MK: Hello and welcome to the Child and its Enemies of podcast about queer and neurodivergent kids living out anarchy and youth liberation. Here at The Child and Its Enemies, we believe that youth autonomy is not only crucial to queer and trans liberation, but to anarchy itself. Governance is inherently based on projecting linear narratives of time and development and gender onto our necessarily asynchronous and atemporal queer bodies.
And youth and teens are at the center of this form of oppression. Our goal with the podcast is to create a space by and for youth that challenges all forms of control and inspires us to create queer, feral, ageless networks of care. I’m your host, M. K. Zariel, I’m 15 years old, and I’m the youth correspondent at The Anarchist Review of Books, author of the blog Debate Me, Bro, and organizer of some all ages queer spaces in my city and online.
I’ve organized with Anarchist Archives, all ages Punk venues, feminist mutual aid collectives, zine distros, neurodivergent art spaces, trans media projects, teenage anarchist support groups, the occasional political campaign, and oh so many trans meetups. With me today is Jenny Baskin, abolitionist artist and founder of Communication Madison.
Jennie: Hi, thanks for having me. My pronouns are she, her. I have organized formally and informally with other artists and artist groups, such as Equity for Artists, as well as under the umbrella of communication. I have generally stayed away from organizing in any formal way with any political parties. I don’t feel any of them fully represent me.
In my art practice and my parenting, I believe in centering the most vulnerable and sharing power to achieve equity and connection. I am a mom to a five year old.
MK: So you founded the All Ages Sober Punk Venue Local Artspace Communication in Madison, Wisconsin, right? Yes,
Jennie: I co founded Communication in spring of 2018 with three other people, two were musicians and one an artist and vintage seller and then me.
MK: Oh, I love that so much the idea that art and radical spaces and youth liberation can intersect with one another that is That has been the theme on this podcast But I believe you’re the first person i’ve chatted with who’s not only made that a part of their anarchism But centered it in this way So yeah, super cool.
What led you to make this an all ages space? Were you into art and punk music or vintage stuff or other stuff like that as a kid in teen?
Jennie: I was fortunate to attend Milwaukee High School of the Arts in the 1990s, which was an incredible place to learn at that time. It was before arts funding, as well as educational funding, was gutted in Wisconsin during the Scott Walker years.
I told my parents I wanted to be an artist when I was about three years old. Three years old, and that really hasn’t changed. I got a camera when I was 12 and it’s still my primary mode of making. I was interested in zines and Riot Grrrl culture, trading mixtapes, thrifting, and dressing kind of the opposite way of most of the cool teens at my school.
MK: Oh, Riot Grrrl means the world to me too, especially as a queer liberationist movement and like the idea that feminism can be about gender liberation rather than, and yeah, this idea that we can find a creative practice and thus get radicalized when we’re teens and even know who we are when we’re three is so powerful, like that kind of reminds me of people’s coming out experiences at really young ages and how even though a lot of society might not believe us, that’s still something that sticks with us our whole life.
So how do you think that whole genre and subculture of being punk and riot girl and the like if it affected your views on youth liberation?
Jennie: First, I just want to say I’ve been like shaking my head up and down. Yes, to everything you’re saying. I don’t think I understood myself as being a part of a liberation movement in my youth, since that wasn’t really a conversation I was allowed to have in my home or that was, just even open space, there was an open space for it.
But having exposure to zines and subcultures at a young age, as well as attending integrated schools and learning how difference can be challenging and positive, set me up to be very receptive to youth liberation once I spied it. It felt really obvious to me that young people should have power and freedom.
MK: Did you have access to all ages and queer inclusive spaces for your interests in art and music, or were you even aware of other teenagers who were involved in that stuff?
Jennie: I didn’t actually have access to spaces like that often since I lived in the rural suburbs and was bused into the city for school, but I knew about a lot of spaces where friends of mine went to see music and hang out.
I didn’t know about a lot of spaces that were sober, though. And that is honestly why I didn’t try harder to go. I’ve never liked feeling like something weird could happen and I might not feel safe. I really like having control for my surroundings. Raves weren’t my thing because of all the drugs and house shows had too much sexual harassment.
