Poet, Ethan Smith, recites his personal spoken word poem addressing a letter to the person he once was before he made his transition. The poet has been featured on Button Poetry, a community of writers and artists that participate in poetry slams and competitions across the United States. Over the course of 6 months after he began his transition, Smith decided to write a letter to the girl he used to be.
Before Smith came out as transgender, he was living in a small town in Washington state. He was confused about his gender identity, because there was little information available to him about what transgender is. After he graduated high school, he moved across the states to go to college in Boston. It was there that he realized his true gender identity. Briefly after moving to the East coast, he began the transition.
Smith’s poem titled, “A Letter to the Girl I Used to Be”, confronts his feelings toward his old self, Emily. He reveals his old name to the audience and his friends, some of whom have never heard of before. He admits that he is unsure if this is an apology or not for trying to erase Emily from his memory. On his 21st birthday, he remembers that Emily told a therapist that she said she wouldn’t live past her 21st birthday. But Ethan affirms this by reclaiming his survival through battling depression. Yes, Emily did not make it to 21, but Ethan did.
After overcoming his depression and writing this letter, Ethan Smith has won awards for his brilliant poetry and is a huge advocate for LGBTQ issues. Through his raw poetry, Smith has reached the hearts of thousands of people through the Button Poetry community. This poem has gained over 800,000 views on Youtube.
The idea of sex-reassignment surgery, mostly consisting of the lower regions of the body, has truly been known since the 1930s. However, castration has been accepted in several cultures for generations and was seen as a starter for transitioning, and also becoming less of a man and more of a female. Castration could make the female hormones present in all humans, multiply. Could also help breast tissue grow and reduce a beard. Throughout most of history, people would usually dress as the sex they wanted to be and hope that their bodies would not get in the way. Plastic surgery and facial recontruction surgery was usually saved for burn victims and wounded soldiers, but sometimes transitioning people would be allowed to have the surgery. But it was, and to this day, continues to be very expensive.
There are a handful of countries now that easily provide SRS. Most of them are in Europe, Iran and Thailand. All people who go through with the surgery must be a diagnosed transexual and have been dressing as the other sex for a period of time.
There has and continues to be a lot of contraversy around SRS, involving insurance, medical practiciers and the government itself. However, we as a society are making progress and while surgery may still not be available to everyone, hormones are much more readily available for all. We have made considerate progress, but the battle for everyone’s rights is not over yet.
1. Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law; Washington College of Law; American University (2014). Torture in Healthcare Settings: Reflections on the Special Rapporteur on Torture’s 2013 Thematic Report. Washington, DC: Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law.
“One is not born, rather, becomes a
woman” – Simone de Beauvoir
“You’re not a real woman.”
My
coworker claimed while we spoke on matters of my transgender identity and
whether Kaitlyn Jenner should acquire the title of this elusive woman.
“Well
you don’t have a vagina or ovaries, how can you call yourself a woman?” I am
angered, not because she states my identity doesn’t exist without an organ but
because she has reduced my identity and many other identities to a body part, including
herself. I don’t know how to respond to this abrasive argument but I state,
“Well
there are others that are born with both a vagina and a penis, what category
would and should they be placed in?” They are intersex but she doesn’t know
that.
“They are something else, a freak of nature.”
On a daily basis, I wonder why I
even bother to get myself involved in these situations of semantics. But
they’re not just semantics, they are vastly critical to our being, our
existence, and our place in the universe. These arguments that I endure for the
sake of my own identity is to keep my feet on the ground; because when your
behavior, expressions and even thoughts are almost always under scrutiny, you
begin to question if you belong to this world. Maybe that’s why a lot of trans
folks check out, they are made to feel like they don’t belong.
