Using Visual Art To Fight Transgender Stigma

1. 08/03/2019 Dr. Brower Anastasia Teper Final Draft # 2 Capstone Project Idea: “Using visual art in order to fight against the social stigma, health inequalities and negative imagery of the transgender women, especially poor trans-women of color by making art that reconceptualizes trans-identity, focusing on these women’s strengths, intellectual power and drive to live and thrive”. “Idon’t have a gender identity disorder; I think society has a gender identity disorder”. –Pauline Park, transgender activist In the following essay I will explore and focus on how visual imagery is used to stigmatize transgender women in the US and how we can use visual arts to de-stigmatize these women and their communities. To start off with let us first define what ‘transgender’ means, “Transgender people are people whose gender identity is different from the gender they were thought to be at birth. “Trans” is often used as shorthand for transgender” -National Center for Transgender Equality. Transgenderism dates as far back as 1711, at least the first documented instance of encountering someone transgender (Transgender History-en.wikipedia.org/wiki/). I have decided to focus here more on transgender women than trans-men due to my personal work with the transwomen specifically. I have started working with trans homeless youth back in 2007, in NYC while employed with the Ali Forney Center. Two years ago, I came to Houston Texas to work as a Clinical Research Coordinator at University of Texas Medical Center, focusing on trans gender 1

2. women specifically. During the last two years there, I have outreached and worked with over fifty-four transwomen of all different races, ethnicities, ages and backgrounds. I spoke to them about their lives, their transitions, their struggles, fears and hopes. Out of the fifty-four women I had outreached to, five of the women have become my good friends and I keep in touch with them now. During my previous school semester, I took a class with Dr. Chung where I focused on creating five mixed-media pieces, visual ethnographies if you will of the five women I knew personally, retelling their stories through art. We must never under-estimate the power of visual arts and imagery specifically to shape people’s identities, be they individual and/or cultural, images which represent words not spoken out load but spoken nevertheless. Transgender women face a myriad of obstacles on daily basis, anything from not being able to get basic health care needs met, to being homeless due to gender identity, to violence on the street, high rates of suicide and other self-harm, HIV and a total misrepresentation of their identities as women via public media. In the following paper, I will be exploring and looking at the five images of the trans women that I had created works about as well as outside examples of art, either by trans women and/or about trans women, detailing and exploring their identities and conditions in our current society and seeing how these works of art de-stigmatize these women. In The Body In Questionby Judith Halberstam, “JennySaville’s painting of transgender photographer Del LaGrace Volcano turns the body inside out, upside down and forces the viewer to contemplate the image of a man trapped outside a woman’s body” (Halberstam, 2000). Halberstam is trying to see from her point of view what it means to be ‘caught’ in the wrong body, how does it feel living in a gender that does not match your inner sense of self, how do trans individuals deal with such a huge dysphoria, how do they cope, how do they see themselves: “Body parts hang and droop, smudge and blur into an approximation of ambiguous 2

3. flesh, the model looks uncomfortable, the viewer shares in his discomfort when the artist deliberately frames the whole as a study in body dysphoria” (Halberstam, 2000). Halberstam speaks about the painter as the transgender body is explored, the body is questioned and examined with a cold and detached stare, it questions ‘femininity ‘as framed by the boundaries of the body itself, “femaleness resides in the flesh but comes apart at the seams, bleeds over the edges of the body and makes us unsure as to the limits of skin or self” (Halberstam, 2000). In the following dissertation titled, “Handmade: The Everyday Feelings and Textures of Transgender Embodiment” by Jeanne Vaccaro, transgender identity is explored through various textures, feelings and sensations that we get to explore through transgender artists creating either craft art and/or performance art. Vaccaro is looking first at how we ‘feel’ texture by looking at fiber sculptures and craft work created by a transgender artist Emmett Ramstad. Emmett Ramstad-Touching Each Other, 2016 3

4. Emmett Ramstad-Touching Each Other, 2016 Vaccaro’s second example is a trans dancer Yve Laris Cohen as he explores ways in which contemporary visual art world addresses the body as a medium, here he explains himself perfectly, “I position my practice within both visual art and dance, drawing on the legacies of Minimalist sculpture, Institutional Critique, and both postmodern dance and classical ballet. I build material supports—floors, walls, and pedestals—to both outperform and fall short of their intended functions. They come under pressure, and exert pressure of their own, when my transgender body meets them in performance”. Yve Laris Cohen-2016 4

5. Yve Laris Cohen-2016 Vaccaro’s third example and exploration is a performance installation by a lesbian punk band, “Tracy & The Plastics” as they examine and explore the body and gender in a form of a physical “room” that can be either inside or outside, with viewers participating and coming either in and/or out. 5

6. Tracy & The Plastics # 1 Tracy & The Plastics # 2 Vaccaro’s dissertation is an excellent, detailed and passionate work that is looking at transgender identities in a complex and deeply humane way. Some of the very great observations and quotes that came from the dissertation once again echo multiple other artists that I am looking at in this paper, as for example this echoes the previous article of The Body in Question, “Scars emerge as a metaphor for the becoming body and the textured materiality of transgender embodiment” (Vaccaro, 2012). Another one that is much on pint is this, “Do It Yourself; a transition without geometry and freedom. Identity is dense and dimensional, an accumulation of felt matters too complicated to correspond to the good subject of feminism, queer politics or transgender rights” (Vaccaro, 2012). Another very interesting quote that will resonate really with the whole topic of this paper is that, “The biography of a transgender person is itself a performance. Biography an established genre of transgender studies, is a form of a disclosure, which sometimes totalizes 6

