CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN

ARTIST BIO: Aaron El Sabrout (he/him) is an Egyptian/American transgender artist, writer, gardener, and lawyer. He currently lives on unceded Haudenosaunee territory. Aaron has spent time living in Cairo, Egypt and Doha, Qatar, as well as throughout North America. His work considers Arab, African, North American, and Indigenous cultural perspectives in creating a decolonial framework.

As a trans person, he is always trying to challenge rigid binaries and categorizations. In his professional life, he is an abolitionist lawyer supporting movements and incarcerated people. In his artistic life he combines poetry, illustration, and comic-making as a vehicle for collective liberation. Most days he is out tending his garden, harvesting wild medicines, and learning from and being with the land.

STATEMENT: I’m a trans guy who grew up Muslim. I was repeatedly forced to de-transition by my parents including getting plastic surgery I didn’t want and being sent to a conversion therapist. I have since transitioned but remain gender nonconforming. In creating this piece I wanted to focus the attention away from the harms that trans youth experience. Trans youth go through so much between repressive parents and society preventing them from transition or even de-transitioning them, as well as the pressures of cis-sexist society that force us to try to pass once we do transition. While those pressures are still present, I wanted more to highlight resilience and growth. That’s why I chose to refocus on the character growing and changing rather than the forces that want to prevent them from doing so or control their journey. They might be in a dry and lonely place, they might have people trying to hold them back, but they've come very far and the light is starting to break over the mountaintop.

SOCIAL MEDIA:

Socials are: @toreachpoise.

Wensite: aaronelsabrout.myportfolio.com