landback chudette

Woman's beaded leather moccasins with blue beaded field and antelope and bird design

Unknown Artist, Cheyenne, early 20th century, glass, sinew, hides

Woman's beaded leather moccasins with hard sole. Blue beaded field with geometric designs around perimeter. Zoomorphic designs on vamp. Split “V” cuff. All beadwork done with lazy stitch.

Curatorial Remarks

So, if the logic of transphobia is that we are actually men, how the hell do we explain the fact that we occupy a social position significantly below those that transphobes believe to be actually women? There's only one way to make sense of it: that the nature of our "failure" (i.e. the direction of our transition) brings about a massive extra social penalty. That's exactly what "transmisogyny" refers to: this extra form of oppression that sits on top of transphobia, and whose existence is necessary to explain the data that we see in the real world. It's just like physicists theorising Dark Matter: the universe is not behaving how it should according to our current theory, so there's a new force we need to incorporate to make it make sense.

In light of this, what purpose is served by hypothesising a counterpart to transmisogyny called "transan***phobia"? What data is unexplained by the current model? Are trans men being treated even worse than we would expect based on how transphobia operates? I am not aware of any evidence for that, nor of any transan***phobia theorists who even think about oppression in this way. Instead, it's far more common for them to understand "transmisogyny" as "any oppression a trans woman experiences", and to think, "but I also experience oppression, so I need a counterpart name for my oppression", and then land on "transan***phobia", "transmis***ry", "anti-transmas***inity", etc.

They don't understand that transmisogyny is a specific form of oppression due specifically to transition direction, it sits on top of transphobia, misogyny, and anything else, it doesn't displace them. To say, as many transfeminists do, that "transan***phobia doesn't exist" is not to say that trans men do not face oppression. It's just the assertion that the direction of their transition does not incur any extra oppression on top of what they already experience due to transphobia and misogyny (which is a lot!).

I find it useful to think about which specific form of oppression I am facing in each situation. E.g. I am walking down the street and some guy wolf-whistles at me (that's misogyny, it's the presumption that my body is a sexual object for men's gratification). I tell him to fuck off, but he hears my voice is weirdly deep and then clocks me and shouts "You're a man!" (that's transphobia, he had noticed a disconnect between my gender presentation and what he presumes to be my AGAB). He chases after me, swearing, screaming, calling me a T-slur, etc, and I have to run really fast to avoid getting beaten up (that's transmisogyny, it's an instinctive disgust reaction that he probably couldn't even articulate why he feels so strongly about). Transmasculine people are likely to be able to relate to the first two experiences but not the third.

congrats! Now you have a motif! A recurring theme! A focus for your art! Something to haunt you!

Seventeen still lives of dandelions? Three hundred poems about grief? A sketchbook dedicated to your grandmother’s house? Two books trying to unravel the complexities of familial relationships?

An early exploration of the themes Hokusai would keep coming back to is Spring in Enoshima, done in 1793 when he was 33. The wave is small and there are no boats, but Mt Fuji is clear in the background, and Enoshima is in Kanagawa, so we are clearly beginning to work towards something here.

A second pass, eleven years later in 1803 when he was 44. The title of this one begins to get more familiar: The View of Honmoku Off Kanazawa. It has a towering wave over a smaller boat, but Mt Fuji is not present, and the boat is considerably larger and has a sail. But the feeling of danger in the wave and the smallness of the boat are here, and of course the general composition is definitely recognizable.

This is A View Of Express Delivery Boats, done in 1805, merely two years later at age 46. Here we find the wave and the boats almost exactly as we'll find them in The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, though Mt Fuji isn't present, and the location is uncertain. And it's a good picture! The wave is threatening, the boats are small -- but the feeling of "ocean" isn't really there yet, is it? It's unlikely this picture would have become a classic for the ages. But that's okay, there's still time.

And here we have it, a full 26 years later, done by Hokusai in 1831 at the age of 72. The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, one of the most recognizable pieces of art in the world. The boats are there, the mountain is there, the wave is there, and the FEELING is there. He did it! He reached the apex of his ongoing motif and theme!

Or did he? Because the whole point of a motif is not that you're striving to get to the perfect version of it, the one idealized image you carried in your head all along, and when it is done, you are also done. Hokusai is on record at the age of 73 saying he'd only just begun to feel like he was learning how to draw things properly, and that "if I keep up my efforts, I will have even a better understanding when I was 80 and by 90 will have penetrated to the heart of things. At 100, I may reach a level of divine understanding, and if I live decades beyond that, everything I paint — dot and line — will be alive." He had drawn The Great Wave, but he didn't believe he was finished -- he thought that he was still just beginning to get started.

And he wasn't finished with his ocean motif, either. Please check out his Mt Fuji At Sea, done in 1834 at the age of 75.

"Nanye-Hi, Leader of Dreams"

Btw her name was Eats-no-meat and she was Cayuse or Umatilla. Here is that photograph in the Denver Public Library collection. She was photographed by a Lee Moorhouse in 1900.