` Riki Anne Wilchen’s article “What Does it Cost to Tell the Truth?” offers a transgender reply to Foucault’s infamous question. She states, “Foucault asked about the necessity of making one’s self an object of possible knowledge, to be learned and memorized. For genderqueers, that necessity is survival...simply having our bodies exposed to social judgment can be painful and disturbing to some people” (p. 547-551).
For this course, genderqueer or not, exposure was a constant risk. However, philosopher Kenneth Burke explains in his theory of the Cult of the Kill that admitting something--purging our guilt--allows us to find rebirth. Thus, the communal transformation of something creates a communal identification. So my project involved a communal purging of mine and my classmate’s secrets. I believe it costs more to keep the truth hidden than to tell it. And often, we are all hiding similar things. With inspiration from Wilchen’s work, the concept of the Cult of the Kill, the website PostSecret.com, and my untold secrets, this project allowed a space in which our class’s truths could be revealed.