My mother was a very powerful woman; mentally, physically,
and spiritually. She was a child born into war and a mother of children born of
war. She traversed the jungles of Vietnam trying to escape the Viet Cong from
killing my older siblings and herself. Towering an hour away from 5 feet, my
mother was born in Vietnam but she was full Chinese. She married a Nationalist
Vietnamese soldier at 16 and he died not too long after. He was M.I.A. while my
mother was left to survive in Vietnam with my two older step brother and
sister. She managed to keep my older siblings alive after the Fall. After the
war, my mother was put into a Vietnamese re-education camp, a euphemism for a
death camp; those that broke and became zombies to the Communist regime were
set “free” and those that didn’t break, died in there. Even though my
mother escaped the prison, I felt like a strong piece of her died in there, but
then again, I never knew what she was like before the prison. I never knew a
young girl trying to understand the carnage around her. I just knew her as a
strong willed woman trying to escape Vietnam on a decrepit boat with her
family. I was one of those children that she carried on her back.
After I arrived in the United States and started my own
re-education in the American public school system, I began to get a stronger
sense of myself in this new environment. I was always a girly boy, I nurtured
many dolls and I dressed them as I saw myself in them; those memories of a
young boy clinging to his dolls stayed with me through my life like a dirty
sepia photograph. When my parents would go to work, they’d leave me with the
neighbors to play with their kids. I remember the first time that the parents ‘knew’
that I was a boy and saw my behavior towards dolls. They gave me a look that
was far different from my parents; their face morphed into a sharp displeasure.
I began to see that same grimace infecting people’s faces through most of my
life whenever anyone knew or misgendered me: at school, at work, and in
the world.
I must have been 7 or 8 years old the time I saw her. We
were in the car with my cousins and though I don’t remember where we were
driving to at the time but I knew we were driving down Garvey Blvd. in El
Monte, California. It was a major street in East Los Angeles that garnered many
folks from South America. We quickly drove by her but I remembered her clearly;
she was someone that I had never seen before. Her hair was long, falling down
her back. She wore a white wife beater and little jean short shorts. Her upper
frame was definitely larger from her bottom half; her shoulders were wide that
carried a lot of weight and strength. I wondered how her skinny legs could
carry that weight. Her face looked masculine to me at the time and that was the
major thing that I knew about her that she wasn’t your typical woman. She
carried the weight of both genders as she walked down the street in her little
thin chanclas. When my cousins saw her, they immediately called her a monster
and a freak. My older cousin said, “that hooker is gross.” From that time on, I
knew that I didn’t want to be her. I wasn’t a monster. I wasn’t a freak and I
didn’t know what a hooker was at that age but I knew that I wasn’t a hooker. I
was loved by my family and they would never speak of me like words the words I
heard were spoken of her.
The messages that we give to each
other about what it means to be a woman are insidious. I look by on my youth
and teenage years, and I realize how much I repressed all the behaviors that
were feminine. At that time in my life, I didn’t want to be those things that
were associated with womanhood, even though I was still placed in that category
by the men in my family and by people in society.
“Don’t walk like that, you look like a fucking girl.” My
older brother would say as he walked behind me.
“Cut your hair, you’re starting to look like a girl.” My dad
has said the summer in seventh grade when I tried to grow my hair like one of
the Hanson brothers.
One too many judgements of my being and my mind began to
police my actions. Stop acting like that, it’s embarrassing.
Even though I restricted my own feminine behavior because I
feared scrutiny. The images that I saw with the women in my life presented
another reality. They were all powerful. They commanded attention when they
spoke. They talked back to anyone, especially towards men that tried to shut
them down. They fought with their diamond clad will and they loved with a
synergistic profusion of vulnerability and strength.
I had been ignorant,
I didn’t understand the words to define my identity and I clung to the ‘gay’
label because it was the only word that I knew at the time that allowed me to
exist. Gay, lesbian, and straight were the only identities in the Suburbia of
Los Angeles county; there was nothing else for a person like myself. The label
‘gay’ was imposed on me by all the other ignorant folks around me. They saw
that I was effeminate for a ‘boy’ and so the only derogatory label that they
could use to hurt me, was ‘faggot’ and ‘gay.’ At 13 years old, I came out as
gay as a means to be okay with myself; to like myself in some way without
having to police myself. I had become numb to the way others treated my
feminine body that I didn’t care. I had to take agency in that anger that was
built up in my oppressed and repressed self.
I was awakened by a phone call the morning my grandmother
had died. She had been diagnosed with lung cancer for two years before the
disease took her.
“Hello?”
