’s southern so she has this thick accent. She comes in and treats me almost like her grandchild, like she’ll call me my darling or at another point my shirt was buttoned a little too low so, she pulled my collar together and said “just keeping you modest.” I told her Allie was going to Pride today and out of nowhere she tells me this wonderful story about how her daughter is gay. She starts talking about how she knew from a young age that her daughter was gay. She came home from California after graduating, sat her parents down and said she wanted to talk to them about how she was and how she felt. Her mother stopped her and, in this wonderfully Irish mammy way, said “There’s nothing you’re telling us that we didn’t already know. I knew from the day and hour you were born…”
EDDIE: Isn’t that weird how it almost always works out like that? I feel like other people knew before I did myself or maybe it’s that I didn’t want to fully admit it because of guilt, because of the way “gay” was thrown at me. In Middle school I started being bullied for being gay. It made me so angry. I was being bullied for something that I thought I wasn’t. How did they know? I remember there was this girl that would make this big announcement every day. I think she’d call it the colour of the day, “If you’re wearing this colour today you’re gay.” She’d make a big deal looking at exactly what colour of shirt I was wearing and announcing that as the colour of the day. It’s the stupidest thing but it was so upsetting at the time. It was always shining so much attention on me and linking me with this term that I was afraid of. In Highschool I went towards turning it around, making it funny. I flirted with all of the girls, especially my friends. From 8th grade to our senior prom I asked my friend Taylor (who was a girl) to every single dance except for one, because I had a boyfriend at the time. I wouldn’t just ask her, it was always one of those elaborate ways of asking her. I would buy her stuffed animals, I sent her on a scavenger hunt twice. It was always really dramatic so that everyone knew I was asking a girl to the dance. She was my friend, I wasn’t hitting on her. I wasn’t actually attracted to my friends, they were like my family. I probably scared her a little because I had taken her to all of the dances. I hung out with her once when we were in college and I came out to her and she said, “Thank you for coming out to me but I don’t like you like that.”
JAY: Everything you just said sounds like a Boy Meets World plot.
EDDIE: Absolutely. It’s just so played out. I don’t think it surprised any of my friends and me coming out as non-binary didn’t surprise any of them because they were also some of the same people who would playfully tell me I sucked at being a girl. I wasn’t offended that she thought I was hitting on her, but I understood where it come from in that instance. Other times you come out to people and the way they act is like, alright you think you’re attractive enough that I’m coming out to you to try and get in your pants? It’s funny.
JAY: When I was talking to that wonderful old woman today, I realized that the majority of my female friends are bi, maybe one or two are straight but the rest are bi. I assume now for whatever reason that every woman I meet now is bi.
EDDIE: I started assuming it’s the norm especially for people in our age group. Less because I believe it and more because I want to believe it. I was tired of assuming that straight was the standard. I think that naturally we are wired to be attracted to whoever but before we get to make our own minds up about it, we’re told to be straight. Maybe the world would be different if we’d all been told that gay is the normal. Who knows? I’ve seen skits based on that before, it’s interesting to think about. I definitely went through that phase of unless someone tells me I’m gonna assume everyone’s pronouns are they/them and they’re all bisexual. I think it’s important to ask people’s pronouns. Sometimes they get offended, usually cis-gendered people, not to throw hate that way.
JAY: No, we deserve it.
EDDIE: They get offended cause they’re confused by the question. They think they aren’t presenting themselves as 100% cis-gendered and then are offended by the question. Their immediate thought is what am I doing to be lumped in with those people. I think it is important though, even if you stick with the pronouns you have from birth, it’s important to know that about people. Instagram just updated itself to where you can put your pronouns as a setting that shows up on your profile if you want it to. I think that’s very cool. It’s important. It shows that you support others using the same system and it tells the world who you are, that you chose that even if it was given to you, you’re choosing that. It isn’t the world saying it, it’s you. Tell people your pronouns.
