Irreverent Reverence
|
Accompanied on 19th July by an artists discussion in The Chapel Theatre, where Seven & Nadia discussed the origins, expectations, and outcomes of their show. Seven also recited her popular speech from the exhibition's opening night, the transcript of which can be found below. This joint exploration of the figurative form spanned the disciplines of sculptural installation, stitch work and drawing techniques in an effort to tailor our expectations and confront our ingrained prejudices when viewing the figurative form - especially those of queer and trans bodies. Touching on themes of gender roles, historical events & the notion of religious idolisation, Seven and Nadia put forward an important and powerful message about respecting queer and trans people, and a vital lesson in how to be a good ally. |
Irreverent Reverence by Seven Victor
I want to start by thanking some very important people; My amazing, supportive husband who redefines commitment every single day. Lisa and her crew here at The Presentation Centre. My original pitch for this show was a very different beast than it has wound up being, but Lisa showed nothing but support every step of the way. I want to thank all of you for making the effort to be here tonight. In many ways, this feels like my true arrival, both in Ireland and in my true self, and it warms my heart to see you here. Lastly, Nadia, who truly is responsible for this show happening. When Nadia heard that I am an artist she immediately put me on to this place and encouraged me to get involved. Her passion for growing the local art scene is inspiring and refreshing. I asked Nadia to be the architect of my world. Her sketches and thoughts bridge the gap between the abstract dream and the reality. To me they are instructive of how to study the trans* subject with reverence and respect.
This work is deeply personal. You could say it’s been a lifetime in the making. It took me 37 years to accept that I am transgender, and that is not due to a lack of exposure to the topic. It is due to internalized transphobia, fear, and confusion. Unmanaged depression through most of my early adult life kept me distracted and anxious and the gay/queer community allowed me to hide as a flamboyant gay man for many, many years. When I would feel threatened or unsafe I would retreat from my comfortable feminine gender expression to a more masculine presentation in hopes of either staying safe or making myself more appealing to others. In the meantime I satiated my need for connection with anonymous sex and random hook-ups, all the time feeling like it wasn’t my body I was abusing. The closest I ever came to transitioning was when I changed my name to Seven around 2008. At the time I was wearing makeup and feminine clothes, and even knee-high stilettos to my graduate classes. But I knew my surroundings then. I rarely had to go outside of the Social Science building and it was full of friends and supporters. But then reality set in. How would I find a job? How would anyone ever find me attractive? How could I ensure I didn’t end up poor and broken like my birth mother – and father? Internalized transphobia. I didn't think I deserved happiness unless I towed the gender line. Shocking to realize I thought that way, despite everything about my life at that time being trans* inclusive and extremely liberal. But it was there. Courtesy of – who knows? Society, my father, my family, the media? Sure. What is even more shocking is that it is still there.
This work tries to imagine a different kind of world – a different kind of religion. Inspired by the history of this venue I wanted to challenge the things that have always kept me from connecting with religion – the lack of queerness and otherness, and the awful past. Here we have a new model, a new way to look at the things we find familiar and a new way to discover those we don’t. The four patron saints you see are but the tip of a massive underground glacier, a world rich with talent and art motivated not by greed but survival and originality. My list could have gone on for days: Antony Hegardy, Patron Saint of Music; Ani DiFranco, Patron Saint of the Truth; Diamanda Galas, Patron Saint of Anger; Amanda Lapore, Patron Saint of Vanity – because the “sins” are a reality, let’s stop shaming them and accept and understand them. And maybe one day this part of the show will be much bigger, but considering each of these pieces took over a year to complete it may be a while. For those who may doubt that trans* and queer people deserve to be saints, the next time you read the news keep an eye out for a story where a tran* or queer person enacts violence on someone they don’t know in the streets... or kills them… it doesn’t happen. And yet, we get killed and harassed by strangers every day. Every day we are forced to swallow our tears and our anger and walk away from abuse without retaliation. If that’s not sainthood I don’t know what is.
Because of this abuse and violence we are left with an ever growing list of martyrs, people killed for having the audacity to exist. Mostly transwomen, mostly transwomen of color, though certainly also transmen. Please don’t take the feminine bias of this exhibit as a conscious erasure of transmasculinity. It certainly is not.
Similarly the artifacts, or relics, of our existence should also be elevated.
What would the world look like if cisgendered people (that is to say people who feel no conflict between their assigned gender and their identity: a woman who feels like a woman, a man who feels like a man) were used to seeing trans* and queer bodies not as medical curiosities with a voyeuristic focus on what’s between our legs, but as saints, or martyrs, or our saviors. Most of us just want to be seen as people deserving a life – but what if the world went beyond that in the way it does for white cisgendered people? Would I still be battling thoughts that perhaps I deserved the “what the fuck was that” I just got on the street because “maybe I don’t look enough like a woman?” Why should I have to be perfect before I’m allowed to not be harassed by children, by your children, by the children raised seeing only a sliver of the worlds’ diversity? Why am I subject to your lack of education? Why is it me who feels degraded when I stand in front of you, full face of makeup and D-cup breasts and are STILL called ‘he?’ Why aren’t you embarrassed of yourself? I’m tired of being the bigger person, being the saint, freezing and hiding and leaving feeling like my legs are made of lead and my head is full of hot helium.
The world isn’t transphobic, transpeople are. The woman who called me a faggot across the street earlier this week and turned her back and walked away without quickening her pace or glancing back isn’t afraid of me, that isn’t what fear looks like. Fear looks like leaving your house fearing what the cost of being yourself might be. I don’t have gender dysphoria, the world does. I know what my body looks like and I know who I am, it’s the world that wants it to all fit. My dysphoria springs not from me, but from the way I’m treated. Some of my choices are for me, others have to be for safety.