I was very fastidious about being in control of my surroundings.
MK: Yeah, being a teenager isolated from urban centers can make organizing a challenge, especially because, as you say, the organizing scene can be very adult, often in ways that are even harmful to those with adult privilege, like the amount of disrespect for consent around embodiment, the amount of substance use that may be lax in effective harm reduction.
How would you say you coped with that HSM that is really harmful to the whole public? and movement. And how do you think today’s online organizing might change that?
Jennie: That’s such a good question. I had a lot of friends who had cars, and they were kind enough to give me rides and spend time together, which helped a bit.
I also made a lot of art by myself at home, and I read all the time. I wish I had been able to connect more about why I was making art to help myself feel less alone, but I also think the internet could have been a really challenging place for me at that age. Because it still is now. I also spent more time with nature as a young person, which is a different kind of sense of community.
I think there’s a lot more accessibility in how teens can connect with each other online. And if they’re in the right discord channel or forum, it probably helps them, many of them feel less alone. I’m so glad now teens can choose to learn so much from the internet about queer history, subcultures, art, all of the things that can be hard to find in smaller towns or isolated settings.
MK: You are so right about how it really depends on what scene you’re part of. Honestly, just joining the anarchist movement for the first time and not knowing where to organize, it’s really the luck of the draw with the people. And I’ve known teenagers who have come out, or transitioned, or unmasked, or even gotten radicalized towards anarchy because of supportive online communities.
But I’ve also known so many who have faced cyberbullying and hate and been called slurs, and you’re so right about the need for a more supportive online culture rather than simply more accessible online spaces. So what sorts of differences in use and pattern and meaning generation do you find between adults and younger people when in the online organizing space I feel many more adults fall.
Pray to misinformation that goes around, whereas teens can sometimes have a better sense of media literacy. Can you speak on this?
Jennie: Absolutely. I think many adults trust their governments to make good choices for them, and young people haven’t been indoctrinated into that belief, so they’re more easily able to resist falling under the spell of fear of the other, and can see the patterns of misinformation as they spread.
It also seems to me that there is more likelihood of neurodivergent youth and neurodivergent adults, such as myself, being able to see through the veil of mainstream media and status quo BS, because they literally have stronger pattern recognition.
MK: Exactly. I would say neurodivergence is almost inherently anarchist in this way.
We’re literally wired to be outside of the box and to value what is meaningful over what is socially normative. There is a reason that anarchist spaces are so neurodivergent positive, not just because of an ethic of broader inclusion and support, but because neurodiversity makes us almost neurologically anarchist.
That’s quite literally how I’ve explained my neurodivergence to people before. For our listeners, can you tell me more about communication? What kind of a venue is it?
Jennie: Communication is a volunteer run, non profit, sober, all ages arts and music venue. We have a shop selling the work of around 100 local artists, a stage for local music and other events, a membership based Resigraph print collective, arts program that includes workshops, exhibitions, and extensive partnerships throughout our community.
We’re a safer space and have what we call an ethical booking policy for our performances. It’s a mouthful. There’s a lot.
MK: Can you tell me more about this ethical booking policy? That sounds like such an important way to keep the space safe for people of all ages.
Jennie: We developed the ethical booking policy as a confidential process for community members to bring things to our attention, as well as a way to assure that there’s a safe process for the accused person to have space to share their experience.
We rely on transformative justice tools and facilitation to lead this process. We haven’t had to use it much in the past few years, but it was used several times Two years, we were open which was, they were both very challenging or the multiple experiences were pretty challenging ones to deal with.
But they were really productive and we did come out with positive resolution.
MK: I love that. I definitely see transformative justice as an inherently youth liberationist practice because the alternative punishment is so baked into compulsory education and the nuclear family. And often folks who are perpetuating that are doing so out of age drama, really, and so many adults complain, oh, I’m being treated like an elementary schooler in this space when they’re being held accountable.
