REMEMBERING DR. BRIANNE WAYCHOFF

It is with a heavy heart that I write to share that my dear friend and colleague, Dr. Brianne Waychoff, passed away from 9/11-related kidney cancer on Monday, July 25, 2022. She was forty-three. Dr. Waychoff was a brilliant professor, colleague, scholar, artist, performer, and activist, an interdisciplinary powerhouse, and all-around incredible changemaker in the world.

Dr. Brianne Waychoff was associate professor of communication and the co-coordinator of Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies at the Borough of Manhattan Community College of the City University of New York (BMCC). Her BA was in theatre and her MA was in women’s and gender studies from the University of Northern Iowa. She earned a PhD in communication studies with an emphasis in performance studies and minor in women’s and gender studies from Louisiana State University. Dr. Waychoff published in a range of scholarly journals, including Text and Performance Quarterly, The Journal of Pacific Affairs, and Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies. They were coeditor of Women’s Studies Quarterly, published by the Feminist Press. She also was chair of the Community College Caucus of the National Women’s Studies Association, chair of the nominating committee for the Performance Studies Division of the National Communication Association, and a member of the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender. They served on the editorial boards of Text and Performance Quarterly, Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, and Women and Language. Her research interests were women’s studies, speech, social justice issues, queer theory, performance studies, media studies, gender studies, gender and sexuality studies, feminist theory, disability studies, cultural diversity, and communication studies. Dr. Waychoff also cocreate the Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies program and major at BMCC, where they taught Introduction to Gender and Women’s Studies, Gender and Communication, Gender and Women’s Studies Capstone, Fundamentals of Public Speaking, Oral Interpretation, and Mass Media, among other courses. She presented performance work at professional venues and festivals throughout the United States, was invited guest artist at several institutions in the US and abroad, and won grants and other awards for her scholarly and creative work. Dr. Waychoff’s commitment to gender justice was acknowledged nationally when she was invited by the White House to participate in the United State of Women Summit in 2016, celebrating the accomplishments of women and girls and making plans for the future.

Besides Dr. Waychoff’s impressive professional work, they were a kind, compassionate, empathetic, and deeply loving person. I met her at the panel I organized to bring Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies chairs, directors, and coordinators together across the CUNY campuses to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the WGSS program at Kingsborough Community College in 2019. She was a vibrant part of the panel, along with Dr. Antonio (Jay) Pastrana, Prof. Jen Gaboury, Dr. Mobina Hashmi, Dr. JV Fuqua, Dr. Laura Westengard, Dr. Jerilyn Fisher, Dr. Allia Abdullah-Matta, Dr. Jacqueline Jones, and me. Even that day, Brianne offered to help blow up balloons with the students and me to set up. I met them again the next semester over juice and dressed down in T-shirts and overalls with Dr. Martens and tattoos out in order to discuss building a pipeline for WGSS students from the AA to MA level with the hope of a PhD in the future. The following semester they were one of four CUNY faculty, along with Dr. Paisley Currah, Dr. Yaari Felber-Seligman, and me, to testify at the City Council’s hearing on trans and nonbinary rights and funding for students and faculty at CUNY. Doing this work together, we decided we wanted to keep doing feminist and LGBTQ scholarship together. We applied to be the next editors of WSQ. When Brianne and I started working for WSQ in September 2020, my beloved mother died unexpectedly from a heart attack, just three weeks into my tenure. I will never forget how Brianne gave me permission to take off time, to go slower, to grieve. They just got it. I also will never forget how they offered to come to my mother’s graveside service upstate to be by my side, along with my close friends, family, and wife, and allow me to pay respects to my mother. She would text me to check in and send me pictures of her French feminist theorist cats Luce and Jules when I was deep in grief from losing my mom, then uncle, and then dog all within a year. Their kindness and empathy just helped everything. While we had not known each other that long, we talked very regularly for the journal, as well as about our lives, and she showed up so hard for the journal, students, faculty, and me. It pulled me back up. I gave back to them when they were down—when their parents’ house was destroyed, when their grandmother died, when they were diagnosed with cancer after driving cross-country to help a mutual friend Dr. JV Fuqua move, and when they were in and out of the hospital. My hand was out ready and steady to pull them up, too. I sent them gifts, picked up their work, encouraged them to rest, checked in over calls, texts, memes, and animal pictures, and sent them a stuffed animal cat when no flowers and no visitors were allowed due to COVID. It was our critical friendship and language of care. I really wish I could have done more for them. I really wish life were not so unfair to such a generous, thoughtful, and sweet person. However, while I am very sad she passed far too young, I am relieved she is at peace, not in pain. I will always remember the down-to-earth conversations we had about liking to mow the lawn, rest as resistance, weird feminist art shares, cats on doors and in strange places, riot grrrl faves, the costumes they made for their sibling, and dancing into work meetings with “Staying Alive” in our heads.

