THEY
August 2017
Lee Mokobe: Slam Poet
Editor’s Note The term ‘they’ is often used when refering to someone who has not expressed a clear pronoun choice. They is a non-gendered pronoun. A sign that rather then projecting ones personal assumptions regarding gender, a space is created where they are able to define themselves how ever they see fit.
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hey’re creators. They live their own truths. Not the truths that they are told to live. Society may judge them, but they confidently continue to produce work based on their personal experiences. They have the confidence to put themselvees out there in more ways than one. Regardless of if people in society approve of them, they defy the prejudices of society. They open themselves up to cricism, which is more than many of us are willing to do. They shaoe their own truths through creative means. They are pioneers socially and artistically. They may face many battles as they are surrounded by hegemonic masculinity. But they are living their own truths. In addition, they aer creators who use their deeply personal experiences in order to share their creativity. They are actors, musicians, muses, photgographers, models, performers. They construct their own reality, one where they can be themselves. Their true sellves. They do not sit in silence. They make sure that they are heard. They document their experiences and convey them through the arts. They break down boundries. But maybe these boundriesshouln’t have been there in the first place. they are feirce, self-assired and happy that they can use creativity in order to express their own truth to the world. Thandi Wiltshire, editor
Music Q&A: the Cliks’ Lucas Silveira interviews Fellow Transgender Rock Singer Laura Jane Grace p 6-7 4 trans musicians you need to get into p8 when words fail, music speaks - Hans Christian Andersen-
Acting 2 cisgender actors in transgender roles p 12-13
The Box Does ‘Rocky Horror’ reboot offend trans identities? p16-17
Profile Romy Haag: David Bowie’s transgender muse p10
The Big Screen Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl conventionalizes the story of a tansgender pioneer p14
Multimedia Chedino & Family: a photo story p18 23
Fashion
Creators Behind Torrey Pines: Interviewing Clyde Petersen p24-25
Transgender movement inspires Indian fashion p26-27
Photogarphy
Books
2 Books By Transgender Women You Need To Read Immediately p30
Severed Connections: Do what I say or they will kill you p33-44
Series Spoken Word
Lee Mokobe’s soulbaring description of what it feels like to be transgender in a highly gendered culture p35-43
Sense8 star Jamie Clayton talks trans representation, Nomanita and LGBT leads p44-45
7de Laan welcomes first transgender actress to the show p46
Music
Q&A: the Cliks’ Lucas Silveira interviews fellow transgender rock singer Laura Jane Grace
LUCAS SILVEIRA he Cliks’ Lucas Silveira joins Against Me!’s Laura Jane Grace at The House of Strombo — photo credit: Vanessa Heins. Laura Jane Grace is more than just the front woman for American punk rock band Against Me! She is also someone leading a gender identity revolution in a way that has never been done before — from the outside in. Grace and I share a kinship that probably few can understand. We are both rock musicians and band leaders (me with Toronto’s the Cliks), who came out as transgender at the peak of our professional. Against Me! Formed in Florida 20 years ago and has released seven studio albums. LS: We both know transitioning can be a difficult concept for people to understand. How open are you to people asking you questions about your transition, whether they be friends or strangers? LJG: Context is everything, of course. I’m a strong believer in, ‘there’s no such thing as a stupid question,’ but at the same time, there are definitely inappropriate ways to ask questions. As a defence mechanism, I accepted that I need to be unflinching because often times there will be people in life who will try to make you flinch and you can’t react in a way that like…I can’t punch this person or I can’t [be] like, ‘F&^k you.’ LS: That’s beautiful. I’m going to apply that to my life, the part about answering the question you wished you were asked. Do you feel that in being open about your transition and other trans folks being open will help normalize trans people in society? LJG: That’s a really complicated question because I always felt, going into it, I don’t have the option ever of being stealth. I have had a lot of records and I have my ‘dead name’ [birth name] in it and I have a solo record with my dead name. You know, there’s years and years and years of YouTube videos, interviews or pictures online from before I came out. I had to just accept that.