JAY: That reminds me of, and there is reasoning behind this, there’s a campaign at the moment for a very particular Catholic political party in here that is up in arms because Northern Ireland is incorporating legal abortions into the health service here for the first time. I wanna stress, not all Catholic political parties are like this, just like not all Protestant political parties are like this. Women are being given that option, it’s not being forced upon them and I feel like that’s where a lot of people, a lot of cis straight people fall, at the first hurdle. It isn’t being forced on them. It isn’t like “Abortions for all!” It’s an option.
EDDIE: I find it’s mostly white men who get angry at the thought of abortions, all these kinda congressmen trying to get abortions illegalized but it doesn’t even affect them in the slightest. People just can’t understand that not everyone is exactly alike. The things that work for you shouldn’t be forced upon other people. I don’t know why that is so hard to understand. It does seem like a lot of the older generation are apart of that, but even some members of our generation find it hard to realize that their opinion isn’t the standard.
JAY: It comes back I think to the idea of religion as law and particularly what they’ve been thought is the correct way to live and they take that to be the be-all-end-all truth. Whereas in actuality the bible would be much better without all these random laws like you can’t touch pig’s skin or you can’t wear clothes made out of more than two types of fabric or the Ten Commandments even. It would be much clearer and more concise if it was just a pamphlet that read “Don’t be a dick.”
EDDIE: Oh, then you might like looking into Wicca.
JAY: Is this you trying to convert me now, is it?
EDDIE: I’ve never done this before! Here’s our pamphlet. The Wiccan creed is do what you will but harm none. Basically, it’s like do what you want just don’t fuck with other people. That made so much more sense to me than tell everyone that his word of god is the only word of god. Before I forget, you remember that you said a lot of your female friends are bisexual? I think a lot of gay people tend to group up. I noticed as soon as I came out, I was making friends with a lot more gay people. When I went to the school in Arkansas, I joined the Pride group they had there, it was called Spectra (like a play on Spectrum). There was a girl there who was bisexual, and I think she was president for a little while. She referred to everyone as her Gaybies. She thought she was the Mother Goose of Gaybies and she would take in all these small gay people who were just coming into their realities, into their queerness and gender identities. That group was meant to be a safe bubble, but we ended up getting bullied. Do you remember what YikYak was? This platform where you could post anonymously. It got banned on our campus because people were getting specific death threats, like calling people out by name in the gay-straight alliance. That was the first year I joined, my junior year that I transferred there. I didn’t wanna be a part of that. But the next year I was vice-president, we made more friends, campus was nicer to us and we started doing panels. We were reaching out, I started on a panel that was kinda discussing stuff like this, it was about being gay in rural America. Even though I didn’t grow up in the southern states my hometown still has that small-town atmosphere. We talked about being bullied, we talked about coming out and my dad went to that panel. It might have been the first time he’d heard about me being bullied for being gay. I’m getting sidetracked, but even though that person I got the term Gaybies from turned out to not be a great person, the concept stuck with me. When I was trying to date through Tinder or online platforms, I’d find all these younger gay people and they’d flock to me because I was saying exactly what I was. So many of them would message me asking how could they come out to their parents or asking if I could tell them my story. I’d joke that I was getting these online Gaybies. They’d come to me for advice and it was very nice and wholesome. We tend to flock to each other cause it’s comfortable knowing the other person has gone through the same kind of things that you have. I remember finding out that Allie was bi and instantly becoming more comfortable with her because you know! You know they know what you know.
JAY: You know. You know?
EDDIE: I think the message of this whole thing is that ally’s and gay people should just have conversations like this, just sit down and talk about what’s important. And what’s not important, stupid things, anything!
JAY: Exactly, it doesn’t always have to be sitting down in tears and hugging and crying. It can be just shooting shit and asking questions you’re afraid of or questions you’re afraid will paint you in a certain way.
