Geographies of ‘out-of-it-ness’: Navigating dementia amidst cognitive normativities and bodily dissociation as mechanism of trans endurance

In response to David Bissell's geography of being ‘out of it’, I examine two conditions that address underlying geographies involved in feeling, becoming, or being positioned as ‘out of it’. First, I examine my father's experience of Alzheimer's disease, his societal positioning as always-already ‘out of it’, and the lived consequences of this positioning. I then explore trans individuals’ experiences of bodily dissociation, a becoming ‘out of it’ often experienced as an innate or necessary mechanism of endurance that reduces bodily connection and disrupts the flow and sensation of everyday and hostile affect. I conclude with several provocations for geographers to take up, encouraging reflection on how cognitive normativities position people as ‘out of it'; on the more-than-binary nature of being ‘out of it’; and on the constant, embodied work of responding to ‘out-of-it-ness’.