GendeRevolution

“We both are in the middle, and nobody teases us for it.”

Know your Trans Herstory.

“How TERF violence inspired Camp Trans,” beginning in 1991 when trans woman Nancy Burkholder was kicked out off Michigan Womyn’s Festival.

Know your Herstory to be aware of the exclusionary garbage to avoid at all costs, and what kind of trans solidarity we can celebrate and be inspired by.

Just sos you know, there have been trans lesbians since forever – in fact a large portion, maybe even a majority, of trans discourse (and queer discourse on trans people) since the 1970s has revolved around trans lesbians due to the radical feminist responses to them (see: Olivia Records, Sandy Stone’s The Empire Strikes Back, Transsexual Empire, Beth Elliott and the Daughters of Bilitis, MichFest and Camp Trans et al.). There was a radical trans lesbian experimental film that discussed (in slightly different language) almost exactly the politics a lot of y'all are talking about today called Gender Troublemakers made in 1993 by then-girlfriends Mirha-Soleil Ross (as Jeanne B.) and the late Xanthra MacKay. The two of them also produced a trans punk zine called Gendertrash From Hell around the same time, some issues of which are available online. There’s a whole bunch of trans lez literature out there (poetry by Trish Salah comes to mind, and of course Nevada by Imogen Binnie). Sylvia Rivera herself, patron saint of the trans movement, may not have identified as a lesbian but was in a relationship with a woman.

It takes so much more energy to argue with a person about their pronoun preference than it does to respect it.

If you like my shirt, I’ve made it available for you all at TheBrklynStore.com

Hate being misgendered? Love cool skulls? Then grab one of these! Help me raise money for school supplies and groceries by grabbing a stcker, shirt, bag or print while also destroying the gender binary! There are plenty of products so please help me out!

Prints, bags, stickers and  more:

He/him    they/them    she/him    she/her

Wanna buy the designs on a shirt? Grab them here:

He/him    they/them    she/him    she/her

Are’nt comfortable with sharing or have no pronouns and want to represent yourself as the fierce colorful being that you are? Here’s a link to the post with links for the same designs without pronouns!

10 Week Blog Project - week 10

Genderfluid 

One who is genderfluid can fluctuate between genders. Sometimes they identify as male, sometimes they identify as female, sometimes they identify as neither or both genders. This fluctuation can happen daily, weekly, monthly, etc. 

Can you explain the concept of the cis gaze?

Hari Nef: The cis gaze looks at trans people. It just looks. It looks at our bodies. It doesn’t hear, it only sees. It makes its own conclusions and associations based on its own experiences – which are, of course, cisgender. The cis gaze takes a trans person and scoops out everything that makes them unique. Within the cis gaze, the trans body becomes a paper doll to be posed, superimposed, dressed up, dressed down. The cis gaze asks what the trans body can do for it.

What was the best thing about working with an all trans team?

I want to focus on the positive, but a better question might be “What’s the worst thing about working with a cisgender team?” Almost every time I show up on set, I prepare myself for misgendering, clothes that don’t flatter my body, problematic moodboard references – the list goes on. When I work with trans folks I don’t have to think about any of that because we’re all thinking about it. I can just work. I cherish every collaboration, but collaboration doesn’t necessarily entail sympathy, empathy, or mutual understanding. With a trans team however, it’s all there.

Can you explain a bit more about about the importance of gender diverse casting?

Diversity is everything. Inclusion leads to understanding, demystification, destigmatisation. Fashion has the power to glorify bodies and identities – to include them in a narrative of luxury and beauty. I’ve only worked in the industry for a few years, but I know it well enough to conclude that an appeal to social justice and civil rights via fashion casting will fall on dead ears. The fashion industry does not care about these things, and it probably never will. It does, however, care about what’s new and contemporary –because that sells. It cares about consumers.

The internet has exposed a generation of consumers to luxury which in no way resembles the fashion audience of the past. There are people of colour buying luxury; there are trans people buying luxury; there are disabled people buying luxury; there are plus-size people buying luxury. They’re out there, they have a million followers, and they deserve to be reflected in contemporary fashion imagery. Why do I wear Eckhaus Latta, Vejas, and Hood By Air? Because the clothes are great, but also because they use transgender models. Do the math.