This is Zoë Williams and their sweet babe, Iva Defiance. I experience Zoë as an individual who has access to all of themselves and operates with great presence and strength in many endeavors simultaneously. When I asked Zoë what it was that they do in life, this is what they said, “a community organizer, a collective liberator dreamer, a herbalist, ..does what they can to make a better world than the one their children were born into.” Righteous response. In addition, Zoë also is going to law school, a professional social justice advocate, working for the art collective Meow Wolf, in a committed partnership, and raising three children. Zoë is thirty-two years old and in my opinion, kicking some major life ass as a full blown compassionate warrior for justice.
There is another aspect of Zoë’s identity that is currently on the forefront of American consciousness, Zoë identifies as non-binary, or gender-fluid. Think in concepts of gender duality, the Native American definition of “Two Spirit”; releasing oneself from the rigid social boxes of, “Male” or “Female” and the proscribed societal norms within those gender definitions. Instead of “He” or “She” in the conversation of identifying non-binary, there is “They” and all the choice of self or selves that is implied. Not either/or but many/any. This identification of self and where a person identifies in the social landscape goes beyond the identification of Bisexual or Gay or Transgender or even the weirdo fluid/outsider catchall, Queer.
This is a new evolution in our human understanding of one another based on gender placement and biological identification and therefor a person’s use and worth in human society. This is in my mind, a staggeringly simple and profound answer to gender inequality. Its takes the argument right off the table whether male or female is superior, inferior, or even equal. If every individual identifies as both male, female, a little of this and a little of that, or some new hybrid of the two, then we are all one, not two. Not a pair, but a an infinite variety of reflection. Take the gender wars off the table with non-binary leading the way, and then we’ve cleared an enormous space as a species in how we subjugate each other and we can then tackle equality in race and class with all that room made suddenly available.
Its a great step forward toward unification. And this is only the beginning of this conversation and evolution, it is a movement that has emerged in this current generation – imagine in twenty years what the movement will look like. I think this is very exciting and am so glad I met Zoë and listened to their experience with non-binary identification. Zoë and their partner are raising their children as non-binary and Zoë shared how these children are teaching adults around them how to let go of such spiritual and social rigidity, along with proper pronouns, the language of self-identification being very important. There is resistance and fear in response but there is also a great deal of curiosity and learning happening, Zoë and her partner are choosing to trust their children and themselves in letting that possibility of negative response be part of the learning process.
Please enjoy Zoë Williams full length interview by following this link: https://vimeo.com/286764905
I met Zoë and Iva in the Denver, Colorado offices of the artistic collective Meow Wolf Denver where Zoë works. Zoë works with this amazing DIY corporate art collective that originated in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2008, created The House Of Eternal Return , and is now opening satellite immersive art experiences first in Denver slated to open in 2020. There further plans to open in other American cities as well. When I rolled into Denver, a great friend who has a fantastic community there initiated introductions that resulted in me meeting and interviewing a powerhouse quartet of individuals while I was there this past July. Not only were Zoë and their child Iva in the room with me when I arrived at Meow Wolf, but the woman who orchestrated me connecting with Zoë, Merhia Wiese who is the manager of the Meow Wolf Denver offices and whom I also had the great pleasure of interviewing later that same day. As the day progressed, Merhia further offered me the gift of connecting me to her mother and setting up an interview the following Monday. These next three stories are a reflection of that powerful interconnection that I’ve experienced every step along the way of conducting this epic project.
Zoë, Iva, I began our conversation here in this creative hub. Zoë with their clear direct gaze and speech; their child Iva having the same eyes and Iva’s joyful communication that filled the room; both intimately connected and fully individual from each other. Zoë with their clarity and compassion hard won through beginning years of being profoundly uncomfortable with her allotted female identification until they broke free of those confines through the emergence of non-binary identification. And the sweet babe Iva, so wild and sure in their joy and they have never been identified as anything but their own self. Iva will or won’t make the decision as identifying male or female when their time comes along with their siblings in Zoë’s family, the choice is completely up to Iva to define what they are in the world.
Another really cool thing that Zoë is exploring as a parent is their evolution as a social justice warrior that includes their family. Zoë has been a political activist that has put their body on the front line of political protest, describing situations of intense civil disobedience that they have participated in over the years but that now due to health issues and being a parent, has made the choice to pull back from that front line of aggressive activism. But Zoë isn’t retiring and fading back into domestic life in any way, they are just shifting the parameters. Zoë is currently committed to calling focus and attention to the immigrant parents and children that have been and continue to be separated from one another in ICE detention centers all over the country. Zoë at their own and their children’s passionate response to this current battle of injustice, is incorporating public protest story time and lemonade stands at the nearby ICE detention centers that are located outside of Denver. Involving children and the family dynamic to political protest is Zoë’s current family and social political objective. To introduce the concept to other parents and families that they can participate in the political landscape in this manner in being hands on in actively advocating for the shape of their children’s societal future. That they can actively create this compassionate world with their children as its being shaped.
And just an FYI: I did just a surface Google search this morning about the status of the 1,475 children that went missing from our government tracking agency the Office of Refugee and Resettlement back in April 2018 and there are still only vague answers about where these children might be. 400 children are still in custody in ICE detention centers and have not been reunited with their families and it is 45 days past the promised deadline that these families would be reunited. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has just welcomed 44 new immigration judges in preparation to try the most immigration cases that this country has ever experienced – this atrocious practice of separating families at the our borders who are seeking asylum or entering our country illegally is nothing new and will obviously be continuing. Its a gut wrenching industry of another branch of privatized incarceration that this country is embracing on a corporate level of creating financial profit off the misery and inhumane treatment of families and children.
Zoë is intelligent, integrated, thoughtful, and passionate. They demand the best from themselves and give it each day. Zoë is motivated, organized, loving, and kind. They are ambitious and strong and galvanized by the pursuit of justice. Being a once outsider has lit a fire under this force of nature that has learned through suffering the meaning of self identification. This individual also understands their place of privilege in this word and uses it with social awareness and teaches their children to do the same in service for the people who are given no voice in our culture.
This is the nature of refuge.
