#transilient

Transilient is a photo and interview based project that documents transgender and gender non conforming people in their day-to-day lived realities while using only their voices. The project humanizes trans people through discussing things outside of their gender journey, and incorporating their lives into the overall human experience with an understanding of our many intersections. The project intends to destroy a notion that trans folks are only trans and do not have a much going on outside of their gender identity.

Right now, they're raising funds to head northwest. Donations will help cover the cost of the trip and a book documenting their travels.

Learn more about the project and the creators at wearetransilient.com and please share/donate at https://www.youcaring.com/transilient-745482

Transilient is featured in the newest issue of Original Plumbing Magazine!

JONAH WELCH, AUSTIN, TEXAS

“I have always doodled and in college I would use sketch books for my notes and draw during class. It’s always been something I’ve done but art really opened up for me when a friend of mine looked at some of work during my freshman year. She was an artist too and said, “You have something really unique here and I think you should work hard at this and keep going.” That really inspired me to get a little more serious about it and then it progressed to a point where I decided that making art is what I wanted to do with my life. In the past, I’ve done art activism, mostly with theatre, but what I really want to do is create graphic novels and stories that have trans and queer characters in them. Not just in the melancholy trope that surrounds queer and trans characters. I want to create very accessible stories that queer and trans people can relate to. I’m not really making a lot of money off of it now but it just feels really nice to get my work out there. I sell my work cheap so I can scatter it and give it to people need it. My business model is “Steal from the cis and give to the trans.” My goal is not to make money off my community but if a cis person wanted to pay a bunch for my work I would be down so that way I can give my work to trans folks. I am writing a book but work full time too. It’s a lot of work but I am motivated to get it done.

GRIFFIN, DENVER, COLORADO 

"I met these punk kids through the GSA at my school and I became the singer in a street punk band by the time I was fourteen. One year I was mortified, had no voice and felt so defeated by all these people and the next year I was at X-Games street park screaming about how much I hated suburbia.I hung out with straight, punk, white guys, who were all huge and they protected me in my high school of three thousand kids. There was only two percent of minorities. It was a farm town and a really republican country. Lots of backwards ideals. Do you guys remember what Scene is? I was so scene. I was really recognized on MySpace for that. I was huge! I had no friends in my town but I had 10,000 friends on the internet. It’s funny because I have had so many opportunities to explore my gender in various ways. Ultimately having all these brothers and a dad who was really into America and the military, he’s a barbecue everyday type guy, anyways I think that’s what put me in the place where I couldn’t really accept my transition.

Sexually, I had repressed myself so much because of my abuse as a kid. I thought I was gender non-conforming and asexual. Then I started to really be honest with myself. I was doing lots of yoga at that point and focusing on my health and who I was as a person. I remember one of my Yoga teachers saying “You have all these beautiful expressions in all of your yoga poses but I don’t see the heart in it”. That just destroyed me. I thought about it and it was true. The skill was there but the passion was invisible. I took it to heart and I started to think about how I didn’t show who I was ever. Through yoga and really sitting with myself I came to understand my gender identity and I started small at first. A hair tie can make all the difference in the beginning.

Transitioning has not been easy but I am happy to know who I am. Because I was able to pass so quickly I was experiencing cat calling and all of the stuff women go through right from the start and it was so scary. I had to learn how to hold my ground and how to say no. I was a virgin until March of last year. Due to the abuse I endured as a child and being uncomfortable with myself, I just never had wanted to have sex. The part of transitioning where I experience the most hardship has been that all of these cisgender men want to have sex with me but they don’t want to commit to the fact that they did have sex with me. They think of it as a gay experience instead of just a sexual experience. The hardest part is that I have really worked on myself and I have gotten to this place where I am comfortable with myself but I have to remember that I can’t beat myself up because I have gone through so many changes so fast.