Queer Joy as a Liberatory Practice
Intersect Antigua-Barbuda welcomed its second healing justice facilitator, Shadeen Francis, born to a Dominican father and Jamaican mother, for an interactive and intimate session titled “Beyond Survival: Queer Joy as a Liberatory Practice.”
Thirty-nine participants from Singapore, Puerto Rico, Curaçao, Antigua and Barbuda, Martinique, St. Lucia, Haiti, and other countries, gathered in April, 2026, to co-create a healing justice ethic oriented around Queeribbean joy as a relational strategy and political position. In this session, Shadeen co-created knowledge with participants on the myriad ways joy and pleasure describe things that “help us feel good and stay alive.” A pleasure evangelist and interlocutor with Adrienne Maree Browne’s Pleasure Activism, Shadeen also evinced the ways that “pleasure is a measure of freedom.”
“Emotions are our first site of embodied knowledge. Of these, joy is one of the most vulnerable and, therefore, one of the most transformative emotions that we can feel. For systemically excluded communities, joy is more than a feeling; it is a political position, a healing technology, and an act of reclamation, one that has been practiced by our ancestors long before it became a framework.”
— Shadeen Francis
In her own words, this session centered the experiences of queer, trans, and disabled Caribbean people at home and abroad. Participants explored the role of joy in their survival and liberation and engaged in reflections guided by neuroscience, social science, and the wisdom of queer scholars, artists, and elders. With Shadeen’s guidance, participants also reflected on the influence of systemic oppression on their relationship to joy, and what it means to build a cultural capacity for joyfulness as both a relational practice and political strategy, rather than a personal luxury.
Session Insights
Joy is not a luxury, but it can feel like a privilege when it is hard to access.
We can move from understanding joy intellectually to knowing it in an embodied way.
We are all trying to seek joy in the midst of ethnocentric violence, fascism, imperialism, and sexism.
Joy is the feeling that helps us experience life beyond pain.
Our bodies prime us for joy because of and despite pain.
Our nervous system is not only wired for survival and connection, but also joy.
Joy is a healing technology and intervention that brings us closer to well-being.
Queerness is a suspension of restrictive categories; it resists limiting narratives and dominant imaginings of paradise.
Trans people paved the way for gender euphoria.
Joy is a mode of co-regulation; it is feedback loop that brings us closer to safety.
Joy is a nervous system state and a political act.
Pleasure is the sensory or embodied experience of well-being.
Hope, per Mariame Kaba, is a discipline that must be practiced daily.
Joy is a rehearsal of freedom, a form of liberation in the present.
She emphasized that we cannot and should not wait until all systems of oppression have been dismantled to lean into joy. Reflecting the complexity of metaemotions, neither should we feel shame about the feelings that give us pleasure during crisis. She demonstrated the importance of learning how to be joyful now so that we know how to be well when we move closer to realizing our freedom dreams. Joy must be embodied in practice now to prepare us for the Queeribbean future we’re moving and organizing toward.
Shadeen’s session was also in conversation with multiple texts and figures that center queer lives, queer politics, disability justice, and healing justice, including Erotic Islands by Lyndon K. Gill, The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes and Mourning Songs by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and Cara Page from the Healing Justice Collective.
Erotic Islands: Art and Activism in the Queer Caribbean by Lyndon K. Gill was a recommended session text by Shadeen Francis. Photo by Willum.
Participant Reflections
Reflecting on Shadeen’s facilitation, participants shared the following insights:
“I went through soo many emotions — grief, gratitude, generosity. I loved every moment of the session. Something that really resonated with me, though, is thinking about who I know that is joyful and how I want to honour them. I think that felt like a really grounded way to consider how joy could be accessed — through honouring someone else's practice/expressions of it.”
— Élysse, Trinidad and Tobago
“I think rethinking joy as something that is natural and necessary to healing is very useful. Guilt is a big barrier for me, now I can remind myself that I need joy to heal, and I need to heal to do any work I want to do, out of love.”
— Madhu, Singapore
“Joy must be embodied in practice now to prepare us for the Queeribbean future we’re moving and organizing toward.”
More reflections, tools, resources, and exercises from this healing justice session have been written and will be published in a forthcoming post-session handout that you can take with you into the world.
Access the guiding questions and learning outcomes for this session.
Learn more about this healing justice programme.
About Shadeen Francis
Shadeen Francis is a licensed marriage and family psychotherapist and a board-certified sex therapist. Her unique expertise spans the domains of mental health, emotional intelligence, and the intersection of sexual wellness and social justice. Shadeen has been featured on platforms such as ABC, NBC, and CBS, and has been the subject matter expert for brands including Hinge, Essence, Teen Vogue, and BET.
As a Black queer woman and child of Caribbean immigrants, Shadeen is driven by the belief that the world is built on the strengths of communities, and is passionate that therapeutic transformation shouldn't be limited to those who can access the clinical office. Instead, she aims to meet people where they are, collaborating with institutions ranging from non-profits to medical facilities, tech companies to homeless shelters, school boards to social collectives.
Her insights have been used to develop nationally-implemented curricula, global media strategy, and public health policy. Shadeen is also an avid writer, having authored several textbook chapters on topics ranging from sexual fluidity to leadership in education. What these experiences have in common is her passion for transforming difficult subjects into opportunities for deeper connection.
Known for her signature brand of warmth and humour, all of Shadeen's work is inspired by her commitment to helping people live lives full of peace and pleasure.
