I'm just getting a lot more
protective of my identity and giving myself a lot of grace of
like figuring out what queer is to me and kind of all of that.
And it all just ties into my blackness as well.
It's like the more I learn about queer history, queer history is
Black history.
I'm Joy,
Joy Guidry.
And I play bassoon and I write ambient music
like jazz influences and I’m currently working on my Ph.D..
I'm from Houston, Houston, Texas, and I grew up Catholic.
Catholicism is really huge in Louisiana with Creole people and my family's Creole.
So with that comes church bazaars, which has a lot of zydeco.
So that was, like, my first instances with music.
But, yeah, it kind of stuck with me
and just going along the years with like loving gospel and R&B
and also, like, really learning to love jazz and classical music.
Yeah, it just became, like, a really huge part of my life.
My bassoon, Cecilia, is 100.
It was made in Germany in 1924,
and I play a Heckel bassoon, which is arguably the best.
What makes them so unique,
it's kind
of made to be a bit more out of tune, which causes really beautiful overtones
and different harmonics, and this really deep tone
that, like, it's difficult to get on other types of bassoons.
They're completely handmade and it's such beautiful craftsmanship.
A brand new Heckle is average around 60 to $70,000 right now.
I do not have that.
And it was very common through people I met in conservatory
at summer music program.
A lot of people that play bassoon are white
because you need so much wealth to do it.
There is just this huge wealth disparity
in classical music that makes it so hard to have an even playing field
because these instruments are so inaccessible.
And that's the problem with really saying, like, heckle is the best because
everyone cannot afford that.
My identity as a queer person,
as a trans femme person and non-binary person it’s constantly confusing.
I feel like you do kind of have to fit in this box of gay or straight trans or cis.
There's like not a ton of room for in between, but
the more I find community and people that look like me, that have
my same values in life, the more validated I feel in my identity
because with starting estrogen and everything.
I would never identify as a trans woman.
It's just not who I am.
But I do feel very femme in that way.
So I learned about, like, yeah, you can be a non-binary femme.
And I was like, ‘Oh, my God.’ I've learned to love really every aspect of my body
even if other people don't.
And part of that was tough love.
I don't put myself in spaces where my body is not appreciated.
I live in kind of a conservative environment at the moment,
so it's like, okay, like, do I femme it up here?
Okay, maybe not.
And that's also valid. Like, protecting yourself is valid.
It's just the constant grace that goes on of letting myself slide across
what I'm going to do that day, how I'm going to dress,
how I'm going to present myself and knowing
still at the end of the day, I'm still trans, no matter kind of what I look like or how
people perceive me.
Radical acceptance to
me is, like, accepting everything that I cannot change in the world.
Things that happened in my past with family or friends.
Like I can't really fix someone.
I can't make someone want to apologize
or make someone want to accept my apology.
For a while, like,
I was not talking to my family and they also were not talking to me.
So my community is so important to me because I needed to find a family.
I learned about chosen family in undergrad and going to conservatory
I found so many other people that kind of move so far
away from home to get away from all of that.
I’ll tell people, like, I don't really have best friend.
I just have like more cousins in my life.
I'm in a really
beautiful place in life where I am actually just super happy.
I still experience so many depressive episodes.
I cry all the time,
but at my core I am really, really happy and really, really grateful.
And with my dissertation, I'm talking about healing as Black.
What does that mean? What does rest actually look like for us?
Because as soon as you go outside, you could be hit with racism and then, like,
we are no longer resting.
And I feel like I am on edge all the time with where I live
and for many different reasons, but mostly because of my skin color.
And it really sucks.
So I'm really learning to just really relax when I can.
And I really found that relaxation in ambient music.
It's like I'm marrying myself right now through this project and the title, ‘Amen,’
I say it all the time. I’m very much in my auntie era, you know.
If anyone says anything,
I'm like, ‘Amen.’ It's a vibe.
I'm just really pumped for a new part of me to be out there.
Self-awareness.
Equality.
Freedom.
Joy.
Pride means resilience.
Pride is hope.
Pride means loving who you wanna love and being yourself.
Pride is our moment to shine.
It's honesty and vulnerability.
A moment where we can really see solidarity around this.
Seeing yourself when no one else sees you.
Being super grateful for who you are.
So much art,
so much love comes outta the community.
Keep that love in your heart.