The Body Show: Three Storytellers on How DC Shapes Their Relationship to Their Body
The chant “My body! My choice!” has been ringing out on streets across the country following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, which previously guaranteed a person’s right to have an abortion in the U.S. It’s a straightforward assertion of a right to bodily autonomy — my body, my choice.
Bodily autonomy, though, is no guarantee in the U.S., and not just because of restrictive abortion measures. Look no further than the organizers of last June’s DC Dyke March, which had a theme of “Dykes for Body Liberation.” They considered gun control, anti-displacement policies, and police abolition to be essential components of their platform for body liberation.
The seven stories featured in “The Body Show,” a Capital Fringe Festival storytelling event coming to Georgetown in late July, each raise different considerations for bodily autonomy. In one story, Ronald Young Jr. discusses the challenges of fitting his body into the DC office job “uniform.” Rajesh Mirchandani’s story is about trying to let go of a fear of aging by getting his first tattoo at age 50, while Ilana Nevins will talk about how abandoning her preoccupation with being a “fitness person” helped her begin to recover from an eating disorder.
Producing the show is Mikala Jamison, a local writer and author of a newsletter on body image called Body Type. A storytelling veteran herself, Jamison pitched her concept to Capital Fringe and recruited storytellers from around the DMV. “It’s really important to me to have stories that are about bodily autonomy,” Jamison tells 730DC. “Especially right now, with everything we’re seeing happening with laws that strip people of that.”
Ahead of The Body Show, we asked Jamison and two storytellers about their relationships to their bodies, their city, and the intersection of the two.
Mikala Jamison is a local writer and author of the newsletter Body Type. She is the producer of The Body Show, and lives in Crystal City.
730DC: How has living in Arlington and near DC affected how you understand bodies?
I’ve been in the area since 2016. I grew up in Delaware, in a small suburb, and I had the experience of everyone around me mostly living, and sometimes looking, exactly like me. This show really speaks to something about cities in general, but especially DC, which is that you come here — or you live here, you grow up here — and you’re just around a lot of different people who live differently than you, look differently than you, and experience things differently than you, all the time. And that wasn’t my experience until I moved to a larger city.
One of the more profound things about living here is that there’s so much to do and experience, just in terms of art and entertainment and protests and book talks. You can walk into a little dive bar and see a burlesque show, with people of all different bodies. One of the shows that I loved seeing here was called the DC Weirdo Show. In one show, you would see someone swallow swords. You would see someone doing burlesque, a non-binary person with a beard in a bikini. All of these wonderful, weird things that you would see just because people in this city wanted to put together a random, bizarre, wonderful show. It challenges this idea of DC as this kind of buttoned-up, Capitol Hill only kind of place, when you dive into that kind of arts world.
It’s also a place where you can put yourself out at a march or a protest. I remember always feeling like that was really meaningful to me when I got here, to be able to on almost any day, go out in DC and feel like I was literally using my body to do something meaningful, whether at the March for Our Lives or the Women’s March or whatever. My body is this tool that I have to be here, and then see on the news later, there are literally 400,000 bodies converging. Your body can be that symbol of something important.
730DC: How has being in proximity to such a diversity of bodies impacted your relationship to your own?
The simple fact of being in a place that has so much to do with so many people of all different body types, I think it just invited me to understand my own body a little bit more, and be more comfortable with my own body. Appreciate it, and also other people’s bodies. The sheer fact of being in this District with 700,000 people who love to live differently, all kinds of different lives, it just exposes you to those things if you let it. If you just walk out of the door and move your own body around to different things, different places, you’ll see it. And that’s what I love so much about living near this city.
Ansa Edim is a brand strategist and storyteller. Her Body Show story discusses dating in DC as a fat Black woman, and her decision to have her fallopian tubes surgically removed in anticipation of the overturning of Roe v. Wade. She lives in Anacostia.
730DC: Talk to me about the story you’re telling in The Body Show.
I’m talking about my journey to bodily autonomy and empowerment. I married the first person who asked me out, which is how I start a lot of my stories, because everyone’s like, ‘Oh my God, you married your high school sweetheart!’ And I’m like, no, no, not something to celebrate. That was before I really loved myself.
When I started dating after my divorce, I was super desperate, with low self-esteem. I just went home with anyone who asked, because I was so naive. Finally, I found someone who was meeting the bare minimum. But of course I didn’t realize it was the bare minimum. I was like, ‘Oh my God, this guy asked me on a date?! Oh my God, you have to marry him.’ It took me dating him and saying yes to a proposal from him to come to the conclusion that I could do better. And I can do better.
He wanted kids and I didn’t want kids. That was a huge point of contention. I came to this conclusion that I’ve never wanted children, and nothing’s gonna change that. And I went through all these ups and downs in my body — getting IUDs, getting them taken out, taking Plan B for this guy — only for me to conclude that I don’t ever want to go through this again. My body is suffering because some man wants to marry me. I’m gonna do what I’ve always wanted to do, which is to get my tubes tied and live this full life, man or not.
730DC: What went into your decision to have your fallopian tubes removed?
When [my ex] wanted us to get pregnant, I remember researching, ‘Which hospital is least likely to kill me in childbirth?’ That’s because DC has some of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country, and as a Black woman, it’s especially difficult and dangerous. Editor’s note: Black people disproportionately account for 90% of all pregnancy related deaths in DC.
