genderbread, a recipe

1. in a bowl, add 150 grams of active curiosity (make sure it’s nice and bubbly) to 350 grams of room temperature questions, and mix.

2. add this mixture to 500 grams of your disintegrating selfhood and 10 grams of dismantling binaries, and mix with the feeling of wearing overalls for the first time.

3. at this stage, your gender will be a sticky, shaggy mess. allow it to hydrate for 30 minutes – or 30 days, or 30 months.

4. use the “stretch and fold” method. each time you’ll notice the dough become easier to stretch, your gender become more elastic.

5. total fermentation time could take anywhere from 3 months to 8 years.

6. shape the dough – experiment with language to knead into the blurred edges of your emerging selfhood.

7. let your gender proof for between 1 and 4 identity crises, until it passes the poke test.

8. bake your genderbread at 250 ͦ  until it makes peace with sitting in uncertainty.

9. remove your loaf from the oven and leave it to cool. resist the urge to slice it early – your selfhood doesn’t need to be cut into more digestible chunks.

10. enjoy your genderbread, and repeat.

About the author

​Gabi Cadenhead is a poet and composer living on unceded Gadigal and Wangal land. Their creative practice is one of intersections – between story and sound; between performance and protest; between embodiment, queerness and the sacred. Gabi is a winner of the Bread and Butter Poetry Slam, a previous participant in Express Media’s Toolkits: Poetry program and part of the artist collective at Annandale Creative Arts Centre. They want you to know that your body is good. www.gabicadenhead.com.au

Photo by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash.