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  Click on the title above to watch a short video released by the ACLU in 2017. Time Marches Forward and So Do We (2017) written by trans artist Zachary Drucker, narrated by award-winning actress Laverne Cox and with art from Molly Crabapple. The video is a reaction towards the questioning of the ACLU’s involvement with trans* rights as many consider trans* individuals to be fairly modern and to be so few and far between that they don’t need a movement. According to ACLU staff attorney, Chase Strangio, this video “tells this story of trans history and resistance, which is as relevant and as urgent now as ever.”. It is because of the work of the people depicted in the video and all transgender people and activists that transgender existence has had the space to thrive in recent years.

   Their activism has led to developments in trans* visibility in media, legal protections, and has led to a more nuanced understanding of gender. Transgender activism has also made its way into academia in the form of Transgender Studies. Leading transgender studies, scholar and activist, Susan Stryker has worked tirelessly to foster a comprehensive understanding of transgender life in academia. With the help of Stephen Whittle, Stryker put together a collection of texts that document the history and evolution of transgender studies and theories. These theories in conjunction with the life experiences of the people discussed in the ACLU video can work to continue to create a better and safer world for transgender folk.

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Camp Trans activists across from the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, 1994

Mariette Pathy Allen

  Nancy Burkholder was kicked out of the 1991 Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival after being ousted as a trans woman. The festival cited their “womyn-born-womyn” policy, an exclusionary policy, that effectively banned trans women from entering the “land”. The following year, and for years following, trans activists picketed the festival eventually forming Camp Trans who fought to gain access and acceptance at the festival.

   While this is an often cited instance of transfeminist activism, in her article “Whose Feminism Is It Anyway?”, author Emi Koyama, argues that the Camp Trans’ original goal to gain access to the festival for post-operative trans women only is racist and classist in its inconsideration for low to middle class trans women (most often women of color) who did not have the same kind of access to those surgeries as wealthier (most often white) trans women did. Koyama’s argument is a reminder that we must maintain an intersectional analysis in order to be inclusive of all identities.

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Behind The Scenes At The Chiang Mai Cabaret Show

Paula Bronstein

The images above show Pom and Dream, two ladyboy cabaret dancers in Chiang Mai, Thailand. These cabaret shows are generally performed for white tourists.

Thailand is a popular tourist destination for many reasons, but recently it has become the place for medical tourism, particularly for trans individuals seeking sex reassignment surgery (SRS). Thailand’s male to female (MTF) transgender folk usually identify as “ladyboys” or “Kathoey” and are fairly accepted, particularly in the urban centers such as Bangkok, Pattaya, and Phuket. In “The Romance of the Amazing Scalpel” Aren. Z Aizura argues that the reason for this is because of the eroticizing and exoticizing of non-western places like Thailand. The idea of the “erotic orient” as described in Orientalism by Edward Said, has been created by western notions of “the Orient”. However, Aizura asserts that the effective or emotional labor of the people who live and work there helps to create this kind of mystical life-changing experience for (usually western) tourism. Western tourists feed into this oriental idea that queer bodies are unequivocally accepted in Thai society regardless of the lack of legal protection for Thai LGBTQ citizens. In his research into SRS clinics in Thailand Aizura points out the difference in care for Thai patients. Many of the native patients reported that the quality of care they received was not as inclusive as foreign patients. Furthermore, these kinds of surgeries can be completely inaccessible to many of the native Kathoey’s who cannot afford it, such as the cabaret dancers shown above. 

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In The Name Of

Colin Laurel

In 2014 “Forward Together” and “The Audre Lorde Project” organized a group of artists and poets to create art pieces for Trans Day of Resilience. Trans Day of Resilience celebrates the ongoing strength and power of the Trans community Trans Day of Resilience is a response to the Trans Day of Remembrance that was started in 1999 to honor the lives of Trans people that were murdered in transphobic hate crimes. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) have done studies showing that the large majority of transphobic murders are trans women of color.

In the introduction to the Transgender Studies Quarterly’s: “Towards a Black Trans* /Studies”, scholar Kai Green and colleagues discuss the collection of works for this special edition of TSQ. Through an interdisciplinary collection of works this edition examines the institutionalization of Transgender Studies and it’s intersections with Black Studies. With the use of Black Feminist theory, the injunction of Black and Trans* studies has the potential to do groundbreaking work for the trans women of color being disproportionately murdered daily.