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LS: There was actually something in the book where you talked a lot about how you were concerned that you were never going to pass or be seen as a woman. Do you feel that that’s something that you’ve come through? You can look at yourself and say, “I am a woman”? LJG: All those learning lessons definitely contributed to me realizing that I couldn’t scrub the past. I have to accept these things, I have to accept what happened — even in the time between coming out and getting ID changed — of, well, you have a dead name that you wouldn’t like to use anymore, then eventually coming to a phase of realizing it is just a name. I cannot rely on these things, whether that’d be a name change, whether that’d be surgeries, whether that be hormones to substantiate me as a person and be accepted about my gender of who I am. That’s the point — that I’ve always known who I was; I just had a long time trouble accepting that. LS: Going on to something more musical. This is something that I’ve never really had experience with because I’ve never known any other trans female singers. Does anything happen to you vocally after starting estrogen? LJG: No, it doesn’t work like that. Testosterone lowers your voice, but the estrogen doesn’t affect you in any way, no. LS:I don’t know how often you hear this, but from one trans person to the other, and from one human being to the other, I am so proud of you. I’m so proud of everything that you’ve done and that you’re doing and the person that you’ve become and what you’ve done for our community and just for humanity period. You’re killing it. Just keep doing it. LJG:Right on. You’re going to make me cry. I really appreciate the things that you said. I really appreciate the f&^k out of you as well, so thank you.
Left: Lucas Silveria Photographer: David Hawe
Above: Laura Jane Grace Photographer: Joshua Mellin
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4 trans musicians you need to get into M
STEVE PHILLIPS usic is a deep expression of the soul. But like every other creative field, the music industry can push minority voices into the background. We’ve compiled a list of 5 trans musicians we’re obsessed with—including new faces and veteran performers— and some tracks of theirs you should listen to. Jayne County Jayne County’s life is a wild collection of post-Vietnam, pre-AIDS alternative histories: a pioneer of the early New York punk scene, a survivor of the Stonewall riots and a star of Andy Warhol’s Factory. Although she is rarely given her due, the influence of County’s music and outsized stage persona can be seen everywhere from David Bowie to Divine to Joan Jett. Where to start: “Rock N Roll Cleopatra”
Anohni Whether singing solo, fronting Antony and the Johnsons or lending her vocals to Björk and Hercules & Love Affair, Anohni’s fragile vibrato is enchanting as she sings about love, alienation and gender fluidity. Where to start: “Fistful of Love”
Justin Vivian Bond Mx. Vivian exploded onto the New York cabaret scene as Kiki DuRane, a boozy lounge singer whose monologues could frame her husky singing voice as comedy, tragedy or a brutal history lesson. Bond’s solo recording career has brought that sense of drama and nostalgia to re-imagined cover songs by both popular and forgotten songwriters. Where to start: “The Golden Age of Hustlers”
Wendy Carlos Classical composer and instrumentalist Wendy Carlos has probably achieved the most “legitimate” musical success of anyone on our list. Carlos rose to fame in 1968 with Switched-On Bach, an album of Bach compositions performed phrase-by-phrase on a Moog synthesizer. She is perhaps best known, however, for her film scores for A Clockwork Orange, The Shining and the original Tron film. Where to start: “Dies Irae (Theme from The Shining)” 8
Photos from New Now Next
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Profile
Romy Haag: David Bowie’s transgender muse
Romy Haag Source: Pinterest
RICHARD METZGER lamorous Romy Haag is one of the most famous transgender women in Europe and a cabaret performer of some renown. She is also well-known as a former lover and muse of David Bowie during his Berlin years (and indeed was the apparent reason for his move to the city in 1976). Her influence on his work is clearly evident in the “Boys Keep Swinging” video, where Bowie appears in triplicate as a chorus of drag queens*. Haag was born in 1948 . Haag left her home at the age of 13, working as a clown, then a trapeze artist with the Circus Strassburger before becoming a female impersonator in Paris. At this time, Haag began living as a woman. In 1974, she opened what would become Germany’s most popular nightclub during the disco-era at the age of 23, “Chez Romy Haag.” Celebrity guests included Bowie and Iggy Pop, who were regulars, Bryan Ferry, Freddie Mercury and Lou Reed. In 1983, when she was in her 30s she had a sex change operation and in 1999, published an autobiography with the great title, A Woman And Then Some. *the term drag queen is considered to be derogratory.
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Acting
2 cisgender actors in transgender roles
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER he casting of Elle Fanning in The Weinstein Company’s 3 Generations has been met with the same backlash other films received when casting cis actors in trans roles. Elle Fanning takes on the role of transgender teen Ray, who is transitioning from female to male. Fanning’s casting in the film was met with controversy as trans activists spoke out about yet another cisgender actor playing
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the part of a transgender person. Most recently, Matt Bomer in Anything. “The decision to put yet another man in a dress to portray a transgender woman touches a nerve for transgender people, and rightfully so.” Nick Adams - director of GLAAD’s (Gay and Lesbian Allience Against Defamation) Transgender Media Programme - wrote. “It’s yet another painful reminder that, in the eyes of so many people, transgender
women are really just men. That message is toxic and dangerous.” These cisgender actors often win or are nominated for prestigious awards for their performances, performances that trans activists say would be better represented by transgender people themselves. This is only added to by the fact that transgender actors are underrepresented in Hollywood.