I just remember thinking, none of my other friends are Googling this. Nobody else is researching, ‘As a fat person, how likely am I to get these complications?’ Having children is something I’ve never wanted to do, but the stark reality of it was that being pregnant and giving birth is dangerous, and something that for me, as a fat Black woman, is not worth it. Body autonomy for me goes beyond taking the birth control I want. It’s literally, I went into surgery to say, ‘I do not want kids. Make it impossible.’
730DC: You’re originally from the area, and your family lives here. How does it make you feel that giving birth is so dangerous in your hometown?
DC is home, and it’s been home for my whole life. My family is here. I’m not a transplant. And so it’s difficult for me to imagine living anywhere else in the country. And so for me to have to be considering that if I want to have a child, I’ve gotta leave the country, or find a better city for my own safety, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that I should have to leave my hometown for my own safety. Why isn’t it safe for everyone? Why do I have to leave my hometown in order to have a healthy pregnancy and birth?
It’s really important to me to stress the maternal mortality situation, and what role that played in my decision to get my fallopian tubes removed. DC is not a safe city for Black women to give birth in. And I know that there’s a lot of work being done to change that, but unfortunately, my hometown is not a safe place for Black women to give birth. And that played a major role in how I think of myself as a potentially birth-giving person. I didn’t want children before, but even if I did, unfortunately, DC wouldn’t be the best place for me to do it. It makes me really sad, because this is home.
Kelly Mack is a communications professional, writer and disability rights activist. Her Body Show story discusses living in DC as someone who uses a wheelchair, and her journey to find accessible taxi cabs. She lives in Cathedral Heights.
730DC: Talk to me about the story you’re telling in The Body Show.
My story focuses on my quest to find a wheelchair accessible cab and to get reliable accessible cab service in DC When I moved here in 1999, there were zero accessible cabs operating in the city. And I think it was a little more than 10 years later that they started a pilot program to operate accessible cabs. It’s been a growing quest for me to be able to have that sort of service, to be able to rely on it. And so I’ve been advocating more proactively in the last couple years to see what can be done about making sure that there are more, or enough, really, accessible cabs operating that can provide service.
My story is a bit about using a wheelchair. It’s about getting around DC The reason why I moved to DC was, at the time, it was one of the more accessible options, and it was getting better. My first 10 or so years here, things got better for me to be able to travel around the city. And then things started to languish and not get better. The cab situation is one example. And so I’m focusing on that story, ’cause there are cities in the world that have all accessible cabs. I know one: London. I spent time in London and I was able to take cabs to get everywhere, because they’re all required to be accessible.
It’s 32 years after the Americans with Disabilities Act. And I personally don’t believe it should be so hard for people who use wheelchairs or have mobility disabilities to be able to get around the city where they live.
730DC: Your story is a very literal example of city — city infrastructure, architecture, and policy — impacting body. Can you talk more about the relationship between the two?
I grew up in a rural town. I love nature, and I loved my little town, but it was a challenge for me to get around in my wheelchair. The ground is uneven and there weren’t sidewalks. There wasn’t, at that time, an awareness or acceptance of, ‘Hey, when we build public structures, we’re going to make them accessible. And we’re going to think about what that means and how to make the best of the building that we’re doing.’
When I came to DC I was really excited, because it felt like there was a bit more awareness. There were more ramps. Generally the front door of a building would be accessible. Not always — generally. It seemed like there was more thought to, ‘Okay, we’re gonna have these sidewalks and we’re gonna have these ramps and we’re gonna have ways for people to easily get around the city.’
But there were exceptions. When I first moved here, I remember going down to Capitol Hill for something. I remember rolling around in my wheelchair, and I was thinking, gosh, there’s all this brick and cobblestone here, and there’s a lot of places where there aren’t ramps. A lot of it was the older historical nature of the area, but I remember having this laugh to myself, that this is the seat of the nation’s capital, and it was in one of the most inaccessible areas of the city I had encountered. I was so struck by that, it seemed poetic. The area around the Capitol is excluding people with disabilities. What does that mean about how we’re thinking about building the world and building the nation?
730DC: What about the people that populate DC? How has the community here impacted your relationship to your body, and to your disability?
DC was and remains a draw for people with various disabilities because of the accessibility, but also because of the passion for causes that people with disabilities have. People are doing advocacy work, things like that. Coming from a rural place, it was just amazing for me to be in a place where there were so many different people with various backgrounds and disabilities. I continue to really appreciate that and try to learn from all the different perspectives, because my focus is very much on wheelchair accessibility, but there’s a lot of other kinds of accessibility that are really necessary.
Different cities have different cultures, and different levels of comfort and acceptance of different bodies, including disabled bodies. Generally, I have found DC to be pretty accepting. I’m used to people staring at me, sometimes in good ways, sometimes in bad ways. But I don’t feel that way in DC the way I have in other places. And I think probably it’s because there’s more people with disabilities just out and about in the community. That is a very important aspect of accessibility in the community: if it’s not accessible, people with various disabilities can’t be there. And they’re not there, and you’re not exposed, you’re not gonna have a comfort level.
The Body Show runs four times — Saturday, July 16 at 9:30 p.m.; Sunday, July 17 at 6:15 p.m.; Saturday, July 23 at 7 p.m.; and Sunday, July 24 at noon — at 3270 M St. NW. Tickets are $15.
