Spoken Word Poet K Garner is A Post-Gender Girl in a Post-Gender World

By Barrett White

A beauty mark beard dances along K Garner’s chin; the lengthy shadow, an external reminder of the unique balance of masculinity and femininity that resides within the queer spoken word artist. It’s a balance Garner has been exploring since her early adulthood as she sought answers to questions like: What does it mean to be a woman? To be a man? To balance one or the other while weighing the terms “femme” and “butch”?

These questions consumed Garner during her pregnancy. Her body was physically morphing into that of an expectant mother, the embodiment of the feminine, forcing her masculinity to take a backseat. The experience threw her into a wrestling match with her gender identity. “Pregnancy was weird,” Garner explains. “I felt very masculine while pregnant. Everything felt too feminine.”

But with the arrival of her daughter, Garner grew to embrace her femininity without discarding her masculinity, learning to embrace both sides of her gender identity. This self-acceptance led her to adopt the stage moniker “The Bearded Lady.” “I think today I would describe myself as femme,” Garner says. “But that doesn’t mean that one has to be femme in every way. I’m ‘The Bearded Lady.’ I keep my masculinity by keeping my beard. The beard represents a masculine part of my identity, but I’m still femme.”

Garner’s journey with gender also inspired her to explore her passion for different artistic media. Her innate love for writing led her to the University of Houston, where she studied under the university’s renowned creative writing program. She also began attending Write About Now Poetry nights, founded by poet Amir Safi, at Houston’s Avant Garden. The combination of these experiences, Garner says, served as her gateway into performance art. “Predominantly, my work is spoken word and slam poetry,” she says. “I felt voiceless for such a long time. Writing gave me a voice and helped me share my story while also exploring my queerness.”

The topics Garner discusses in her poetry largely stem from her own lived experiences, from her exploration of the gender spectrum, to her Christian upbringing, and encounters with snake oil salesmen in the church. A personal favorite of hers, “This Body,” relays a message of self-love and empowerment in the face of a fat-shaming society—an issue she knows all too well. “I feel like embracing my queerness and writing about queer [and body] positivity has helped me navigate my identity,” Garner says.

On March 29, Garner will perform an original spoken word piece at Spectrum South’s “Vie de Femme” celebration. This performance will be one of her last in Houston for quite some time, as she has been accepted into the Creative Writing Master of Fine Arts program at Minnesota State University and will be moving North come fall.

While her post-Masters plans are hazy, we know one thing for sure: Garner will continue to push the envelope, to explore and deconstruct the gender binary, and to embody what it means to own your identity.

K Garner, aka The Bearded Lady, will be performing at Spectrum South’s “Vie de Femme” celebration, taking place on Thursday, March 29, from 7-10 p.m. at the Sharespace Preston Warehouse. This event is free and open to the public. Voluntary donations will be collected throughout the celebration for the evening’s beneficiary, Save Our Sisters United.

You can follow Garner on Instagram at @thebeardedlady.arts and on Twitter at @artkgarner.