11th November 2024
Tutorial with Jonathan
"Through portrayals of the transgender body, this paper examines the way that the lived experiences of transgender people have been affected by Government Legislation."
Overall, some great content. Good examples and a good overall theme
Writing style is great, very readable, very accessible and it's clear, referencing properly
Discussion around the title, good that it has shifted and adapted with what I'm finding to write about
Different aspects to the title, first part is: "Through portrayals of the transgender body", which is the lens of which you are then looking through
3 good artist examples, potentially 4 with the animation
The legislation, "the way that the lived experiences of transgender have been affected by government legislation", second bit is who's lived experiences, then it's affected by government legislation, which needs to be specific
Affect vs effect, using affect confirms the legislation affected them, using effect says it has an emotional impact on them
What do you want to discover?
That there has been a dramatic impact from the legislation. The specific people, the actual artists I'm looking at, it’s American legislation that’s impacted them compared to looking at the UK legislation. I guess it relates back to my personal research then, but the main thing being that there has been a profound impact on these people.
With Cassils, specifically looking at Pissed. It's obvious he made that work in response to the legislation changes
Pushing it a step further, what is it saying back the other way? What questions it raised with the audience, looking through reviews and commentary on the artwork
The impact of an artwork is not measurable. desired impact on the audience, but the individual feedback might be more interesting
What do you want people to take from reading this paper?
Confirmation that all these changes are effecting people, where this constant discussion of “there's no point implementing these changes because it's such a small minority group that it would affect” that they just see that group as a number or percentage rather than these individual people that have thoughts and feelings and lives, who’s lived experiences become effected. There's a photo Ebenezer took of him sitting in a toilet cubicle wearing boxing gloves which was a direct response to the fact that there was a bill about to be passed saying that you had to use the bathroom of the sex you were born as, and Ebenezer identifies both as transmasculine and as non binary. So does present very androgynously and hasn't had surgery or hormones at all. They still identify as a mother interestingly, as opposed to parent. But yeah the backlash of having to then use the female bathrooms without being questioned, despite not having taken any medical interventions.
So from that point of view, what do you want people to leave with from these legislation changes?
That these seemingly small changes have a distinct and powerful impact. The overall criticism of Biden was him being senile, but even though it might not have come from him personally, there was actually a lot of pro LGBTQIA+ stuff that happened. But the amount of time it takes to actually push things through all the systems, undoing the things that Trump did, but then there was also a bettering things from how they were prior to Trump, it wasn't just a reversal. There were improvements made in several areas, like for LGBTQIA+ foster children and youth homelessness, where 40% identify as LGBTQIA+ and we can better support them. There's a lot of stuff that I didn't even realise actually got pushed through under him.
There's no point in saying legislation changes have happened, because we know that that's historical, the emotions are the value you're trying to argue, that changes are worth it
Challenge to make that argument through portrayals of the transgender body, not through data or statistics as they're subservient to my argument
Use archive.org to find now-deleted stonewall article, pasted below: https://web.archive.org/web/20220107215608/https://www.stonewall.org.uk/truth-about-trans
Believe that the essay has become American-focused, with Cassils, Ebenezer Galluzo, Evan Schwartz and also Thomas Beatie via Marc Quinn
Lose sections referencing UK legislation and Stonewall, arguing through the portrayals of the trans body but these trans people are American
What three things would you want to come out of looking at these three different artist's work?
The individual, personal experience, these people all identify slightly differently and are all still affected because trans is an umbrella term. Thomas Beatie being a trans man, but then choosing to use his given organs to carry, and as he describes it as being able to provide for his family where his wife then couldn't have children anymore. Versus Cassils who has been on testosterone, but not had surgery, where as a bodybuilder he created a masculine body as an art piece. Then Ebenezer, who hasn't had any medical intervention, but still strongly identifies as both trans and non-binary. And also Evan Schwartz who identifies as a trans man and has had hormones and chest reconstruction surgery. Despite transitioning in different ways, they are all being affected by the same thing. That there's individual experiences and that there's also the collective experience as well.