My mother was on the other line; her
sobs uncontrollable. It was something I found difficult to understand since she
didn’t reveal much sadness while I was growing up. She’d have powerful fits of
laughter in small frequencies but the rest of the time; she was focused on
work. As a child, I thought she lost her ability to show a lot of emotions from
being ravaged by the Vietnam War. I concluded that she blocked out all of her
emotions as a defense mechanism during the war to handle the atrocities and the
carnage in her little Da Nang world.
“Say goodbye to your grandma. She’s
gone.” She tried to speak through the line but her sobs overcame her ability to
speak to me. If she had tried to say it to me in English, I wouldn’t have
understood her at all. I could hear some of my aunts and my uncle in the
background; some were crying while others were talking in the room.
“Goodbye Grandma. Goodbye,” I said into my android’s receiver. I felt
foolish as I repeated my goodbyes. Wherever my grandmother was at that point,
she might have heard my farewells. Then my mother hung up the phone, a
trademark of my mother’s inability to communicate with most folks. I always
knew the conversation was over when I heard the ‘click’.
I got out of bed that morning and as
I was making my bed, I began to sob uncontrollably as well. Hearing the
inaudible heaving coming out of my dry mouth, I noticed how uncomfortable it
was to hear my own cries. I thought I also lost the ability to sob through the years,
yet the death of the matriarch in my mother’s family sparked some life in me. I
was close to my grandmother; we shared many adventures in the Los Angeles Chinatown
during my childhood. Yet I never even knew her birth name or bothered to ask
her how old she was or when she was born. It wasn’t something you would ask an
adult; that was a sign of disrespect, as if you were challenging their
memories.
After my grandmother’s funeral, I
began to have night terrors. In my dreams, I remember being focused on how I
was treated with horror and with fear that were all too familiar. I wondered
why, and the dream became a nightmare. I realized that the dream could be a prophecy.
I saw myself; I had become an old man. I was Tiresias and cursed by the
Goddess. I was the grandfather I never knew. I was in someone else’s body
and someone else’s life. I woke up in tears that night and could not fall back
asleep.
As I lay in bed, the cold of the
room touched my face and somehow managed to creep into my hands. I thought
about death and more about life in the following months. I remember how many
times I’ve said, “I’m not happy with myself” in my life. I began to pull the chains
and links together and more and more, it became clearer and clearer to me. I
had to live my life authentically. I couldn’t pretend to be a projection in a
play anymore. The roles that I’ve played have brought mostly trouble into my
life. In that dead December night, I decided that I would begin the necessary
steps to transition into a woman.
I have been a boy. I have been a
girl. I have been a young man. And now I’m a trans woman. Deep down, I know
that the closest archetype that I can aspire to be is a woman, it’s a process
that took nearly three decades of my existence to figure out. My identity today
may fit in the woman box and though I place myself in that box for the comfort
of others around me and for myself, my physical body doesn’t begin to tell them
of the experiences of my essence. Because I have clung to labels of my past and
shed them like a caterpillar flying out of its cocoon, the idea of identity
baffles me. What I was twenty years ago is definitely not what I was 20 minutes
ago. Identity is so fragile, for we think that that things we set ourselves to
be is so fixed but we are in a constant state of transformation.
CeCe McDonald is a trans woman of color, who faced an enormous amount of sexual and physical violence, abuse, and discrimination, in her short 23 years. At a young age, CeCe was not afraid to express her femininity despite her religious family’s disapproval. She ran away from home at the age of 14 and entered sex work to survive. After bouncing around from the streets, to drug houses, and shelters, CeCe landed in Twin Cities.
She was determined to turn her life around, but struggled to find a job because of her identity. CeCe ended up back in trouble with drugs, and misdemeanors. She finally found the support she needed from a local drop-in youth center, to turn her life around. CeCe earned her GED, started hormones and got her name legally changed. With the stability and independence she had always wanted, CeCe was finally confident in her own skin.