Dr. Waychoff opened doors for CUNY students and faculty to do feminist, LGBTQIA+, and social justice work. I am honored I could work with them over the past two years to coedit WSQ. Even during a pandemic and with advanced cancer, Brianne was an intellectual rock star. She worked so hard and with so much love for the sake of feminist scholarship, even when she was so sick and doing Zoom meetings at Sloan Kettering. I will always remember their vision for a better world, commitment to creativity and art, their encouragement of community college students and faculty, remarkable diligence and devotion to scholarship and the field of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and practice of diversity, inclusion, and equity. It is unfortunate that WGSS graduate students at the Graduate Center will not be able to take Feminist Texts and Theories with Dr. Waychoff, but Dr. Dána-Ain Davis and Dr. JV Fuqua will keep them alive in spirit at the Graduate Center this year. We will be doing several tributes for them, including in the Nonbinary issue we were supposed to edit together with Dr. JV Fuqua and Dr. Marquis Bey.

Though I knew Brianne only for a short time at WSQ, I feel the loss for the WSQ and CUNY community. As an incoming graduate student with no experience in publishing, I at times felt like a burden at the journal. I know Brianne will remain one of the best “bosses” that I’ve ever had for never making me feel that way. You could tell that Brianne was an educator at heart. They were so patient, and always willing to get on a phone or Zoom call if I needed help. I felt guided and protected by Brianne in our work environment which I think is so rare. My heart goes out to all of Dr. Waychoff’s loved ones, including family, partner Dr. Ben Powell, friends, colleagues, and students. Rest in Power, Breezo, with much, much love, respect, and gratitude!

—Red Washburn

Tributes

I am positive Brianne touched many people’s lives in far greater ways, as an artist, performer, teacher, and family member. I remember when she showed us this amazing Halloween costume she made for her nephew. Thank you, Brianne, for being such a positive light. You leave behind a great legacy that will not be forgotten. —Amy Iafrate

Brianne was an amazing light for everyone they touched. I am so grateful to have known them. They left a mark on the world, and everyone they knew. Thank you for existing, and thank you for being an example to me. —Ivy Bryan

Brianne was a beautifully positive light of energy that brought joy and ease to working with them. They were a kind and supportive mentor, and my time at WSQ was made all that better through having them as coeditor. They brought love and light to all of those who had the chance to have them in their lives, regardless of how short or long the time was. They will be so missed by me, and their entire community. —Alex Stamson

Brianne was a brilliant, passionate, and deeply kind person. In the brief time I was lucky enough to know them, I was inspired by the excitement and commitment they brought to their work at WSQ and to the broader project of feminist scholarship and activism. They showed up for this cause, even under trying circumstances. Their influence on WSQ will be long-lasting. Despite ongoing health struggles, Brianne was extraordinarily generous with their time and energy, with me and with the many others she mentored or collaborated with. They were patient and supportive, they often sent words of encouragement during stressful or trying moments. I can only imagine what a joy it would have been to have them as a professor, and my heart goes out to their students, past and present. WSQ has lost a brilliant coeditor and CUNY has lost a remarkable scholar, artist, activist and educator. They are missed. —Googie Karrass