Hilary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry Hilary Swank received an Oscar for her performance depicting real-life transgender man Brandon Teena in 1999 film Boys Don’t Cry. Teena was raped and murdered in 1993. “I think we’ve taken strides since that movie,” Swank told Meredith Vieira when speaking about trans rights in 2015. “We have a long way to go.”
`Source: Women Women
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Source: Celebmafia Elle Fanning in ‘3 Generations’ In 3 Generations, Fanning plays Ray, a transgender teen transitioning from female to male. Following backlash, writer and director Gaby Dellal spoke about why she went with Fanning. “I guess I was in a tricky situation because I needed to find an actor who was experienced enough to take on this role, who hadn’t transitioned yet, who was a trans man or trans boy. That’s quite a tall order. Unfortunately, I was unable to fill that role,” said Dellal. She undersands the controversy and said, “When someone is struggling for a voice, they need everyone to support them. And the best thing we can do is do things like cast [trans actors] and give them a voice. Unfortunately, I was unable to do that.” 13
The Big Screen
Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl conventionalizes the story of a tansgender pioneer Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander.
DAVID EDELSTEIN he kindest thing to be said about the high-toned transgender weeper The Danish Girl is that by the time it ends it can serve as a decent liberal corrective to a century of reactionary demon-possession movies. Eddie Redmayne plays Einar Wegener, an acclaimed Copenhagen painter circa 1926 who discovers — after slipping into stockings and a dress to pose for his painter wife, Gerda (Alicia Vikander), when her model is late — that there’s someone else inside him and her name is Lili. In The Danish Girl, Gerda is certainly devastated by the loss of her husband and, at her most vulnerable, begs Lili for access to Einar. But it is finally Einar who needs to be exorcised, surgically, on the grounds that God (or Whomever) cocked the whole gender thing up. Although The Danish Girl is based on a novel by David Ebershoff, Lili Elbe did exist, and her story is so astonishing that I can’t believe I’d never heard it until now. It’s too bad that my introduction had to come through the lens of director Tom Hooper. Hooper can’t manage to put us inside his characters’ heads — where we should be in a story that makes every surface suspect. The screenwriter, Lucinda Coxon, approaches Lili’s life from a gender-psychology perspective, as Gerda tells a squirmy male subject, “it is difficult for a man to submit to a woman’s gaze.” Once in a dress and wig, Lili slowly begins to enjoy surrendering to the male gaze. Gerda undergoes a change as well. An unsuccessful portrait painter, she begins to find in Lili a tantalizing subject.
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Source: Focus Feature
But here’s where Hooper and Coxon conventionalize the story. There’s nothing in Vikander’s Gerda to suggest why Lili liberates her as an artist. The novel’s Gerda — who is less conventionally feminine and called Greta — begs Einar to bring back Lili, not vice versa, and there’s a wonderful twist: The petite, finely turned Lili proves more attractive to men than the taller Greta. Hooper, whose sensibilities seem Victorian, keeps Lili’s sexual longing for men discreetly offscreen, and a potentially romantic relationship with a magnetized suitor (Matthias Schoenaerts) comes off as a throwaway. The script is full of signposts, but Hooper shows no interest in testing the idea that Einar and Lili are mutually e xclusive — that one must die for the other to live. He does best with the more obvious scenes, with the parade of doctors who want to irradiate, drill holes in, or lock up their riven patient. Vikander has gotten some extraordinary reviews.. However,the Lili of The Danish Girl is passive, quivery-moist, and inward-gazing, as if womanliness for her meant having no agency. There’s no sign in this fragile martyr of the Lili Elbe who returned to Denmark after a sojourn in Paris and surgery in Dresden and gave interviews to any journalist who’d listen, and who used her little time left to collaborate on a memoir about her external transformation. A master of spiritual kitsch, Hooper is less drawn to her transformation than to her transfiguration. *This article appears in the November 16, 2015 issue of New York Magazine.
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The Box
Does ‘Rocky Horror’ reboot offend trans identities?