One month later, on June 5th 2011, CeCe was walking down the street with some friends around midnight when they approached a group of white men outside of a dive bar. They shouted horrendous things at CeCe’s group of friends, forcing CeCe to defend herself and friends by telling them to leave them alone. They tried to flee the situation when CeCe was struck in the face with a glass tumbler by a woman in the group. As CeCe and her friends tried to leave the situation once again, she turned to notice a man coming at her with rage. She reached for the one thing in her purse to protect her; a pair of scissors that she held up as he collided with her. Running away, not knowing the severity of the puncture, the man then collapsed and died.
The court disregarded the transphobic nature of the incident and the fact that the man who attacked her was high on drugs, had a swastika tattoo on his chest, and deemed his prior assault convictions irrelevant to the case.
“CeCe was attacked in a racist, transphobic incident that could have killed her,” says Billy Navarro Jr. of the Minnesota Transgender Health Coalition, who helped found the Free CeCe campaign. “And then how is she treated? She is prosecuted for having the audacity to survive.”
CeCe later pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter, serving 275 days in jail prior to the trial and sentenced to 41 months in a state men’s prison. With good behavior, McDonald only served 19 months with 23 hours a day in solitary confinement.
Trans organizations, and campaigns like Free CeCe were formed while CeCe was incarcerated. ”Together, the groups have knitted a vibrant infrastructure for the local trans community: improving health care access, arranging support groups, promoting trans artists and hosting parties and concerts.”
CeCe continues to receive support from all over the country, and has become a legendary trans figure.
“CeCe, whose jagged life experience embodies the archetypal trans woman’s in so many ways, has become an LGBT folk hero for her story of survival – and for the price she paid for fighting back.”
This tumblr page is my contribution to the archive project for the Transgender Studies class. My goal with this Blog is to help bridge language barriers that Spanish speaking students may have reading English based tests while introducing them to texts from Latin America, more specifically Mexico that focus on this academic field. As a result, I hope to create a page that not only helps with language barriers, but connects students to their roots and empowers them to think more critically on intersectionality and the development of this field on a global scale.
Often social injustices and social change begin with one voice, one that just typically tends to be louder than others. In that voice, you can usually hear strong conviction, honesty, and a passion unmarked by no other. That raw passion and conviction attracts others and suddenly there is a group, with a single purpose. I am here to tell you about one said voice, a voice that has inspired others to rise up and join her; I am speaking of Alyssa P. Alyssa is a student at Portland State University studying social movements in history and today. She moved here in November 2012 after Hurricane Sandy hit and her home was destroyed. Alyssa is Black and Puerto Rican, and comes from a Puerto Rican community in Jersey City, New Jersey. The following is a few questions that I asked Alyssa, and her very candid and honest answers. Kelly: What did you do after studying social movements? More specifically, how did you get involved in activism? Alyssa: One of the first persons I met was Jaime Partridge who is a very well know, almost legendary, labor activist who is a retired letter carrier and was an activist in not only the labor movement but various social movements since the 60’s. He took me under his wing and introduced me to a lot of people who I have also become close to and put me on a track to become a noted figure in the realm of social movements, organizations, and activisms in this town. Now I do the bulk of my work with Jobs with Justice, which is an employee advocacy and labor union network that seeks to do the stated work of connecting grass roots organizations, peoples movements with the labor union movement. That feels like where I want to be, especially as the realm of social justice unionism coming to bare in 2016 where labor unions are taking a real hard look at their stance on gender and racial oppression and how they could possibly take a proactive role in helping those people and groups experience equality and have equity in a way that they haven’t before. As a person that is at the axis of a lot of oppressions, as a Black Latina, as a Trans woman, and the list goes on and on, I think that I can provide insight based on my identity and the oppressions that I have to endure but also the political education that I have been delving into. I think that I have something very valuable for the labor movement as it looks to social movements, and the fight for ending oppression. K: Are People more accepting of Trans people on the east coast than here? A: No, it’s hard for me to gauge because I’ve changed so much. The company that I keep has changed so much that before I came into activism and organizing, the people that I had around me were by in large other trans women of color who were engaged in survival sex work and the people on the periphery of