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Marriage/Handfasting of Cassie and John

Date

May 23, 2024

Location

Des Moines, Iowa

We are excited to present our recent project, the Marriage/Handfasting of Cassie and John. This beautiful ceremony combined both traditional marriage customs and the ancient pagan ritual of handfasting, showcasing the unique and diverse love story of the couple. We are proud to have been a part of this special event and are excited to share the details of the project with you.

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Intersectionality

In Ndopu’s “Musings from a Queercrip Femme Man of Color” we are challenged to view intersectionality in layers. Oftentimes we split the categorization of various aspects of sexuality, gender, disability and race. We are challenged in isolating those aspects instead of understanding their overlap.  This often creates disparity. The differentiation between femme and effeminate definitively contributes to the trans misogynistic categorization mentioned. 

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In “Bodies that Matter” by Judith Butler we read about gender and
drag and its comparison to hegemonic practices rooted in a “heterosexual project”. In this imitation proposed thought this performative nature of drag contradicts the heterosexual norms.  “Heterosexuality concede”(s) and acknowledges its lack as compared to gender norms and the articles source comparison to drag and the culture it perpetuates.

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The article speaks to the cost of identifying with one gender and losing other identifiers once that gender has been embraced, e.g. “being a man” or “being a woman”. I would postulate that gender frees someone to express themselves in the totality that they are.

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In Jessi Gan’s article, Silvia Riviera was attacked and discredited to the point of leaving activism in gay communities in the early 1970s. This clearly indicates the lack of progress to be more inclusive of transgender persons of color in queer spaces.

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Gan’s article discusses the queer agenda’s history of Integration into the hegemony of the dominant culture. This identifies a clear need for overhauling our current entrenched systems to establish a more inclusive and intersectional paradigm.

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Intersectionality Demands Action

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Ysa's Journey of Protest

Coming out as a transgender woman in 2018, it is again a position of nuance comparing the rich history of civil rights and activism that previously presenting from the pinnacle of privilege (cisgender white heterosexual male) — I have spoken to watching the metaphorical doors of access being slammed in my face. 

Contrary to what many individuals who align with the radical right extremists highlighted by MAGA and christofascism — I did not “choose”
to be who I am, I simply am.  

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In 2019, the state of Iowa began to make its push towards targeting and harming transgender Iowans. With the departure of Terry Branstad as governor, his Lt. Governor Kim Reynolds would take over and begin a campaign against the trans community that lasts until our current day. 

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This began with the targeting of transgender gender confirmation surgery for Medicaid recipients (which I was at the time covered by). With a recent completion of hormone replacement therapy of one year (May 2018-2019), I was ready to pursue this surgery but this was halted by the state blocking payment for these surgeries through partisan sponsorship. This action fueled what would become a legacy of protest and activism for my person that has lasted and continued until this point in my life. 

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Spurned on by the pursuit of the ACLU to seek an injunction against this inability to get the surgery I desired, I would then engage in activism in the ACLU’s Rights for All campaign which sought to gain commitment from Democratic primary candidates for civil rights issues. I would spend the summer of 2019 culminated at the Iowa state fair engaging these candidates. 

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The end of 2019 brought the flying of the transgender flag at the Iowa state capitol under scrutiny by Republican representatives, specifically Skyler Wheeler — calling it a “rainbow jihad” in honor of transgender day of remembrance (article link) 

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Covid happened, and as with many things, the world went dark and we all struggled to manage our lives so for most of 2020 I turned inward to ensure the success and survival of my wife and child. 

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I reemerged in 2021 learning acutely of the beginning process of the Iowa legislative funnel. For the years that followed I would learn of how any piece of legislation that was not passed the previous year would be automatically reintroduced into the next years session - thus snowballing any victory of defeating damaging laws that would affect the transgender community would have to be fought until a 2 year cycle removed them entirely without success. 

This unfortunately leads us to our current debacle that began in 2023 that has emerged in the removal of transgender Iowans from the Iowa Civil Rights Act in 2025. Each year I have shown up from January-March to do battle with the Iowa Republican Party and Kim Reynolds. 

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With my undying breath I will continue to fight and struggle against leadership that does undue harm to me and my community. It is with this action that I embody much of the spirit of authors and activists I have learned about in the queer studies course at Iowa State University.  It is my hope in completing my degree and pursuing graduate studies to be a licensed clinical psychologist to provide support and hope for a future that at this moment looks dark but the light never dies.

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Intersectionality without action is a pointless gesture. What good is applying the wisdom of Crenshaw - to not understand the overlap of different demographic constructs without their potential lived application. 

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Indeed, as I speak to the current generation of LGBTQIA+ persons — we can honor where we came from, the waves of feminism and the civil rights activists and movements before us, but without integrating that experience and history into our current era?  We are just gum flapping and paying tribute to something that still affects us to our current day. 

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It is vital and imperative of my own person to speak to the fact of both my own overlapping layers of gender identity, sexual orientation and class while honoring the additional layers that my privilege removes me from. As a white pansexual transgender woman, I will face potential discrimination and exclusion - but due to my privilege as a white middle class woman - as we have read in our course who has received benefits and advancement first - I honor that I am not a person of color and do not face the hurdles being born into existing just as such. With humility, I honor I will -never- experience ‘driving while black’, predisposition to police brutality, and will never be a black transgender woman - a place which receives the most harm in our current culture.

© 2025 by Ysandril Morrígan LMT, RMT

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