Laverne Cox as Dr. Frank N Furter
MARI BRIGHE ome “Rocky Horror Picture Show” fans are shivering in antici.........pation, but others don’t think it’ll be easy having a good time with the reboot. While many are praising the casting of acclaimed transgender actress Laverne Cox as Dr. Frank N Furter in Fox’s live production, skeptics argue that the musical is quite outdated and offensive to trans identities. Many critics have praised the casting of Cox as the lead. But not everyone is feeling the casting. LGBT groups look at Cox’s involvement as a setback for the trans community. Others think the “Rocky Horror” material is outdated. Laverne Cox told Vanity Fair she was skeptical about the “Rocky Horror” material. But she had a conversation with the director Kenny Ortega that reassured her that the language was acceptable for the timeframe or period that the musical is set. “I had a conversation [with director] Kenny [Ortega]. We talked about the word ‘transvestite,’ ” the Emmy nominee recalls. That term was once an acceptable way to describe a transgender person who had not completed their medical transition; now, Cox says, it is an “antiquated term that trans folks certainly
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don’t use” anymore. Despite being part of the L.G.B.T. community’s lexicon through the 70s, when Rocky Horror is set, she was worried that identifying as “a sweet transvestite” would confuse audiences today. Flavor Wire writer Mari Brighe describes Dr. Frank N Furter as a murderous gender-bending mad scientist who is also an alien from Transsexual, Transsylvania. She goes on to write about how the material is problematic for trans women: But in 2015, that same script — on a mainstream television network — loses a significant amount of its subversive nature, and instead borders on exploiting LGBTQ identities for the gaze of a largely cisgender, heterosexual audience. Of course, all of that would be true without Cox in the cast. With her playing the lead role, there’s a subtle but potentially very damaging conflation of crossdressers with trans women. In an era where trans people (and trans women in particular) are still consistently struggling to shed the social view that we are little more than men in dresses, the once sexually subversive Rocky Horror Picture Show becomes simply a tool for the re-entrenchment of oppressive and harmful tropes about transgender people. Cox furthermore said that the language can be confusing for non-trans people. While the terminology still shouldn’t be used to describe trans people today, it’s simply a reflection of that period of time in the ‘70s. Many have gone on to praise her rendition of “Sweet Transvestite.” Others agree that “Rocky Horror” might be a good musical to many, but its material might be too outdated for today’s nuances related to trans identities, communities and the language used to describe them. But Cox’s cover of Dr. Frank N Furter’s an Photo: Steve Wilkie them is garnering so much praise. But critics are also calling out the musical’s “I had a conversation [with director] Kenny [Ortega]. writer Richard O’Brien’s views on trans women. In fact, O’Brien believes trans women shouldn’t We talked about the word ‘transvestite,’ ” the Emmy nominee recalls. That term was once an acceptable way be considered women, and many are left disgusted with the writer and this piece of work.
to describe a transgender person who had not completed their medical transition; now, Cox says, it is an “antiquated term that trans folks certainly don’t use” anymore. Despite being part of the L.G.B.T. community’s lexicon through the 70s, when Rocky Horror is set, she was worried that identifying as “a sweet transvestite” would confuse audiences today.
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Multimedia
Chedino at home
Photo: Julia Gunther
Chedino & Family: a photo story JULIA GUNTHER Chedino & Family Cape Town, South Africa, 2012-2014 hedino & Family is a photographic documentary series about gender reassignment in South Africa. Chedino & Family tells the very personal story of Chedino, who was born a man but has been living the life of a woman for the past 16 years in the suburbs of Cape Town, South Africa. LGBTI rights in South Africa often clash with traditional African culture in which same-sex relationships are deemed ‘un-African’ and where homophobia is rampant. This is especially the case in the suburbs of the big cities like Cape Town or Johannesburg where intolerence often leads to vilence agaist women like Chedino and her friends.