that group were usually people who did not think in political terms. They were people who were in the club scene, there were tricks who paid us to sleep with them and that was for the most part the people that I interacted with. Outside of that, I did quite a bit of work to actually avoid other people because I assumed that I would not be accepted on the basis on me being trans. I cloistered myself into this small community and didn’t really look outward until I got politically active and that was a short time, only about a year, where I began to experience that shift, and then I moved to Portland where, almost exclusively, were people I met were people who were politically engaged and in social movements. At that time, I did not connect with trans women of color or with sex workers in this town and that was to a degree a conscious decision because I wanted to change my lifestyle. I did not want to fall back into some of the traps that I fell into previously in my life. It is hard for me to say whether people are more accepting because frankly I am much more accepting of myself. I think that my fortitude and putting myself out there in ways that I didn’t before, affects peoples reaction to me so I can’t say definitively which one is better. K: When you’re working with the labors union, do you fight for the rights of all people or do you do work specifically for the equal rights of trans people? A: Thank you for bringing that up, the work that I’ve been doing in the labor movement is only one small part of the work that I’ve been doing. I want to say that I think the fight for justice is something that I take up very consciously and I sometimes forget that these struggles are seen as separate because they don’t feel separate to me. The work that I’ve been doing specifically around the struggle for trans liberation has taken the form of me hosting trans open mic nights on a regular basis at, In Other Words feminist book store, hosting an event last summer called “ Say Her Name”, which was a very emotional memorial of the then 18 trans women who have been brutally murdered in this country. Since then, I have taken up organizing roles in Portland Trans Unity, which will host a 2016 Portland Trans March. I am in the preliminary process of planning that right now with a group of trans women in Portland. K: If someone wanted to get involved with trans activism locally, how would they do that? A: Portland Trans Unity is on Facebook and on Twitter as well. I would encourage everyone to look it up and get involved. I encourage everyone to look up and see what is going on for trans justice. Alyssa talked about several events that she has been a part of. I will add links to videos of them at the end. I must conclude with saying that I am a cisgendered woman, with absolutely no idea of what activism looks like. Alyssa showed me what anyone can do, and that everyone comes from different walks of life, which shouldn’t stop us from doing something to make a difference. It certainly did not stop her. Kelly Hattershide Stromberg
Through an analysis and summary of Trace Petersons
poem, “Trans Figures”, we are able to address multiple facets of hardship and
mental anguish that this Trans person in Peterson’s poem is facing. Focusing on
voice, language, and presentation this poem addresses the fear that may
influence the representation of an identity, one that is only presented in the
night. We further this analysis
From
“Since I Moved in “, Tim Trace Peterson.
The voice wants to turn itself into a body.
It can’t, though it tries hard —
it brings you flowers, to engender a
meaningful
relationship. It makes you coffee in the
morning.
Here, have a cup.
See? It likes you. It makes your bed
and shows you this mountain vista out
the window
a field of jupiters beard and beyond it
the dying fields. It shows you things
like the sun
going down, and then here it is coming
up in the hollyhocks.
Don’t look, you’ll hurt your eyes. I
want
to be there for you, you never respond
in those moments we touch (but they are
not enough).
Let me stroke your hair once more, here,
and again here. The voice is growing
distant
now, it is fading like the sun fades
and explodes in strands of parti-colored
fibers
you will never be able to see.
Let there be breasts! (and there were
breasts)
Let there be a penis! (and there was a
penis)
or at least it looked like it from the
viewer’s perspective,
under those clothes. If only it were
slim,
with wide hips! (and it was slim with
wide hips)
Let there be taffeta, muslin, silk,
velvet,
velour, or crinoline: and there were all
these things,
in abundance. Let there be hard hats,
biceps
bulging out of their shirts, buttocks
like boulders
in tight jeans, and there were all these
things,
across the landscape. The people looked
around
and saw the abundances that language had
given them.
The voice envied them. It could have
none of this
to keep, but wanted you to think it did.
Smoothed my hand over the plush
Slipping my arms into the sheer
deep sound in my throat
my big breasts filling both my hands
Muscles rippling under my thin cotton
shirt
Cleared my throat and began
Trailed blue smoke from my nostrils, like
a lazy
Around my shoulders and across
To a party. Forget my hair for now
Clearing my throat, I glanced over
hips were small, and I wondered
Watching my cheeks flex as I suckled
felt hot against my almost naked
Riveted on the full, soft curve
Look around, my gray eyes unreadable.