Below are links to the rest of the works for Trans Day of Resilience from Forward Together as well as to the poem by Niko Shahbazian that accompanies this work.

Forward Together

Niko Shahbazian ‘In the Name Of’

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Rosie The Riveter

John Burke

Burke recontextualized eight illustrations from classic Americana artist, Norman Rockwell with transgender Floridians for Nude Nite art expo in 2017. After hearing stories from his models about their fear of disclosing their gender identity to employers, some going as far as leaving their homes in search of communities and workplaces that would accept them, Burke used this series of works to empower his models and show trans* folk comfortable and empowered behind the camera. By using Norman Rockwell’s works alongside his own, Burke highlights the similarities between his trans models and the picturesque characters depicted in Rockwell’s works in hopes of opening minds towards acceptance. Rosie the Riveter was the face of the working women of the industrial revolution. By depicting a trans* woman in all her strength and glory, Burke reiterates transgender peoples contribution to the workforce. 

Emmanuel David discusses the nuances of transgender labor that he calls “purple-collar labor” in his article focusing on Philippine call centers, “Transgender Workers and Queer Value at Global Call Centers in the Philippines”. In this article, David investigates the workplace inequalities that occur when trans* individuals are incorporated into corporate life. He hopes that this article can be a catalyst for further studies into trans* politics in workplaces.

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Adrienne

Dayna Danger

In “Double-Weaving Two Spirit Critiques”, Qwo-li Driskill introduces the theories of Two-Spirit critiques. Two-spirit critiques is a weaving of the dissent between Native and queer studies. These Two-Spirit critiques examine the relationship of modern native persons within the colonial contexts in which we live. Among the examinations done by Two-Spirit critiques are how native peoples are often “disappeared” by non-native narratives about natives as well as the ways in which western patriarchy enacts violence and genocide on native bodies. Driskill asserts that among the scholars furthering Two-Spirit critiques are artists and activists outside of institutionalized education. 

An example of an artist practicing two-spirit critiques is Dayna Danger with her hand-beaded BDSM masks. The prints of her friends wearing the masks are intentionally huge. She wishes to take up as much space as possible to counteract all the space that western societies have taken from native peoples. 

Danger discusses the reclamation of native sexuality with her masks in this quote

“Indigenous peoples’ sexualities are frequently equated to histories of sexual violence, commodified and institutionalized by settlers seeking to dominate, discipline, and control Indigenous bodies. Danger’s use of the leather BDSM mask references the kink community as a space to explore complicated dynamics of sexuality, gender, and power in a consensual and feminist manner. Danger engages with her own medicine, beading, in order to mark kink as a space for healing colonial trauma. There is no shame in this action. Here the models’ gender expressions and sensual lives are integral to their resurgent identities as Indigenous peoples.”

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PISSED

Cassils 

This 200-day performance piece commenced on February 23rd, the day that the Trump administration rescinded a policy passed in the Obama era that allowed trans* people to use whichever restroom matched their gender identity rather than biological sex determined at birth. Rather than starting a campaign to send urine to the White House, an act that could be considered an act of terrorism. Cassils collected their own urine every day for the 200 days that lead up to the showing of Cassils exhibition at the Ronald Feldman Gallery in New York. The preservation, logistics, and not to mention having to carry and pee in bottles led the artist to describe this performance as one of the hardest they have ever done; however, this really drives home the point of the piece. While discussing the piece with Noah Michelson for HuffPost Cassils states,

“First of all, there’s the act of saving your piss and holding your piss really replicates the experience one feels when they’re cognizant of what their body needs to do to empty their bladder, be it in a public space or a private space and all of the anxiety that comes along with this.”

Students and scholars at the University of California Santa Barbara formed People in Search of Safe and Accessible Restrooms (PISSAR) in the early 2000s to pinpoint and combat exclusionary restrooms and the systems that allow bodies that are considered queer, including parents with children, disabled, homeless, and genderqueer people to be ignored and excluded from necessary spaces such as restrooms. Their PISSAR checklist is an excellent resource to assess the accessibility of restrooms for everyone that is impacted by ignorant bathroom politics.

