Thoughts on the Sam Nordquist Tragedy
Many of us, myself included, have been struggling after hearing about the prolonged physical, mental and sexual torture of Sam Nordquist and his brutal, senseless murder. What has been the most difficult aspect of this for me to grapple with is how he met his tormentors and murderers while searching for love. He went looking for love and ended up being tortured and murdered by a bunch of degenerate cave beasts. We really need to ask ourselves what the fuck is going on in this society and start trying to fix these problems.
With transgender people emerging as the main target of a rapidly emerging Amerikkkan fascist movement I’ve had to do some serious soul searching, especially considering my past activism and involvement in the LGBTQ community. As a queer man who only has romantic and sexual relationships with men, I can honestly say that the mainstream gay community has not been as inclusive and welcoming as it should have been. Even worse, sometimes it seems these mainstream queers are even more attached to regressive and outmoded ideas than most straight folks. Those of us who know better need to speak more loudly. I’ve noticed that for far too many gay men, trans men are either a fetish or something they feel threatened by. I’ve had gays accuse me of being bisexual (which I am not) or of being “confused” once they learn I am interested in trans men. As someone who falls under the umbrella of this LGBTQ “community” I feel that it is my duty to use whatever platform I have to speak out. Hopefully I can help change a few minds.
Three of the five people involved in the terrible racist and transphobic crime committed against Sam Nordquist were queer women. This adds a layer of complexity to this situation that unfortunately dovetails with some assertions I’ve been making recently. It concerns the nature of this LGBTQ “community” and the fact that we will not be living peacefully together underneath the colorful rainbow flags until we address some serious problems. My last essay was an example of the hard conversations we have been avoiding; it was an open letter to the Oscar nominated transgender Spanish actress whose racist tweets attacked George Floyd, immigrants and other marginalized groups. In this particular essay we’re seeing the other side of the coin — what life and death are like for LGBTQ people without race, class and social privilege. One topic I’ve been attempting to generate more conversation around is the fact that being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer is separate from whether one is a racist, a cutthroat capitalist, an imperialist, a Zionist, or what have you. What recent events show us is that not only must we put more effort into rooting out and changing racist attitudes in the queer community, we must also embrace ideologies and ways of being that challenge our own internalized homophobia, queerphobia and transphobia.
Sam Nordquist’s tragic murder could have been prevented if we lived in a society that was more serious about fixing and solving some long festering problems, like the problem of sexual abuse and exploitation. The fact that at least two of Sam’s attackers were convicted pedophiles should not be overlooked. The prolonged sexual torture that he was forced to endure should not be swept under the rug. The fact that many folks find these subjects too uncomfortable to discuss means that these issues are never adequately addressed, and it’s the most marginalized who suffer the most. It should not take an extreme situation like this for us to pay more attention to the underbelly of our society, but here we are.
Sam Nordquist’s Blackness was most definitely a major factor in why he was targeted and this cannot be overshadowed by his trans identity. We should acknowledge that Sam’s tragic death echoes the ordeals many of our grandparents suffered under chattel slavery. When I saw how Sam’s tormentors imprisoned and transported him in a dog cage, I couldn’t help but see this dehumanizing treatment as similar to what happened once our ancestors were declared to be 3/5 human. The Confederate flag profile picture posted by one of Sam’s murderers (shortly after the George Floyd uprising, no less) is proof that these individuals attacked him not only because he was transgender but because he was Black.
Those of us who have been talking about the anti-Blackness in the queer community should be taken much more seriously and it’s ridiculous how we must continue repeating ourselves and begging to have our concerns adequately addressed. Because at this point it’s fuck a racist and they can die in a fire regardless of what’s between their legs or who they sleep with. There were gay nazis, let’s not forget.
One aspect of Sam’s ordeal that should be highlighted is how in line it is with the past five hundred years of settler colonial terrorism on this continent. On February 13th, 2014 an Inuit college student living in Canada was attacked and killed in her home by two white lodgers. Loretta Saunders opened her home to these lodgers against the advice of her mother because the funding for her graduate research project on missing and murdered Indigenous women had been abruptly cut off. Loretta was murdered on the same day Sam’s body was discovered. His body was found dumped in a field in a way that echoed how Loretta was dumped along the side of a highway in a hockey bag. Not only are Black and Indigenous people on this continent often treated like trash on a day to day basis, sometimes we are quite literally turned into trash. This disposability of racialized and queer bodies cannot be challenged until we understand the colonial roots of these attitudes.