In heels and a skirt, an elegant gesture
of the arm
“TRACE PETERSON is a trans woman poet critic. Author
of Since I Moved In and numerous chapbooks, she is also Editor/Publisher of
EOAGH and Co-editor of Troubling the Line. Her scholarly and creative writing
have recently appeared in TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, the Ashbery Home
School Gallery, and the “Genre Queer” issue of Cream City Review. She
currently serves on the Board of Directors for VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and
teaches the first-ever course in Transgender Poetry at Hunter College.”
Peterson described her poem “AFTER BEFORE AND
AFTER,” which you can listen to above, as a “love letter to trans women.” The
poem deconstructs a common narrative that scapegoates trans women for causing
various ills of civilization, a narrative that Peterson said is all too common.
As a trans person, I often wished that I had representations of my identity recognized in cultural production. The absence of this representation causes isolation for trans people, declaring us as abnormal when compared with the gender binary. When researching books, I found that most of the trans cultural production for children and young adults have all been written in the last 5 or 6 years. This means that a lot of the books relied on the “born in the wrong body” narrative, mainly focusing on trans girls and trans boys identities. While this narrative may be affirming to some young trans people, it leaves out a significant portion of trans and non-binary identifying people. Here are some of the books that are available for young trans readers who need their own narratives represented.
Children’s Books:
“I Am Jazz” By Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings, Illustrated by Shelagh McNicholas
Published September 4th 2014 by Dial Books
Summary: Based off the true experiences of Jazz Jennings who is trans child advocate.From the time she was two years old, Jazz knew that she had a girl’s brain in a boy’s body. She loved pink and dressing up as a mermaid and didn’t feel like herself in boys’ clothing. This confused her family, until they took her to a doctor who said that Jazz was transgender and that she was born that way. Jazz’s story is based on her real-life experience and she tells it in a simple, clear way that will be appreciated by picture book readers, their parents, and teachers.
“I Am Jazz.”
Goodreads
. Web. 14 Mar. 2016.
“Meet Polkadot” By Talcott Broadhead
Published October 7th 2013 by Danger Dot Publishing
Summary: “Meet Polkadot,” is an accessible introduction to the main character in our series, Polkadot. Polkadot as well as Polkadot’s big sister Gladiola and best friend Norma Alicia, introduce our readers to the challenges and beauty that are experienced by Polkadot as a non-binary, trans kid. While Gladiola learns how to engage with information that she “didn’t know she didn’t know,” Norma Alicia provides Polkadot with a generous, additional perspective on how identities intersect and how allyship works. “Meet Polkadot,” tells Polkadot’s story from a transgender-liberation and feminist perspective and explores the complexity of identity in gentle and real terms.
“Meet Polkadot (Polkadot, #1).” Goodreads. Web. 13 Mar. 2016.
“A is for Activist” By Innosanto Nagara
Published October 2012 by Kupu Kupu Press
Summary: A is for Activist is an ABC board book for the next generation of progressives: Families that want their kids to grow up in a space that is unapologetic about activism, environmental justice, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, and so on.
“A Is for Activist.”
Goodreads
. Web. 10 Mar. 2016.
“GoblinHeart” by Brett Axel Illustrated by
Published April 28th 2012 by East Waterfront Press
Summary: Using “fairy” and “goblin” in lieu of female and male, the author has created a timely allegorical fairy tale. A youngster named Julep, who lives in a forest tribe, insists on growing up to be a goblin rather than a fairy. The tribe learns to accept that Julep is a goblin at heart, eventually coming around to support the physical transition that must be made for Julep to live as a goblin.
“Goblinheart.”
Goodreads
. Web. 10 Mar. 2016.
Young Adult Books
“Being Emily” by Rachel Gold
Published June 26th 2012 by Bella Books
Summary: They say that whoever you are it’s okay, you were born that way. Those words don’t comfort Emily, because she was born Christopher and her insides know that her outsides are all wrong.
“Being Emily.”
Goodreads
. Web. 10 Mar. 2016.