What's something else you want the reader to take away?
That the legislation will have had an impact on those statistics growing. Ebenezer came out only three or four months before the trump legislation, say he came out three or four months before the Obama legislation, how would that have affected his transition journey? Not to demean how he identifies, but the fact that he hasn't undergone any kind of medical intervention and identifies both as non-binary and as transgender, could the limitations placed on them being able to transition have had an impact on that? The bathroom stuff coming in, in the very early days of Ebenezer trying to understand himself and so many bills that were passed and expected to be, whether it was considered that there's no point exploring whether he would want that for himself because the law already says he can't and that's for the foreseeable future.
It's a cultural argument, legislation is shaping culture, which is a very hard thing to show
It doesn't matter what laws were passed and what weren't, it's the culture at that moment, you're making your arguments through the portrayals of the transgender body
The individual, personal experience and the context in which they are making the work
Change in artists.
Thinking about adding in Evan Schwarz, the main series of work that he’s created (and he’s only made a couple of series’ of work) is called Best Man - looking at what it took to be a man and comparing himself to the rest of his group of friends. At the time of speaking to him, I spoke about legislation and he said that his work was on hold at that moment so he couldn't really speak to any impact the legislation had had on his work, because he hadn't actually made any work for nearly 10 years prior. But then last year he did a series of photographs of his face, showing the different reactions and emotions he sees when he tells people he's trans. The fact that he hadn't actually made any work for so long and then interestingly it coincides with these recent changes and the uproar at trans rights, when he creates a piece about what emotions he sees come across other people's faces when he comes out.
The big gap between making those works is interesting
Gut feeling is with 3-4000 words stick to 3
2 artists plays into binary thinking, 3 says you're only picking 3 out of a range
Beatie, aka Quinn, being the one to drop as it's not Beatie's own representation of his body unlike Cassils, Ebenezer Galluzo and Evan Schwartz, and Quinn being a British artist
Dropping Freddy McConnell's arguments with courts over being labelled as mother on the birth certificate, relates to UK legislation and so not relevant to the portrayals of the transgender body
Can still bring Thomas Beatie into discussion through his documentary and him portraying his body, in relevance to legislation and context
Quinn's show 'Body Alterations' felt manufactured, lacking human hand, comes that way through screen and in-person
Seeing Quinn's show 'Body Alterations' in person felt manufactured and lacked a human hand.
It felt like it needed to be, the fact that you can draw these comparisons to David and the Virgin Mary. But then also having two trans porn stars in gold was like he was showing that they were cheap, the abnormal of transness by comparison. The fact that he chose to do a sculpture of them side by side, one of them having sex, and one of just Buck's face ‘in ecstasy’ and torso. Compared to the rest in the series, there's no second iterations of people, not Pamela Anderson, but there was a real focus on the two trans porn stars. Like Quinn thought “this is what will pull people in, to stand and stare at the circus freaks”. It is such a unique thing just having a cisgender person portray that and the two completely different sides of that then as well, Thomas Beatie versus the porn stars. Something that's so pure, bringing new life into the world, and even though it doesn't show it in the sculpture, there was all this negativity around it, but the sculpture actually just shows the purity of the acts. I feel when compared to Buck and Allanah, it feels like it's the complete opposite.
Touched on key themes, between all the press reports on it there'd be enough material to write a paper just on that
An interesting portrayal of the trans body, done in multiple ways by an artist looking at it from the outside, who doesn't know what that's like
Doesn't relate to legislation, but would be interesting to see what the reading is on this show in 2024
Quinn is the artist to drop, different to others, means have to write about a load of other context, not necessary when have a small word count
Put other papers within this one to the side for another time, where currently have about 4 papers in 1, keep bringing it back to the key focus of "through the portrayals of the transgender body"
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