Institutionalized abuse and rampant rape and molestation were not normal here on this continent prior to 1492. With the arrival of Christopher Columbus and his gang came widespread sex trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and girls — and sometimes men and boys as well. One of the first actions taken by Columbus’s men was the kidnapping of young Indigenous girls. These prepubescent children were taken back to their ships and not for tea and crumpets. Fast forward 500 years. Now, instead of the widespread gender and sexual diversity that once existed here we have a society riddled with deeply entrenched pathologies. Things that were once rare here on this continent are now common.
When Spanish settlers arrived in colonial North America, they brought the idea of private property. Prior to their arrival, indigenous people typically did not believe control over other’s sexuality was possible. When Spanish settlers arrived, they believed rape was a right of conquest and expected captives to engage in sex without consideration to consent.
The Catholic church brought institutionalized pedophilia; Puritan settlers brought the idea that sexual pleasure is sinful; the emerging Western science and rationality imposed by Europeans promoted a toxic gender binary and regressive, utilitarian ways of viewing ourselves and our bodies. Indigenous knowledge that could have challenged all of this was destroyed or hidden. Now, we have a choice. To continue allowing this situation to fester and more people to be tortured and murdered, or we can get serious about decolonization.
As a queer artist I have been more intentionally using my artistic practice to address the questions of sex, gender and who gets to determine what we can do with our own bodies. In part because of my own complicated past, unpacking and gaining a deeper understanding of all of this is a key aspect of my own decolonization process. Thankfully, and due to the efforts of my family, my sexual development was not marred or skewed by sexual molestation and abuse. There were certainly other problems to contend with, but my view of sex and intimacy is rooted in pleasure not trauma. Over the past few years as I’ve dived into Indigenous worldviews on this subject I’ve discovered some very interesting concepts. The Moche civilization’s erotic ceramics have been especially useful. These ceramics are the most well preserved and intricate examples of non-Western erotic life. These people were unique in some ways, but in other ways they were very similar to other Indigenous people on this continent insofar as their society was, by our standards, very free in terms of sex and gender expression. The above image is a homage to the fact that for the Moche people and others, sex was about much more than personal pleasure and procreation. For Indigenous people, sex involved an awareness of and connection with “all sorts of other bodies — human and non-human, living and dead, biotic and geophysical, across time and space.” [quote from Mary J Weismantel’s book ‘Playing With Things’]
Grappling with the history of sexual trauma that’s part and parcel of the Black experience in Amerikkka is another aspect of my artistic practice. In the above collage, using a friend of mine as a model, I’m contrasting the admiration and appreciation of the Black phallus against this tragic history. The sexual undertones of lynching in Amerikkka are undeniable, though mostly unspoken. And it’s still happening in the modern era. Recall that George Floyd’s murderer knew him from their time working together as nightclub bouncers; Chauvin was aware that Floyd dated white women. The sexual torture that Sam Nordquist was subjected to recalls the worst aspects of the lynching era. Of course, in some ways it’s even worse, which is why it’s insane that his murder is not being treated as a hate crime.
Decolonization is not only about returning stolen land. It is fundamentally about changing and reordering society to reflect something of what existed here before the era of colonization. And what existed here were people who were mostly living in harmony with the environment and each other. Yes, there was conflict; yes, abuse sometimes happened. The difference is that abuse and suffering were not institutionalized the same way they have been by this demented settler colonial society that is not only destroying the planet but ensuring that this rampant abuse and suffering continues. The acknowledgement of the erect clitoris by Moche civilization artists stands in sharp contrast to the practical erasure of this anatomy from the Western art world. The idea that all bodies deserve respect, pleasure and safety is one that is anathema to our patriarchal, profit driven, utilitarian society. What some white queers need to understand is that the answers to our problems are not going to come from their fucked up society and culture. Just look around if you don’t believe me. Indigenous people already had the answers to many of our problems and we need to reclaim and rediscover them.
Lastly, let me say that we should all take Sam Nordquist’s ordeal as a warning that we must get much more serious about solving the festering problems in our society, both inside and outside of the LGBTQ “community”. The narrow minded prudes with their petit bourgeois sensibilities should not be allowed to control and dominate conversations / spaces and deter us from the adult conversations that are long overdue. The stakes are just too high for us to continue denying reality. Reading about Sam Nordquist’s life, how beloved he was, how he enjoyed helping people, the close relationship he had with his family (who accepted him!)…it’s clear that we failed him.