“Symptoms of Being Human” By Jeff Garvin
Published February 2nd 2016 by Balzer + Bray
Summary: Riley Cavanaugh is many things: Punk rock. Snarky. Rebellious. And gender fluid. Some days Riley identifies as a boy, and others as a girl. The thing is…Riley isn’t exactly out yet. And between starting a new school and having a congressman father running for reelection in uber-conservative Orange County, the pressure—media and otherwise—is building up in Riley’s so-called “normal” life. On the advice of a therapist, Riley starts an anonymous blog to vent those pent-up feelings and tell the truth of what it’s REALLY like to be a gender fluid teenager. But just as Riley’s starting to settle in at school—even developing feelings for a mysterious outcast—the blog goes viral, and an unnamed commenter discovers Riley’s real identity, threatening exposure. Riley must make a choice: walk away from what the blog has created—a lifeline, new friends, a cause to believe in—or stand up, come out, and risk everything.
“Symptoms of Being Human.”
Goodreads
. Web. 10 Mar. 2016.
“I Am J” By Cris Beam
Published March 1st 2011 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Summary: J always felt different. He was certain that eventually everyone would understand who he really was; a boy mistakenly born as a girl. Yet as he grew up, his body began to betray him; eventually J stopped praying to wake up a “real boy” and started covering up his body, keeping himself invisible – from his family, from his friends…from the world. But after being deserted by the best friend he thought would always be by his side, J decides that he’s done hiding – it’s time to be who he really is. And this time he is determined not to give up, no matter the cost.
There are many ways for us to express what we are
feeling on the inside. Some of us choose to go to counseling, avoiding the
problem all together, or possibly even suicide. However, others choose to
express their feelings through different types of art. Some write songs, others
write poetry and some express their feelings through photography. Having this
type of outlet to express feelings, allows one to build something positive out
of what is potentially a negative feeling.
Upon documenting and taking portraits, Cameron
published five books with pictures of transgender transition from male to
female and female to male. Each individual that Loren took portraits of show
the complete transition along with their struggles and triumphs of what they
had to endure to become who they are today. Body Alchemy: Transsexual
Portraits, Man Tool: The Nuts and Bolts of Female-to-Male Surgery, Photographs
by Loren Cameron Volume 1, Photographs by Loren Cameron Volume 2, and Cameron
Correspondence 1997-2001 Volume 3 each describe what it’s like going through
transition and expressing what it means to be trans. In one of his other books,
Cameron describes experiences, surgery and the sexual sensation disclosed to
him from his subjects.
Some trans people resort to art as a way to release
their feelings. In an interview, Loren Cameron, who is a trans artist in photography
stated “A lot of the photographs show that we don’t look that different after
transition. For the most part, the photographs show you, ‘Oh, well this is an
obvious outcome,’” (Burke). Loren Cameron based his art off of his personal
transition. While documenting his journey, he took portraits of himself taking
injections into his upper glutes. While
taking these testosterone injections, it originally appeared as a pose, but
upon closer surveillance it’s clearly seen as a riveting testimony for
suffering the transition and the strength that comes along with the bounds and
leaps to become who you feel you are to be.
Burke,
Colin. “Portrait of the Artist as a Man.” Loren
Cameron. Phoenix Media, Mar. 1997. Web. 13 Mar. 2016.
“Visible Bodies: Transgender Narratives Retold is a photography series that highlights transgender and genderqueer individuals. Through captions written by participants and close collaboration between the subject and photographer, the pieces in the exhibit allow transgender people to express what their gender means to them. Visible Bodies is part of a fledgling movement of transgender people telling their own stories, in contrast to the biased and overly simple stories often told about them in mainstream media” (Taken from the Advocate).
Visible Bodies is a grassroots project that originally started as a student project at the University of California in San Diego. Their goal was to create a project that made the campus’s LGBT Resource Center more welcoming towards transgender students. Now, their goal is to give a platform to transgender individuals in all walks of life to share their voices and stories. During May of 2013, they showcased their first show of 31 trans people living in San Diego and their stories. The wonderful photographer for the entire project is named Wolfgang.
Trans Studies Archive 