EDDIE: I’ve done something like that before where I just sit down and let people ask me the questions they want to ask other gay people, cause I won’t get offended by it. Some questions are offensive, but I’ll answer them. I let this drunk frat guy ask me a bunch of questions about my genitals once. Because I was friends with him I told him, “Don’t ask anyone else these questions, I’m only answering this because I’m comfortable with you. No, I don’t want a penis. That’s not what gender identity exactly means.” I think it’s important to have someone tell you these things, someone you can ask those offensive questions to and get a non-angry answer. It’s important to grow as an ally, it’s important to grow as a gay person. It’s important to be able to answer those questions knowing that asker isn’t trying to be offensive, they earnestly just want to know. You can tell when people are trying to be offensive. You learn that. I think it’s important for both sides of the conversation learn how to be open with one another and answer those weird questions and talk about things in different ways so everyone can get to the same level of understanding. We’re out here fighting for visibility, fighting to be equal, fighting to be taken seriously. We have to have these conversations. We have to let them catch up. Since I’m passed my angry phase I can talk about that now. I don’t speak for all gay people, that’s important to remember. I don’t speak for every non-binary person. Everyone’s experiences are different but it’s important to just talk out those questions and answers with people.
JAY: I feel a lot of the issues that stops straight and cis people asking those questions is that they want to be good ally’s but maybe they don’t have the right words or the right way to ask a question without it seeming offensive, or that they’re worried about coming across as ignorant, or maybe even afraid of damaging what they think is their public image. I know that has held me back in the past which is why I’m bringing it up. Like I won’t lie, I’ve been a little anxious about getting the right wording for things today. I think it is important to listen but not expect you to teach me, because it isn’t your duty to. It’s not on you, it’s on me.
EDDIE: Yeah, but it is a part of the learning process. I once gave a talk at my college about how to be a good ally to someone who has experienced sexual assault and trauma. It gave guidelines about the right questions to ask, the feelings that those questions might stir up. I was giving recommendations for them to think about, not explicitly telling them this and that make a good ally but here are some things to think about that will make you a better ally for these people.
JAY: And if you want to hire Eddie for public speaking engagements you can follow the number below.
EDDIE: I’ve given a lot of talks! I was a speaker at a peace rally, I’ve represented the gay-straight alliance that I was the VP of, I did that panel about the gay experience in rural America, I did the sexual assault support panel. I haven’t done anything like that in a very long time. I do wanna get back to doing that kinda thing. I have been thinking about dong a blog or web-series but I’m too anxious of a person. With public speaking I can sometimes trick myself. I was a music kid and an athlete so I have a performance mindset stuck in a different part of my brain where, if I go into that mode, I’m perfectly fine as a public speaker but if I think about it too much then I get really anxious. Person to person conversations I get really anxious. When I’m in front of a group of people I can usually wing a speech. I prefer to be very prepared. At the peace rally I was asked the day of. I got up in front of a whole courtyard of people and spoke about why accepting gay people is important, stuff like that. I was asked the day of! I had no time to prepare.
JAY: They are also available for weddings and Bar Mitzvahs. There’s a lot of pieces of art that we consume, like for instance I really love Martin Scorsese’s films. Is that poor taste? Maybe. A lot of it came out in the 70s and deals with a very specific type of person. A very specific exploration of a psyche or of a person. None of his films pass the Bechdel test I’m sure. As an artist, do you think that we can still appreciate a piece of art even if it is problematic or traumatizing or offensive, under the lens of this is the reality it came from?