Brianne had a smart heart or a loving mind, I’m not sure which, but in the brief and deep time I shared with them they integrated intellectual integrity and community care with rare skill. Brianne brought creativity, rigor, kindness, ferocity, and care into our shared institutional spaces. In doing so, they changed those spaces, they supercharged them with a kind of transformative presence and intentionality. Perhaps it was their theater and performance background, but they knew how to bring their whole being into the room or to the task at hand. It’s hard to describe. Here is someone, I thought to myself the first time I met with Drs. Waychoff and Red Washburn about their collaborative efforts to create a sustainable home for WSQ at CUNY, here are two people, actually, who I want to learn with and lean on as we plan and agitate for progressive, feminist institutional change. We hoped CUNY, the people’s university, a deeply pluralistic university full of possibilities, would integrate WSQ more holistically into its mission, nurturing future generations of just-now emerging feminists by honoring the generations of radical feminist forbears who preceded us: writers, educators, and publishers who transformed CUNY from within—from Audre Lorde to Mina Shaughnessy to June Jordan to Florence Howe. We drew power and sought guidance from their legacy. Now Brianne is among them, their powerful legacies entwined.

Brianne made other ways of being and modes of working possible through her everyday practice of showing up. They showed up again and again for us: we, their colleagues, their students, their friends. They showed up to get the work done and to remind us of why the work mattered. As their illness advanced, they helped us draft job descriptions and plan interviews. They created workflow docs and publication schedules. They organized our files on Dropbox and opened an account to accept submissions via Submittable. The care-filled, justice-fueled respect with which she approached all aspects of the work inspired others to respect all aspects of their work and themselves more fully. At our last meeting, she said, “I think I can say this now, I’m not going to get better.” Why show up to do the work when the future is not assured? These questions are called into stark relief when facing a terminal illness or a global health crisis, but it’s also an existential reality we all face in our own ways.

I am frankly astonished by the bravery and generosity of her belief that our shared vision of a future CUNY reorganized around just, ethical, and equitable feminist values was worth her time and labor, even when she knew she might not be with us to enjoy its fruition. Her capacity to lead us so intelligently toward shared goals while mired in the disheartening traffic of everyday difficulties exacerbated by a terminal illness, a global pandemic, and regressive democracy starving its institutions of higher education is an inspiration and a call to action.

With every encounter, she edged my thinking closer toward the big picture, the better, gentler, and more just world we longed and fought for at CUNY. She reminded me it’s nearer than we know, it’s present in our collective efforts to bring it into being. Perhaps most powerfully, Brianne acted every day “as if” the institutional future we envisioned was already real. Their belief in that future strengthened my own resolve to live it “as if” even as we pursue it at CUNY. Belief can travel between people like that, braiding us together into a more equitable future. We have seen the power unexamined belief has to override critical thinking, but a deeply held critical belief in the immanence of a better world is a beautiful, motivating thing to find in a CUNY colleague. —Kendra Sullivan

I met Brianne through Red Washburn, and I remember Brianne’s calm as we talked about her teaching the Feminist Texts and Theories course. What I remember most though, is that she believed in possibility. Even when there was uncertainty in her own life, she assumed that possibility was always waiting. That, to me, is the sign of a person who is committed and generous. Brianne’s generous spirit along with her calm contributed to my own ability to think about futures and capacious giving. I am so honored to have been in her orbit although just for a short time. Who she was, is reminder, that possibility is ever there for us. We just have to see it and reach for it. Thank you my friend. —Dána-Ain Davis

I was one of Brianne’s colleagues at BMCC. I was a union comrade. A feminist compa. And, we were also neighbors. These past few weeks, I have been thinking about these different positions. We got along so well. We shared many interests. I always thought that, in the end, we would become pals, BFFs. I admired them deeply. I liked when they shared ideas at meetings, when they talked about their students, and also liked their style—and I know Brianne liked mine (I’m not bragging, we used to compliment each other’s outfits). We kept making plans to hang out in Washington Heights, where we both lived, but it didn’t happen much—the hanging out. Although time passed, it really didn’t matter, because we both knew, or thought, we would always have another opportunity. We did succeed once. Brianne came to my place. This was in March 2018—so long ago! There was this action idea, decided on by the BMCC-PSC chapter, to do a march to the President’s Office to demand more reassigned hours. Someone suggested a motif: we would be workload creeps. Brianne and I were both at the meeting. Right there and then, we decided to form the BMCC-PSC art committee. We invited others to join, but nobody did. We didn’t care. We met on a Saturday evening to create a workload creep. We built a Frankenstein of sorts, from scratch. We also talked a lot. About writers we both liked, about our research, about fun things we could do together here in Washington Heights—go for a walk, work together at a coffee shop. We said we would hang out again, but we didn’t. When I learned that Brianne had passed away, I felt the loss of a friendship in the making. The loss of time. I also thought about this evening we spent together, and searched for the photo of the workload creep, until I found it on my Instagram. I do feel a bit silly sharing all of this here—Brianne was involved in meaningful projects, important collabs—but, what can I say, I cherish this memory, this form of collaboration. —Ángeles Donoso Macaya

