I managed to hit send a full day early. The most nerve-wracking project I’ve ever worked on is finally submitted, ready for peer review. That’s it. It’s done. Now I await judgement on my first ever journal article submission.
I don’t know if it’s a common feeling, I haven’t asked anyone yet, but it felt momentous. My first piece outside my undergraduate or postgraduate study, one which directly builds my career. It’s like taking my first steps as a proper adult with a proper career. Can I call myself a professional writer yet? I know anxiety around putting oneself out into the word is common, you yourself reading this have likely had similar experiences. Those moments where you know – or worry – that you’ve put too much of yourself into something. Worrying if you’ll even be able to handle the feedback, let alone any sort of rejection. I know that’s where my mind goes, and let me tell you, there was a lot of myself in that piece.
I am a humanities researcher primarily, I like to focus on media, specifically television shows like Star Trek, as well as sociopolitical movements and theories that affect me and those I care about. This means the paper I’ve just submitted, the one that contains far to much of myself, is an analysis of a Star Trek story arc through the lens of my own transfeminine journey. To add further vulnerability, it’s in large part an autoethnographic work. This means I drew from my own experience, memories, trauma, and joy to help me tell the story of the research.
Writing content like this, that shares my experiences and vulnerabilities, I fear how the world will react. Being a transgender woman in 2025 comes with a whole lot of social complications, almost exclusively on the internet. To be open in unfiltered spaces can be an invitation for online harassment and bigotry at best. At worst, well, we try to not dwell on that. I’ve done an okay job of keeping out of the social media drama over the last few months, no doubt my analog-focused lifestyle is helping that some, but recently I’ve begun to dip my toe back into those waters. It’s generally impossible to be completely isolated from the world, from history, and if writing about the self in any form. It’s definitely impossible to write without showing how the world touches us. I know that times are strange at the moment, for everyone across every demographic, and it’s easy to want to shrink in, to filter ourselves, to restrict what we talk about and how we talk about it. I think though, I’m starting to come out of the other side of those feelings.
I was reading through Nana Visitor’s Open a Channel (2024) recently, for the aforementioned journal article, and I took this quote away;
“When women’s emotions are ‘too much,’stories turn them into monsters … that are feared and need to be controlled.” (194)
I think it’s important that we, and I’m speaking here as simply a woman on the internet, stop controlling our own emotions for fear of being labelled monstrous. If others fear and wish to control us, let them try, but we shouldn’t be doing that work for them. Being someone’s monster simply because we exist, because we feel, well that should be a point of pride – that’s where I stand at least. If transition has taught me anything, its that being one hundred percent, unapologetically yourself. Screw whatever anyone else thinks. It’s an incredibly powerful act of self-care and courage. We can be monstrous on our terms.
I got to the point of ranting there I think, which isn’t a great look for the first of these weekly columns, but hey. At least you get to know who I am from the get go. I want to take time here to reflect on the world, to take where I am in life, and share. I think no matter how you came to find this column, you could use a bit of self-ascribed monstrosity
Works Cited
Visitor, Nana. Open a Channel: The Women of Star Trek. Insight Editions, 2024.
It’s at this point I’d like to properly introduce myself for those new. Hi, I’m Moria – or Moxxie in some spaces – and I am a 32-year-old postgraduate student trying desperately to become a writer in these dark, post-AI times. I am a chronic migraine sufferer, ADHD goober, and fantasy fiend. I write this column, Academic Panic, for two main reason. The first is to practice my skills, branch out in my writing styles, and simply build a habit. I could – and do – write fiction, nonfiction, essays, and the like, but it’s nice to play with other forms of writing. Being a kid of the late 90s and early 2000s, every sitcom character seemed to be a columnist, so I thought I’d try my hand. Of course, the second reason is to build community. I’ve lost friends and connections through becoming myself, and some have been gained, but I want what everyone wants I think, to cultivate a circle of wonderful folks in which we all share the cool shit we like and are working on.
I’m reading Magica Riot Full Bloom by Kara Buchanan, and The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon right now. Keep up-to-date on my StoryGraph.
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