EDDIE: I’m probably biased as an artist and an arts student, but I think that conversation is important. I think even offensive art and media has its place. Every piece of art and media has the intent that was put out there by the artist, maybe it’s them working out their experience. The artist could be working through something. If it comes out wrong the viewer could take it to be offensive or alternatively the artist could intend it to be offensive. I think any combination is important because you’re realizing what’s offensive—the artist and the viewer— learning what’s offensive and what’s not. That’s an important thing to learn. Shock-value pieces are important because they start conversations. Like the art-piece Piss Christ by Andres Serrano. He submerged a crucifix in his own urine and photographed it. It was so offensive to some people, but some people thought it was serene and beautiful. Because everyone has a different reaction to things, those pieces are important to have out there. If he hadn’t of made that some people mightn’t have had conversations about what Christianity means to them. He created it based on his own opinions on what Christianity had become. That’s than important thing for him to discover and an important thing for others to think about. The people that got knee jerk upset, Serrano said, “any reaction is better than indifference.” I think offensive things are important. Personally, I have come to a lot of understanding of myself and about the world and life through making art. If people don’t like the art I produce that doesn’t bother me so much. Some pieces I make are for aesthetic value, others are for personal value. They’re all equally important to me, but I know they aren’t all equally important to the viewer. My most successful stuff though has been the things that I think are important, that are controversial or not often thought about. I had a series of photographs that were displayed at a show in a bar and it was about persecution, being different and the experiences you get when you’re labelled as different. It was called ‘Burn the Witch’ and it was based on the Salem witch trials and persecution of witches but in a more modern sense, all the subjects I photographed were bisexual women. I was trying to depict how they’re persecuted for their sexuality, for just being themselves they’re viewed in a different light and are sometimes attacked. I had these striking images, some them just showing the girls looking directly at the camera lens while smoke billowed around them. Others were playing dead. I took these serene pictures of them with smoke or with them underwater, staging these different deaths from the witch trials. Had a few that were the subject being crushed by rocks, but I just didn’t like how they looked. You didn’t get enough of the model. To me that series was about how the viewer would look at the people portrayed. You can’t tell exactly what they’re being persecuted for unless you read my artist’s statement but you know something bad is happening to them and the way they’re looking at you— you’re meant to judge what is happening to them, how you should be feeling. Should you feel sorry for them? Should you be upset? Do you agree that they should be treated like that? I wanted to have that conversation. That’s probably one of my favourite series I’ve done, this somewhat controversial opinion that being gay makes you a target. It was well received, and I won an award for one of the photos. I was scared to do that series, I was scared to talk about it. When I gave my artist talk after I spoke about being a gay person, about practicing witchcraft and how all of that worked its way into making this series. It was scary for me. If I didn’t have that confidence or the thought that I needed to put this out there I wouldn’t have had some really good interactions with people who liked my work and what I was saying. I really think those conversations about art and media are so important, I’ve learned things about my religion when I was younger from reading—
JAY: If you say Harry Potter…
EDDIE: No, the Chronicles of Narnia and His Dark Materials. They both talk about religion in very different ways but one was accepted as a Christian book and the other, which was more honest and spoke about religion in less of a good light, wasn’t liked as much. I think both those forms of media are very important in letting you figure out what works for you and what your opinions are and “your truth” which sounds generic. If you don’t come across something that offends you how are you gonna know what offends you? That said, don’t be a terrible person that goes out to offend people. There’s a difference.
JAY: There’s an absolute difference.
EDDIE: People are gonna learn things if your intent is pure and you want to put that offensive thing out there because you know it’s an offensive thing that people are either laughing at or learning from. If you’re putting it out there because you want to be offensive and you’re using that as an excuse that’s not gonna fly.
Paige “Eddie” Bork is a mixed media artist who also happens to be a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community. They live with their fiancé, Kevin, in Michigan. Together they have two pets, a dog Max and a cat Ellie. Eddie tries their best to make art inspired by their personal experiences like being queer, living with depression, intrusive thoughts, and PTSD. You can follow their Instagram for life and art updates as well as check out their website for a look at their portfolio. You can follow her on Instagram @starshine.paige and see more of her website at https://paigevbork.wixsite.com/gallery.
Jay Rafferty is the poetry editor of Sage Cigarettes Magazine.
