Interview of Stella Dance

Stella Dance is an educator, tarot-card reader, and professional dungeon monitor who currently works at the recently unionized Babeland sex toy boutique in New York City. In this interview they describe their experience dealing with bullying, physical disability, and mental illness while growing up in a working-class family around Park Slope in Brooklyn, and later attending college in the south. Their experience spans such topics as physical disability, schizophrenia, hospitalization, the play party scene in New York, relationships, economic and class struggles, and finding a community of support while grappling with a continually fluctuating gender identity.

Date of Interview:

March 29, 2017

Location of Interview:

NYU Department of Sociology, New York

Place of birth:

West Village, New York

Pronouns:

They/them

Interviewed by

Michelle Esther O'Brien

Summary by

Boyda Johnstone