DANCES OF TIME AND TENDERNESS

A San Francisco Bay Area dancer and historian reflects on the unique, chainlike connections found within the LGBTQ+ community.

In this “charm bracelet come to life,” Carter, who teaches embodiment theory and social practice at the California College of the Arts, delivers a pensive literary souvenir linking together luminous prose, poetry, essays, historical data on the AIDS epidemic era, queer theory, and the author’s own potent perspectives on sex and coming-of-age experiences as a transgender member of the queer community. Scattered throughout these narrative elements are Carter’s interpretations of his lineage or “transcestrality,” including being an active participant in the BDSM leather community, having a penchant for piercing, and, decades ago, hosting a home dungeon visited by numerous locals. The author adds colorful “charms” to the chain in the form of historical bullet points, literary references, and epigrammatic asides interspersed among the essays and poetry. Carter dubs his artful showcase as “a series of swoons,” as anecdotes about his involvement in a queer archival project merge with nods to queer pioneers and resistance movements of the 1980s and ’90s, in addition to much-needed activism efforts during the Trump administration. Fond flashbacks on his gender transition journey in the late 1980s “dabbling in black-market hormones” mingle with commentary on the perennial social and political power of movement. “Dancing was always part of this revolution and why shouldn’t it be again, and still?” he asks. The texture of the prose is consistently lush, as Carter ambitiously presents a rainbow of interconnected observations and digressions about trans awareness and appreciation, as well as how queer people are “linked by the carnal love you can find threaded through queer and trans archives.” Within this vibrant interwoven tapestry, the author has created a welcome cultural retrospective of LGBTQ+ life.

Lyrical, fervent ponderings on the intersection of queerness, art, eroticism, and history.