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Above: Chedino cutting hair
Below: Chedino with hangover
Photos:Julia Gunther
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Above: Victoria Below: Miss Temptation Beauty Pagent 2014 Chino At Bar
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Photos: Julia Gunther
Above: Alica with divas in Cabaret Below: Divas in Cabaret
Photos: Julia Gunther
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Above: Chedino with family Below: Alecia
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Photos: Julia Gunther
Above: Chedino with divas in cabaret Below: Chedino
Photos: Julia Gunther
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Creators
Clyde Petersen
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Photographer: Joseph P. Traina
Behind Torrey Pines: interviewing Clyde Petersen RYAN CRAWFORD ith star-studded casts, poignant subject matter, and diverse perspectives, TWIST: Seattle Queer Film Festival is set to be especially profound this year. But one film is already a standout for the 21st annual line-up: Torrey Pines, the festival’s opening night film, screening Thursday 10/13 at SIFF Cinema Egyptian. I interviewed the remarkable film and interviewing its creator, Clyde Petersen, an out trans filmmaker. Torrey Pines tells a very complicated story in an unusual way, depicting you wrestling with sexuality and gender identity while on a cross-country road trip with your mentally ill mother, who lost custody of you and later kidnapped you from your chain-smoking grandmother. What made you decide to turn your tumultuous personal history into a film? I have been making short animated films for the last 14 years.The story I know the most intimately is my own, so it felt pretty natural to say this is a great way to tell this story and make a feature for the first time. While it looks simplistic, the artwork was quite striking throughout this stopanimation film. Who created the character cut-outs and backdrops,
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and how did they do it? Myself and my co-animator, Chris Looney, worked with 7 interns over the course of the last 2 years. We had a few guidelines for building the sets, and everything is handpainted and handcrafted. The only discernible English spoken in the film is the word “Butts,” with the rest of the characters’ speech uttered as gibberish. Was there ever a chance of scripting out actual dialogue? It was designed to be a visually told story. I was very interested in working on a story that could cross language barriers. What age is young Clyde in the film? 12 years old. That’s a lot of life for a 12-year-old to live in one year. I feel like I’ve lived a lot of lives. There’s one scene in the movie in which young Clyde sees their mother naked and starts to imagine themselves as an adult female, Was this a particular fear of yours at that age? I definitely had puberty fear really hard because I was very much a tomboy at school, and did not fit in with the 12-year-old girls of San Diego. I was very shy, very nerdy, and not ready for the world of boobs or kissing coming toward me at the speed of a
freight train. That scene was definitely a bit exaggerated, we were trying to encapsulate this f&^king puberty fear where you’re like, “What the f&^k’s about to happen?” In Torrey Pines, we see you exploring your sexuality and discovering your gender identity. What was the process like for you, acknowledging your orientation and coming out as trans? I didn’t come out as Trans until I was f&^king 24 or something, but I was definitely queer in high school. It was pretty simple when I was a kid: “I f&^king don’t want to wear dresses and I feel like a dude.” I just didn’t have any framework for it—no internet to explore, and I couldn’t find people like me at school. What’s next for you? The next thing for us is to take the film on tour the rest of this year, and to Europe next year, and do a film festival run. I’m interested in making graphic novels too. I wanted to make one about the Sex Worker Art tours, and I started doing that already. I made a 4-foot by 5-foot drawing about the sex workers there. I think I’ll do more of those drawings and make a book over 3 years. I have a piece hanging at the Paul Allen gallery Pivot, part of the Neddy show. I actually won the Neddy award—it’s f&^king crazy!
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Fashion BANDANA TEWARI ife is what we make of it and the walls we erect to segregate or discriminate are reflective of the big walls in our own minds,” said fashion designer Tarun Tahiliani. “No one has the right to strip anyone’s self-respect and a fair chance of a livelihood.” This wasn’t the first such casting in India. Late last year, established textile designers from Lakme Fashion Week 2016 draped four classical transgender dance artists in contemporary handloom saris. Organisers said that the project was to give a “clear and loud message that fashion is diverse and inclusive of all genders”. While conducting a photo shoot with the transgender dancers, Gautam Vazirani, the fashion curator at IMG Reliance, explained why. “As a person from the LGBT community myself, I see transgenders as people who have been able to create their own identity despite being so marginalised. This Lakme Fashion Week initiative was to celebrate that universal spirit that could motivate more people who are afraid to follow their heart, to come out. Anjali is one such example and we hope there will be more,” said Vazirani, who works for the event management firm behind the fashion week. For her part, transgender model Anjali Lama is quiet and introspective about the overwhelming attention in her life. “In my village, nobody knew anything about fashion or modelling,” she confides, explaining that she was born to a farming village of Nuwakot in Nepal. When she came under the wings of the Blue Diamond Society, an LGBT rights organisation in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, Lama swiftly affirmed her gender identity before embarking on a modelling career in neighbouring India. “I know that I have to compete hard and work from my heart to be at par with beautiful, seasoned models [but] my work should prove my value, not my sexuality [or gender identity],” said Anjali in between standing-room-only shows. “I didn’t realise that our fashion industry was so forward thinking to allow such a big issue to be addressed via fashion,” said Navonil Das, from the designer duo Dev r Nil. “I love the idea of blurring gender boundaries but the reality is, for both of us who are outspoken advocates of LGBTQI rights, we still have miles to go..” The most powerful tool of fashion is visibility; and with this comes advocacy. On any given day, hijras (transgender individual who was assigned male at birth) wear saris or salwaar kameez (tunictrousers), makeup, long hair and jewellery very much like cisgender Indian women but their lives are complex to say the least. Clearly, clothes and style have a crucial role in the politics and power play of gender. In India, the third gender’s seemingly benign tryst with fashion, begs deeper scrutiny about what impact the industry can have on their quest for inclusivity.
