JFK: By this point I’m a bit of a movement nomad, I’m just moving where I’m needed, because staying in one movement would be like you being locked into a museum and just being the [only] person there.
KD: Literally. It’s a very good metaphor. We were supposed to come together to talk about peace, and I think that the thing I’ve learned the most from the disability justice movement is that there is no such thing: peace means something different to every person in the room. If we can’t identify a terrain for all of those ‘peaces’ to coexist, there will be nothing. We will have nothing left. So many of these things boil down to issues that are affecting marginalised communities and when they speak up, it’s a ruckus. It’s a cacophony; it’s a bacchanal; everybody’s getting wasted on possibility.
JFK: I think [that] I hope, I believe, because I don’t have a choice. I don’t want to do anything else with my life other than working towards changing this thing. So much of what people understand with this work is the struggles. They don’t see the joys, the beauties. There’s something deeper that it gives us back: a kind of love or a liberation.
KD: We are running low on time, so I want to close here, but thank you so much for your time. This conversation needed to happen.
JFK: I’m really grateful too. We’re two queerdos in the world, figuring it out.
KD: Can I ask you before we go, were you uncool as a kid?
JFK: Oh, yes, wildly.
KD: People are always like, ‘Were you so cool forever?’ and I’m like, ‘Hahaha. I’m sorry, I was bullied, so I don’t know what you’re projecting.’ But, you know, revenge of the nerds.
JFK: Yeah! It is kind of like revenge.
The Summer 2021 issue of GQ Style is out on newsstands and via the GQ Style app on Thursday 13 May.
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