In Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation, Eli Clare explores his sense of identity through the lenses of gender and disability. Clare is a transgender man who has Cerebral Palsy–a disability that affects movement. In the first chapter of this book, “The Mountain,” Clare repeatedly brings up this idea of the body being home. However, he juxtaposes this feeling of belonging in a physical body by stating that “bodies can be stolen, fed lies and poison, torn away from us,” (Clare 12). Clare begins the paragraph by offering his readers comfort, showing them that regardless of the communities they are ostracized from and the family that might hate them for their identity, they all belong somewhere, and that is in their own body. However, he takes this comfort away from the readers by mentioning that our bodies can be stolen and we can stop feeling like they are our own.
Clare is bringing to light his own past trauma, showing the readers that he did not feel in control of his body. There were people in his life whom he trusted, including his own father, and they tortured Clare for years, stealing that trust and controlling his body. This caused Clare to disassociate from his own body–the one thing that should be his and his alone.
I don’t believe that Clare tells his audience about his past trauma because he wants us to feel scared and alone. I think Clare shares these moments in his life for the purpose of teaching his readers a valuable lesson: “the stolen body can be reclaimed,” (Clare 13). At the time when Clare was being physically and sexually abused, he still identified as female. He had all of this trauma associated with that female identity. By transitioning away from the female-identifying self that was abused for years, Clare was given the space to heal, reclaim his own body, and embrace his identity as a transgender man. He made a decision for himself, allowing him to feel in control of his own body and identity.
Clare has written a lot about his multi-faceted identity and how his body comes into play. That being said, he also explores the bigger picture: even though our identity can change throughout the course of our life, it will always be a part of who we are. We can change our identity to better fit how we feel inside, but our identity can never be taken away from us, unlike our body. From Clare’s own identity as a disabled person, a former lesbian, and a trans man, his identity is something that will always belong to him, just as our identities will always belong to us.
I really liked what you wrote in the third paragraph: “… I think Clare shares these moments in his life… (to teach that) we can reclaim what was once taken from us.” And when what was taken from us is our own body, that’s a great message. That no matter what was done to us, no matter how we feel or felt about ourselves, our body is ours alone, and it deserves respect.
It’s also interesting how closely tied “identity”, “story”, and “body” are for Clare. He is someone that does not cover his past, and embraces all facets of himself as truth worth telling. Including his body in that picture is a really great way of tying his main ideas together.
Thanks for writing this and helping me understand the connection better, beyond just a story of “overcoming.”
I agree that Clare’s intentions are not to create fear or an excess amount of discomfort within the reader. I understand what you’re saying what you say” he is using his life for the purpose of teaching his readers a valuable lesson”. The reader is uncomfortable because they have been put into his shoes to understand his experiences and views that are laced with trauma and hardships. Much like some of our readings from Cheri Moraga she places the reader into her world with exclusive language that could make a non-Spanish speaker uncomfortable. This discomfort is not in malicious intent, it is to force the reader into there perspective to feel to some extent what they might of felt, to learn and understand something that they could not otherwise sympathize with before. I enjoy that you came at this peice with an educational perspective and it helped me look at some of the other pieces in a lens of “what are they trying to tell me and how will they influence me?”