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Transgende Fashion, whether in India or abroad, is beginning to understand this — however ambiguously. Rudrani Chettri, founder of Delhi-based LGBT charity Mitr Trust, set up India’s first transgender modelling agency. Clothing for the trans community in India is no doubt one of the most visual and visceral expressions of their acceptance and their transition to womanhood. On the surface, their dazzling clothes signify their joy for life, yes. But unravel
er movement inspires Indian fashion Anjali Lama
Source: The Indian Express
the drape and their clothes may in fact be hiding their despair over the injustices they continue to face in a gender-rigid society. The most powerful tool of fashion is visibility; and with this comes advocacy. On the completion of her catwalk debut in Mumbai, Anjali Lama paused to reflect on her future. “My immediate goal is to learn English well enough to be able to narrate my personal story of transition into a transgendered woman, not only in India and Nepal, but all over the world,” she said. “While people aren’t quite aware of all the challenges facing transgenders, by accepting me, fashion is putting a spotlight on our collective struggle for equality. It’s this journey that will inspire others like me to make choices to love and live with dignity.” Bandana Tewari is editor-at large of Vogue India.
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Books 2 Books By Transgender Women You Need To Read Immediately ERIKA TURNER rom science-fiction novellas to cookbook memoirs, it’s never too late to discover a new favorite read!
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1. Six Months, Three Days by Charlie Jane Anders A man who can see the future meets a woman who can see many possible futures and the two fall in love, despite knowing exactly when their relationship will end and how. Date of Publication: 2011 Why You Should Read It: It won the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Novelette.
Charlie Jane Anders
Source: LIGHTSPEED MAGASINE
2. I Rise: The Transformation of Toni Newman by Toni Newman The memoir shares the story of Newman’s journey growing up in a strict Christian home in North Carolina, making a living through sex work in Los Angeles and NYC, and, finally, attending law school to help her community. Date of Publication: 2011 Why You Should Read It: In a rich exploration of life from church pews to the streets of L.A., Toni shares her pride and triumph through life’s trials.
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Toni Newman Source: Twitter
Photography
Yishay Garbasz, Branding, 2011.
Source: Ronald Feldman Fine Art
Severed Connections: Do what I say or they will kill you KEN JOHNSON ishay Garbasz, a British-Israeli artist, will exhibit Severed Connections: Do what I say or they will kill you, a body of work based on her travels to Korea, the West Bank, and Belfast. In each of these locations, barriers exist as single lines of defense to separate warring groups living in close proximity. Through photography, video, and sculpture, the artist conceptualizes the architecture of separation with an anthropologist’s sensibility. Garbasz challenges the assumption that good fences make good neighbors, maintaining that severing connections between groups creates a culture of fear that allows a government to control its people. The Korea series was created during a residency in 2013 - 2014 when Garbasz lived near the NLL, the Northern Limit Line in South Korea that separates North and South Korea. She mines the irony of the region’s natural fecundity, untouched by industrialization, as well as the incongruities of the routines of daily life being played out against the backdrop of militarization. Two video installations dominate the gallery space: Dragon Teeth, a projected seascape that depicts the I-beams planted to impale ships; and a grouping of videos of verdant rice fields, hung salon-style. The series contains a rich lode in its details. A sculpture of coiled razor wire vibrates periodically to produce a piercing sound. Also on view are signs warning of mines and commercial bottles of the prized water from the DMZ. Designated places on the floor indicate where photography is allowed, alluding to the military zone as a tourist destination. The photographs of Belfast from 2015 depict metal-grated fences towering over small brick homes on eerily empty streets. Called “Peace Fences,” they were increased and enlarged after the peace agreement of 1998 to prevent the throwing of explosives between the contiguous Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods. The photographs allow the viewer to contemplate what qualities of urban life are lost when barriers dominate the landscape. In contrast to the Belfast series, despairing images at the site of the monumental Israeli West Bank wall from 2004 and 2005 offer little hope for resolution. An audio guide, in which the artist describes her personal experiences, and a display of published maps with 31 locations of barriers expand the context of the exhibition. *Photos on pages 30 and 31
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Sunset over Northern Limit Line, Dragon’s Teeth, Baengnyeongdo, 2013 Photo: Yishay Garbasz
Seagull migration across mine field near Sabajawi Rock, north shore of Baengnyeongdo, 2014 Photo: Yishay Garbasz,