Brianne was quite a force. She’ll be remembered by many as someone who was committed to fairness and inclusion, who communicated with acuity her refreshing beliefs and points of view, someone talented who laughed easily and was welcoming to all. I am so, so sorry to learn that Brianne has left us, but if she is free from pain now, that’s a blessing that can be consoling. Brianne made indelible impressions that I want to keep alive by motivating me to deliberately speak and act righteously as one way to honor her memory. —Jerilyn Fisher

Brianne was, first, my neighbor. Brianne was that in the biggest sense of the term. I met Ben and Brianne in 2014 when I moved into “The 509” in Hamilton Heights. I thought Brianne was the coolest. Over the years and in different contexts as part of the CUNY-verse, we became colleagues and our friendship grew. I loved Brianne’s energy, their smarts, and their ability to always find strategies to battle the ever-increasing BS of daily life as queer, gender nonconforming folks. Brianne was a deep friend. Brianne was hilarious. Sometimes, they would bust out dancing in convenience stores or on the sidewalk. During the early months of Covid lockdown, The 509 became a fortress with its occupants helping each other in ways that, in other times, may have seemed trivial. However, from piggybacking on each other’s FreshDirect orders (with Ben staying up all night just to get a delivery slot) out of an abundance of caution and just downright fear to taking masked walks with my German shepherd, Sylvie, Brianne saved my mental health as I struggled to shift to an online teaching mode. In May, I wanted to go fly fishing on the Neversink River. I asked Brianne if they wanted to ride up to Katrina Falls with me. They declined. The thought of riding with another person in a metal container—if it was not absolutely necessary—was untenable, and reasonably so. A few weeks later, Brianne and I drove up to the Neversink Unique Area and hiked to a beautiful spot. We took Sylvie with us; we packed food and beverages. Brianne went swimming and watched Sylvie while I fished a few yards away. We talked a lot on those outings. Brianne and I brainstormed about organizing a queers-on-the-trail hiking group. We talked a lot about “Reel Out for Trout,” a fly-fishing group that I, thanks to Brianne, am determined to create. They took great photos of Sylvie and me that day. Brianne was dear to me in so many ways. When it came time for me to move out of The 509, Brianne drove my car with Sylvie and Raymond (my kitty) all the way from NYC to New Mexico during February and early March 2021. I drove a twenty-four-foot truck, “Patty LePenske,” with my belongings. Little did we know that Brianne was already quite ill. After we got to my house, Brianne enjoyed the bright, New Mexico winter sun. They sat in my yard, in the sun, looking at the mountains, reading, and thinking those Brianne thoughts. I miss Brianne. When I think of Brianne, I see them in the sun, framed by the mountains. —JV Fuqua

We are so saddened by Brianne’s passing, but will remember them always, with fondness in our hearts. Anyone who has worked or participated in interdisciplinary fields like women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, or in nonprofit publishing, will know just how much tenacity and spirit it takes to sustain this work, to keep pushing boundaries and amplifying marginalized and critical perspectives at all times. Brianne possessed this tenacity in spades. Their energy and vision were invaluable to sustaining WSQ throughout the years of the pandemic, when everything about the future was uncertain. Brianne showed up, tirelessly—and kept going, kept pushing. They are an inspiration, and their legacy will live on, always, in this work and in the hearts of those whose lives they touched. —Margot, Lauren, Nick, and the Feminist Press team