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Crisis 

Rachel Dolezal

In June of 2015 president of a Washington chapter of the NAACP, Rachel Dolezal, became a household name when she was “outed” as being a white woman identifying and living as a black woman. This happened at the same time that Caitlyn Jenner was starting to tell her story as a trans woman. Scholar Kai Green controversially argues in his article, “Race and gender are not the same!” is not a Good Response to the “Transracial”/ Transgender Question OR We Can and Must Do Better”, that acceptance of Caitlyn's transgender identity means that we must also accept Rachels “transracial” identity. He argues that, like gender, race is a social construct and they are both historically “(re)produced” through our actions. 

Green’s article and the Rachel Dolezal situation sparks an interesting conversation in Transgender studies about the relationships between race and gender. 

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Pearl Bailey

Vaginal Davis

Vaginal Creme Davis revolutionized drag in the 1970′s with what queer theorist José Esteban Muñoz called “terrorist drag”. He states,” ‘terrorist’ insofar as she is performing the nation's internal terrors around race, gender, and sexuality...Davis's political drag is about creating an uneasiness in desire, which works to confound and subvert the social fabric. At the center of all of Davis's cultural productions is a radical impulse toward cultural critique.” Davis contended with their identity as an intersex mixed-race individual in their drag performances as well as in the many DIY punk projects that they took on including multiple punk bands that contended with mainstream society. 

Davis’s more recent works like the one above are still queering and contending with mainstream ideas of what is correct and incorrect. This series of works are done on a canvas the size of an index card using beauty products to create abstract depictions of forgotten celebrities. Above, she uses  watercolor paper, nail varnish, glycerin, witch hazel, mascara, eyebrow pencil, Jean Nate perfume, Afro Sheen hair conditioner, hair spray, and pomade. 

Davis’s work uses humor and shock to critique every level of identities, hers and others, that has created a world in which strangeness is ostracized. 

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Works Cited

Aizura, Aren Z. "The Romance of the Amazing Scalpel." Queer Bangkok, 2011, 143-62.  

Chess, Simone, et al. “Calling All Restroom Revolutionaries.”That's Revolting, 2004, pp. 189–206.

Green, Kai. "We Got Issues: Toward Black/Trans* Studies."" TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 4, no. 2 (2017): 162-69.

Holmes, Jessica, Zachary Small, Hakim Bishara, Dan Schindel, O.K. Fox, and John Yau. "Delicate Paintings from Drag Icon Vaginal Davis Meet Monumental Sculpture From Louise Nevelson." Hyperallergic. October 10, 2017. https://hyperallergic.com/404968/delicate-paintings-from-drag-icon-vaginal-davis-meet-monumental-sculpture-from-louise-nevelson/.

Koyama, Emi.Whose Feminism Is It Anyway? Emi Koyama, 2000.

Michelson, Noah. “The Powerful Reason Why This Artist Has Been Saving His UrineForThe Last 200 Days.”HuffPost, HuffPost, 22 Sept. 2017,www.huffpost.com/entry/cassils-monumental-pissed-urine_n_59bbeacee4b0edff971b88f4.

Palm, Matthew J., and Matthew J. Palm. "Transgender Project Debuts at Nude Nite." Orlandosentinel.com. April 06, 2019. https://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/arts-and-theater/os-et-nude-nite-transgender-project-20170215-story.html.

Strangio, Chase. “Time Marches Forward and So Do We.” American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union, 11 Aug. 2017, www.aclu.org/blog/lgbt-rights/transgender-rights/time-marches-forward-and-so-do-we

Stryker, Susan, and Stephen Whittle. “(De)Subjugated Knowledges: An Introduction to Transgender Studies.” The Transgender Studies Reader, Routledge, 2006, pp. 1–17

Teaandbannock. "Masks – Dayna Danger." Tea&bannock. February 25, 2018. https://teaandbannock.com/2016/09/20/masks/.

Whaley, Natelegé. "Transgender Artists of Color Speak on Reclaiming Their Resilience in Powerful Art Project." Mic. May 07, 2019. https://www.mic.com/articles/186209/transgender-artists-of-color-speak-on-reclaiming-their-resilience-in-powerful-art-project.