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Rice field just before the harvest with target of North Korean soldier as a scarecrow, Baengnyeongdo, 2014 Photo: Yishay Garbasz,
Tunnel Road No. 2, 2004
Photo: Yishay Garbasz,
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Spoken Word
Lee Mokobe is an award-winning slam poet who explores social injustice and gender identity issues. He is also the founder of Vocal Revolutionaries, a volunteer-run literary organization focused on empowering African youth Source: Marla Aufmuth/TED
Lee Mokobe’s soul-baring description of what it feels like to be transgender in a highly gendered culture JENNIFER SEFA-BOAKYE outh African slam poet and the youngest TED2015 Fellow Lee Mokobe was invited to give a talk as part of the TEDWomen conference in Monterey, California. During the event, the then 19-year old poet and activist, whose work deals with social injustice and gender identity issues, delivered a stirring autobiographical poem in which he came out as transgender.Lee Mokobe is seeking to be the first transgender African to compete at the Brave New Voices International Poetry Competition. In 2013, Mokobe’s South African slam poetry team, also called Vocal Revolutionaries, made it to the final stage of the Brave New Voices global poetry competition in Chicago. The first team from the African continent to compete, they came second of the 55 teams in the world that were shortlisted.
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A powerful poem about what it feels like to be transgender The first time I uttered a prayer was in a glass-stained cathedral. I was kneeling long after the congregation was on its feet, dip both hands into holy water, trace the trinity across my chest, my tiny body drooping like a question mark all over the wooden pew. I asked Jesus to fix me, and when he did not answer I befriended silence in the hopes that my sin would burn and salve my mouth would dissolve like sugar on tongue, but sha me lingered as an aftertaste. And in an attempt to reintroduce me to sanctity, my mother told me of the miracle I was, and said I could grow up to be anything I want. I decided to be a boy. It was cute. I had a snapback, toothless grin, used skinned knees as street cred, played hide an seek with what was left of my goal. I was it.
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Source: speakerpedia
poem continues on p38
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The winner to a ga me the other kids couldn’t play I was the mystery of anatomy, a question asked but not answered, tight-roping between awkward boy and apologetic girl, and when I turned 12, the boy phase wasn’t deemed cute anymore. It was met with nostalgic aunts who missed seeing my knees in the shadow of skirts, who reminded me that my kind of attitude would never bring a husband home, that I exist for heterosexual marriage and child-bearing. And I swallowed their insults along with their slurs. Naturally, I did not come out of the closet. The kids at my school opened it without my permission Called me by a na me I did not recognize, said “lesbian”, but I was more boy than girl, more Ken than Barbie. It had nothing to do with hating my body, I just love it enough to let it go, I treat it like a house, and when your house is falling apart, you do not evacuate, you make it comfortable enough to house all your insides, you make it pretty enough to invite guests over, you make the floorboards strong enough to stand on.
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Source: Michael Bryant
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My mother fears I have na med myself after fading things. As she counts the echoes left behind by Mya Hall, Leelah Alcorn, Blake Brokington. She fears that I’ ll die without a whisper, that I’ ll turn into “what a sha me” conversations at the bus stop. She claims I have turned myself into a mausoleu m, that I a m a walking casket, news headlines have turned my identity into a spectacle, Bruce Jenner on everyone’s lips while the brutality of living in this body becomes an asterisk at the bottom of equality pages. No one ever thinks of us as hu man because we are more ghost than flesh, because people fear that my gender expression is a trick, that it exists to be perverse, that it ensnares them without their consent that my body is a feast for their eyes and hands and once they have fed off my queer, they’ ll regurgitate all the parts they did not like. They’ ll put me back into the closet, hang me with all the other skeletons. I will be the best attraction.
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Source: Jam That Session
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Can you see how easy it is to talk people into coffins, to misspell their na mes on gravestones. And people still wonder why there are boys rotting, they go away in high school hallways they are afraid of becoming another hashtag in a second afraid of classroom discussions becoming like judgement day and now oncoming traffic is embracing more transgender children than parents. I wonder how long it will be before the trans suicide nots start to feel redundant, before we realise that our bodies become lessons about sin way before we learn to love them. Like God didn’t save all this breath and mercy, like my blood is not the wine that washed over Jesus’ feet. My prayers are now getting stuck in my throat. Maybe I a m finally fixed, maybe I just don’t care, maybe God finally listened to my prayers.