But what if we created a transformative justice process that was actually inclusive to people of all ages and, didn’t involve ageism and didn’t parrot things that people had experienced in their childhoods in harmful ways? So on that note, besides the transformative justice, what makes communication such an inclusive space for kids and teens?
Jennie: We want young people to have power in the space being in all ages. Safer space was a core piece of our founding mission as is lifting up any marginalized individual. It’s so common that children and young people in general are not given agency or put in positions where they can have control over their lives or surroundings.
Children truly are an oppressed group.
Communication. Yes. Yeah, , that communication we put as many structures in place as possible to assure that young people are truly safe and contribute as much as any adult to performing arts programming and volunteering. We also encourage teens to sell artwork in our shop. And I have to also say that, most teens, when we say, you can do X in this space, it takes us saying that many times before some young people will actually feel confident doing it, because I think they don’t trust adults, and I really don’t blame them.
MK: That is so real. As teenagers, we’re absolutely socialized to need to ask permission for everything I personally am one of the founders of this Teenage Anarchist Collective, and we have a group chat, and so often I need to remind people that they can post in the group chat without needing to ask permission, and even things as small as that, that in an adult anarchist space, of course you can post in the group chat, that’s not a concern.
But as teenagers, our whole lives are about asking permission to do various things at school and asking our parents, can we do X, Y, and Z? So And as soon as we’re in a space where we can really self determine and self liberate, then that can feel weird and take some type of adjustment and almost, And almost emotionally realizing that’s possible means having to contend with the oppression that we’re facing elsewhere instead of dismissing it as normal or just our age.
Thank you so much for bringing this up. And so what have your experiences with this venue taught you about youth liberation? And more broadly, what would you say that youth liberation means to you?
Jennie: Youth liberation means believing young people when they say what they need and giving it to them whenever possible.
It means that my needs aren’t the only needs I’m thinking about as a parent, and that I don’t always know better than my child what she needs or what is good for her. It means I listen more than I tell, which is hard. And that I have a It also means that I have had to fully reframe my idea of what school, life goals, and any social norms might look like for her and any other child I love and support.
It also means that I support all children in my community. And around the world, especially those more vulnerable than my own. And I teach her how to use her privilege to do the same.
MK: That is such an important point. Parenting can be a huge part of adult accomplishment to youth and teens, not in the hierarchical enforcing of a linear development sense, but just almost as a form of unconditional mutual aid that can be provided to any young person who needs it.
I really appreciate that point of view and the idea that liberatory parenting is a lot about. dismantling any idea of a life path that might have been imposed in the past. So what do you think that liberatory parenting can or should look like on a larger scale?
Jennie: I have thought about this a lot In the past five years since my child was born, I think some parts of liberatory parenting might look small on the outside, like never forcing or bargaining with my child to eat things she doesn’t want to, because I know that can lead to troubling relationships to food and not trusting her own body and mind.
From the outside to many parents, it looks like a small and silly choice, but it feels really important to me that sort of agency over the body. Something bigger that it could look like is giving a child agency in how they spend their time. Is school a priority? Is achievement? Do they have to go to any school?
Kind of traditional school or defer to adults in educational settings. These are questions I’m asking myself regularly, especially as my child’s going into kindergarten in the fall, and I want her to have a part in answering them. And more broadly, it should look like centering the needs, wants and safety of the child rather than the parents and their comfort.
MK: That idea of personal agency and even bodily autonomy in a society that erases that for kids and teens is so important, and I think that’s. Kind of foundational to anarchism as a whole, like that governance of the body that a lot of us face when we’re five years old is also something we face when we’re 15 and get denied gender affirming care or our whole lives in a transphobic society.
So on that note, what would you say your relationship to anarchy is as someone who does queer liberationist and youth liberationist organizing?
Jennie: No, I haven’t Had a strong relationship to anarchy or any organized movement but I’ve discovered over the past 10 years that my values align much more with anarchy than with any other social or political movement.
I think I was taught to align myself with, liberals or progressives. And as I got older the more I connected with my own body and my own community and my own mind and heart I realize anarchy is not a bad word, it’s not a bad word, and the more I think about the place I want to live and how I want my community to be cared for, I’m actually into it.
