Service
Our universities and communities don’t work without us. We are also the bridge between the two, bringing broader community needs to the university and bringing university scholarship to the community. As a scholar from multiple marginalized communities, I also see service as an essential part of cultivating the next generation of powerful researchers, teachers, and community organizers.
Public Writing
Be Gay, Do Crime: Everyday Acts of Queer Resistance
The Anti-Trans Panic is Rooted in White Supremacist Ideology
#DisarmUC: Disrupting the Arms Race
Tracing the Color of Queer Choreopolitics
“As communities are boldly rising to challenge capitalism, white supremacy, and authoritarianism, Be Gay, Do Crime: Everyday Acts of Queer Resistance and Rebellion is your ultimate guide to LGBTQ+ resilience and rebellion. Packed with daily snapshots of radical queer history, this book celebrates the bold, the brave, and the beautifully defiant moments that have shaped the fight for justice.”
“Gender-affirming care poses a challenge to the reproductive imperative imposed by white supremacy.”
In this article with bioethicist and legal scholar Florence Ashley, we explore the connective tissue linking anti-CRT, anti-trans, and anti-reproductive rights legislation; arguing that social darwinism and eugenics logic connect these movements even when they are articulated as separate political movements.
“As scholar-activists, the authors explore efforts of police disarmament within the context of an emerging social movement sweeping the University of California system. The Disarm UC coalition challenges the myth of policing as necessary for the production of a “safe” society, especially in an era in which fear-mongering has helped to naturalize far-right and authoritarian systems of control. Instead, this article asks how policing is always already a violent system within the American academy and how these historical precursors normalize the current militarization and mobilization of lethal force within universities. Such normalized violence reproduces historical inequities within academia and has material consequences for students and workers. Finally, the authors explore how social movements like Disarm UC disrupt police violence within the university, producing new social and material conditions for change.”
“Using non-institutional means, direct action is meant to evoke and activate the liberatory potential of everyday life. It is meant to create a gap in which we imagine—and demand—time and space to think and live otherwise. Scholars have traditionally examined these kinds of actions through an organizational, social movement, and political lens. In doing so, they note important aspects that tie direct action into their queer and racial histories, connecting the way direct action is taken to the social and political foundations from which they emerge. [1] In this essay, we consider direct action, particularly Black queer and trans led action like the Black Pride 4 (also known as the #BP4), as a choreographed piece of political performance art.”
Professional Service
Senior Fellow
Fellow
Committee Member
Student Service
Black Student Association Advisor
Trans Student Union Advisor (Secondary)
Sociology Advisor
Provide institutional knowledge and resources to support Black students on UNCA’s campus.
Work with students on academic planning and professional development.
Provide institutional knowledge and resources to support trans students on UNCA’s campus.