7. explanation and makes difference” (Vaccaro, 2012). Now is the time that I speak on my personal work and experiences working with transgender women. As I have mentioned earlier, my first experience working with a transgender client dates to 2006 when I worked as an overnight youth counselor at The Ali Forney Center in NYC, which serviced homeless LGBTQ youth only. Now, speeding thirteen years into the present as my former role at the UT Medical Center where I outreached to and maintained to over fifty-four transgender women who were HIV positive and were looking for a better and less toxic medication regiment, I received a first-hand view into what it was like to be and live as a transgender woman. Throughout my time working with the women, multiple images, questions and revelations came to mind. In constructing the five-different works I spoke to the women first about their lives, fears, hopes and dreams. I constructed the following five art pieces on what I heard from each single woman. Their stories range from horrific to tragic to finally, stories of extreme survival and resilience, storied of deep humanity and empathy and stories of great courage, bravery and love. I believe that I had started just scraping the surface as the topic is so deep, big and all-encompassing as well as the art. I think that for me this is just the beginning. Here are the five works: The first one is titled “Holly and Veronica”, (Teper, 2019). Holly is the woman in the middle, her now current partner is Veronica, standing confidently to her right. The couple met when Holly was still a man and was considering transitioning. When Holly disclosed the information to Veronica, she was sure that Veronica was going to leave, instead Veronica supported and encouraged the transition and stayed with Holly. The couple has been together for seven years. 7

8. 1. “Holly and Veronica”, (Teper, 2019) 2. “Michelle”, (Teper, 2019) 8

9. Michelle is a glorious example of a brave and fiery trans woman. Michelle has been homeless since the age of fourteen after she disclosed to being a transgender woman, she learned how to fend for herself despite being physically and sexually attacked and abused throughout the years while being homeless. Michelle met her current husband fifteen years ago and the couple has stayed together throughout the years. Elisha has known that she was a girl from the time she was three years old. She feels good about being a woman and never had to really fight hard to “look” like one as she says that no-one ever questioned her femininity. Elisha has been in a violent relationship and had contacted HIV from her then partner. She did not seek treatment immediately and had suffered permanent physical damage. Elisha is currently on HIV medications as well as other meds, she is single and is focusing on her health and her emotional well-being. 3. “Elisha”, (Teper, 2019) 9

10. 4. “Neelay” Neelay had also known that she was a girl since she was a small boy. She always wanted to be like her mom. Neelay is a strong and loving woman, she is a great cook and she loves children. Neelay also has been homeless due to being trans but was able to find stable housing and get a job. She is the only one in her family who went to college and is not behind bars, she is currently taking care of her mother. 10

11. “Dee Dee”, (Teper, 2019) Dee Dee is an activist and a preacher in her community, she also has experienced homelessness when she came out as a transgender woman, she was homeless for some time and experienced street violence and sexual abuse while homeless. She was able to get back on her feet and after some years she is now a national advocate for transgender women, she travels significantly and speaks to various leaders, organizations and communities about trans experiences as well as advocated to change policy. Through reading of the various articles on the topic of how visual art contributes to stigmatizations of certain populations it seems that several common themes stand out, one of them being fear. Fear of something we are not familiar with and something that we might feel threatened by and something we know nothing about and our first reaction is to “stigmatize” the unknown and the uncomfortable; it does have to do with our own life and mortality, we are 11

12. afraid that “the other” brings us closer to it. Having a dialogue which visual art in a way ‘forces’ us to have when we view artwork that challenges our beliefs, our safe spaces and our cultural and individual beliefs and makes us feel uncomfortable is a call for challenge and growth. The four seemingly different articles explored in this paper are similar in ways that stigma is exercised in our society, on what populations and why. Art practices make us stronger and foster very important life and culture-preserving relationships that we so often lack due to systematic and purposeful fragmentation by either government or current political situations of individuals and societies. What I really love about the articles here is that all of them speak of the dialogue that the artworks require of the viewers, these dialogues challenge our very way of being and living and I feel that this is what art supposed to do, it is supposed to challenge us and make us grow, make us into stronger and better human beings, it is supposed to unite and save us and by no means it is meant to stigmatize, divide, criminalize and make others suffer. Visual imagery is an educational process, it is a process of acceptance and love for one another during sickness, crises, challenges and impossible circumstances. 12

13. References: 1. Transgender Law Center: New Trump Proposal Could Limit Health Care Access for Two Million Transgender Americans. Targeted News Service. (May 25, 2019): Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 Athena Information Solutions Pvt. Ltd. Retrieved from: http://targetednews.com/ 2. Judith Halberstan (2000). The Body In Question: Transgender Images in Contemporary Visual Art. MAKE Magazine, June/August 2000, Issue 88, p37-38. Retrieved from: http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.uh.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=5c81b40a-3f26- 473e-b59b-41ebe9e77df8%40sdc-v-sessmgr01 3. Jeanne Vaccaro (2012). Handmade: The Everyday Feelings and Textures of Transgender Embodiment; A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Performance Studies New York University May, 2012 Retrieved from: https://search-pr oquest- com.ezproxy.lib.uh.edu/docview/1084273502/abstract/81427BF4ED2849D6PQ/1?accountid=71 07 4. http://www.emmettramstad.com/ 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yve_Laris_Cohen 6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracy_+_the_Plastics 7. Transgender History, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history 13