MK: I love that so much for you, and it’s incredibly valid to not use the label of anarchy because of stigma or any other reason. Like I know so many teenage anarchists who would never use that label sometimes because it’s not safe to at home Sometimes because they feel erased as trans people, whatever it is And at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what labels people use so long as they’re Dismantling all forms of control and creating those queer networks of care that are so vitally important So what advice would you have for youth and teens who want to create art and music or get into their local art scene?
Or what would have been useful for you when you were younger?
Jennie: You know, I thought about this a lot and as an undiagnosed autistic teen, I had a couple of opportunities to have an artist mentor, but I was really too scared and intimidated to actually follow through with it. And I didn’t understand how to make things happen or what kind of Social process it took to achieve closeness in more arts activities.
Now, with the perspective of time, I would encourage teens to number one, trust themselves, their intuition about what adults and spaces are safe to be around and help them reach their goals because not everyone is. Two, don’t be intimidated by achievement. You aren’t any less than anyone, no matter what their age or pedigree.
Going to art school is not any more impressive than making art in your bedroom. I can tell you in, there are many days where I wish I had not gone to art school because those loans are still following me around. I don’t, I didn’t need the education. The schools need you to pay for it. For them, for their bills.
Three, find your people online or in person. If there isn’t a space like communication in your town, there will likely be one online. Now there’s so many more networks you can tap into there.
MK: And actually the child and its enemies has a discord and civil community for teens who want to learn about anarchism and youth liberation and trans stuff and neurodivergence.
So yeah, the child and its enemies dot no blogs dot org. Join us on the internet.
Jennie: That makes me so happy. I should share it on my Instagram and website. Oh, that would be amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Number four, don’t subscribe to scarcity mindset. This divides artists and performers and keeps them begging for scraps rather than building coalitions to demand more from the structures that disperse opportunities and compensation.
This is such a huge issue at every age, at every stage of career. And we can’t be divided. This is why coalition building doesn’t work. And then finally. If there’s an adult that you think that has good ideas or makes interesting art or music, reach out to them. See if they have time for mentorship or support.
You might be surprised what they have time for. I have been so excited when people have asked me to either be supportive of them in some way, a mentor, Or just share their work with them, share my work and share, my ideas and reflections on their own work.
MK: I was actually having a great conversation with someone in the organizing space lately about how mentorship is actually a really youth liberationist practice because it means that youth can understand what it is to have relating with adults that is not about hierarchical parenting and is consensual and is basically a friendship just with some element of mutual aid, which really all relationships of care should.
So it isn’t just something that can help teens get better at art. If that’s what you want to do, it’s a way to prefigure what adult solidarity can look like. And I love that. And I love that. That’s something that you want to do for teenagers. Are there any last comments or things you want to cover that we didn’t get to today?
Jennie: Honestly, I’m just so glad that young people are having these conversations and not simply accepting that the world and their lives have to be the way that those in charge say they have to. I think we can see politically right now how much young people are trying to take control and it makes me so happy.
And thank you so much for including me in this conversation.
MK: Yeah thank you so much for being down to talk about communication and queer art and youth liberation and all that good stuff. If people want to get involved with communication or learn about your art or any of that do you have any shameless plugs?
Jennie: Always. For communication, you can go to our website, which is communicationmadison. com. The Instagram account, if you’re on there, is Communication Madison. And we are also on Facebook, if you are into that. For myself, I have a solo exhibition 2025 at Arts and Literature Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin.
And that’s a wonderful gallery and community space. You can see my artwork. at jenniferbastian. com j e n i f e r b a s t i a n. com. And on Instagram, I am at jennie3e, j e n i e t e 3 e s. I will also have an artist residency this fall that will be two years long at the Thurber Park Artist Residency in Madison.
MK: So cool, thank you so much for sharing your youth liberationist journey. I’m MK Zariel, this is Jennie Bastian, and you’re listening to The Child And it’s enemies.