- Lee Mokobe
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Lee Mokobe via Instagram
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Series
Photographer: Austin Hargrave
“Sense8” star Jamie Clayton talks trans representation, Nomanita and LGBT leads DANIELA COSTA ave you binge watched Netflix’s new sci-fi drama series Sense8 yet? Well you don’t need any more reason than trans lesbian lead Nomi Marks. Nomi, played by the brilliant Jamie Clayton, is a hacker and political blogger living in San Francisco with her girlfriend Amanita (Freema Agyeman). Nomi is one of eight people (Sensates) connected to each other mentally who must fight together to keep their kind alive. It’s interesting to note that Clayton is a trans person playing a character who is trans. With out trans director Lana Wachowski behind the wheel, Nomi is in good hands. “As an actor what I do is bring my emotional experience and my life to the parts of it when I’m acting out the things that are on the page,” Jamie said. Equally as interesting is the fact that the series doesn’t focus on Nomi transitioning: She’s already living the life she wants. Clayton says this is certainly an aspect of the part that appealed to her. “There’s so much more to Nomi than her transition, her transness,” Jamie said. “And it’s really funny to me that, for a show that has all the diversity that Sense8 has, and how excited everybody is about the diversity and the global scale. That every single one of our main characters has a job in the media, except for Nomi. Nomi’s the trans one. It’s really interesting. Nomi’s so much more than that. But that definitely is something that appealed to me about her. You know, it’s part of who she is. It will always be part of who she is. But she’s living her life. She’s moved on from it.” “I don’t like the word trans being used in front of anybody’s job title, like trans hacker, trans actress,” Jamie said. “The media likes to use it as a disclaimer. Until the world at large and the media are more comfortable with trans people, and the word trans is used as an accolade, I’m not comfortable with Nomi being referred to as a
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trans hacker. She’s a hacker, who is trans.” Nomi is a very special character, indeed. She’s an on-screen representation of the fact that gender identity and sexual orientation are two separate things. “As long as people don’t know the difference I think it’s incredibly important that we keep showing it, and keep showing it in a relatable way,” Jamie said. “The thing that I love about Nomi and Amanita’s relationship–Nomanita, if you will–is it’s such a middle finger to anyone who has a more conservative view of what a relationship is supposed to look like. They have the healthiest relationship as a couple on the show, as far as honesty–like just across the board, completely. And they’re interracial, and they’re trans, and they’re lesbians. And so it’s this new way of looking at healthy love and saying it doesn’t have to look like what you were taught it’s supposed to look like. And I love that. I think it’s extremely important.” “Amanita knows that Nomi is living in her truth. And she’s living her complete true whole life. There’s real trust and real honesty in their relationship. And I love that about them,” Jamie said. “I think it’s important to show that these people are important enough that we can be part of the roots of the show. We’re the anchor that holds it together,” Jamie said. “It’s important that LGBT people be represented as much as we can on shows. And in any way possible. But I think what we’re doing that no one’s ever done before is that we’re being shown as lead characters, we’re being shown in love, we’re being shown having sex, we’re being shown at work. We’re stable people with jobs and with lovers and with whole rounded lives. You know, we’re not these fractioned people that have no friends, that are depressed. We’re living.”
Above: Jamie Clayton Photographer: Austin Hargrave Below: Jamie Clayton as Nomi and Freema Agyeman Source: Netfix
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Series
Transgender actress Deonay Balie who plays Geneviève Du Preez in 7de Laan Source: Twitter
7de Laan welcomes first transgender actress to the show
Thinus Ferreira he popular series, 7de Laan has reached a milestone by introducing the first transgender actress in its cast. Deonay Balie who plays Geneviève Du Preez was introduced as the first transgender actress on the soapie. Balie said that it’s an important achievement to be one of the few – if not the only – transgender actress seen on local television screens. She said: “There’s no well-known transgender actress in soapies. And LGBT people (lesbian, gay, bisexual and
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transgender people) do have a need to tell their stories.” Deonay, a primary school teacher in Steinkopf in the Northern Cape, said that she isn’t too worried about the backlash her role might create though: “I’d much rather listen to why they don’t like having a transgender woman in the series and then talk about it. I’m a tough cookie. I’ll remind people that you don’t have to agree with someone but you should respect each other.” And as a matter of fact, it seems viewers are applauding the series for stepping up !
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September 2017
Lili Elbe : Painter
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Brendan Jordan: Youtuber
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November 2017
Laverne Cox: Actress