So stop. Stop today, we’ve had enough. Killing us and calling us names and using the wrong pronouns won’t make us go away. Take a vow to these new 10 commandments. Spread the word with the speed of negativity and stop others when you see it. If you don’t think anything I’ve said applies to you, prove it in actions. I have a student, I teach quilting classes, she’s 75 years old and she has, on more than one occasion, corrected others when they use the wrong pronoun, and corrected herself. That is what an ally looks like. That is how acceptance becomes real. Don’t turn a miss-gendering into a situation where the transperson is making you feel better for getting it wrong. Own your mistake and do the work because it’s yours to do.
This is your last lesson in how to behave. You have all you need to go forth and make change.
Thank you all so much for coming and I sincerely hope you enjoy the show.
© Seven Victor 2018
I want to start by thanking some very important people; My amazing, supportive husband who redefines commitment every single day. Lisa and her crew here at The Presentation Centre. My original pitch for this show was a very different beast than it has wound up being, but Lisa showed nothing but support every step of the way. I want to thank all of you for making the effort to be here tonight. In many ways, this feels like my true arrival, both in Ireland and in my true self, and it warms my heart to see you here. Lastly, Nadia, who truly is responsible for this show happening. When Nadia heard that I am an artist she immediately put me on to this place and encouraged me to get involved. Her passion for growing the local art scene is inspiring and refreshing. I asked Nadia to be the architect of my world. Her sketches and thoughts bridge the gap between the abstract dream and the reality. To me they are instructive of how to study the trans* subject with reverence and respect.
This work is deeply personal. You could say it’s been a lifetime in the making. It took me 37 years to accept that I am transgender, and that is not due to a lack of exposure to the topic. It is due to internalized transphobia, fear, and confusion. Unmanaged depression through most of my early adult life kept me distracted and anxious and the gay/queer community allowed me to hide as a flamboyant gay man for many, many years. When I would feel threatened or unsafe I would retreat from my comfortable feminine gender expression to a more masculine presentation in hopes of either staying safe or making myself more appealing to others. In the meantime I satiated my need for connection with anonymous sex and random hook-ups, all the time feeling like it wasn’t my body I was abusing. The closest I ever came to transitioning was when I changed my name to Seven around 2008. At the time I was wearing makeup and feminine clothes, and even knee-high stilettos to my graduate classes. But I knew my surroundings then. I rarely had to go outside of the Social Science building and it was full of friends and supporters. But then reality set in. How would I find a job? How would anyone ever find me attractive? How could I ensure I didn’t end up poor and broken like my birth mother – and father? Internalized transphobia. I didn't think I deserved happiness unless I towed the gender line. Shocking to realize I thought that way, despite everything about my life at that time being trans* inclusive and extremely liberal. But it was there. Courtesy of – who knows? Society, my father, my family, the media? Sure. What is even more shocking is that it is still there.
This work tries to imagine a different kind of world – a different kind of religion. Inspired by the history of this venue I wanted to challenge the things that have always kept me from connecting with religion – the lack of queerness and otherness, and the awful past. Here we have a new model, a new way to look at the things we find familiar and a new way to discover those we don’t. The four patron saints you see are but the tip of a massive underground glacier, a world rich with talent and art motivated not by greed but survival and originality. My list could have gone on for days: Antony Hegardy, Patron Saint of Music; Ani DiFranco, Patron Saint of the Truth; Diamanda Galas, Patron Saint of Anger; Amanda Lapore, Patron Saint of Vanity – because the “sins” are a reality, let’s stop shaming them and accept and understand them. And maybe one day this part of the show will be much bigger, but considering each of these pieces took over a year to complete it may be a while. For those who may doubt that trans* and queer people deserve to be saints, the next time you read the news keep an eye out for a story where a tran* or queer person enacts violence on someone they don’t know in the streets... or kills them… it doesn’t happen. And yet, we get killed and harassed by strangers every day. Every day we are forced to swallow our tears and our anger and walk away from abuse without retaliation. If that’s not sainthood I don’t know what is.
Because of this abuse and violence we are left with an ever growing list of martyrs, people killed for having the audacity to exist. Mostly transwomen, mostly transwomen of color, though certainly also transmen. Please don’t take the feminine bias of this exhibit as a conscious erasure of transmasculinity. It certainly is not.
Similarly the artifacts, or relics, of our existence should also be elevated.
What would the world look like if cisgendered people (that is to say people who feel no conflict between their assigned gender and their identity: a woman who feels like a woman, a man who feels like a man) were used to seeing trans* and queer bodies not as medical curiosities with a voyeuristic focus on what’s between our legs, but as saints, or martyrs, or our saviors. Most of us just want to be seen as people deserving a life – but what if the world went beyond that in the way it does for white cisgendered people? Would I still be battling thoughts that perhaps I deserved the “what the fuck was that” I just got on the street because “maybe I don’t look enough like a woman?” Why should I have to be perfect before I’m allowed to not be harassed by children, by your children, by the children raised seeing only a sliver of the worlds’ diversity? Why am I subject to your lack of education? Why is it me who feels degraded when I stand in front of you, full face of makeup and D-cup breasts and are STILL called ‘he?’ Why aren’t you embarrassed of yourself? I’m tired of being the bigger person, being the saint, freezing and hiding and leaving feeling like my legs are made of lead and my head is full of hot helium.
The world isn’t transphobic, transpeople are. The woman who called me a faggot across the street earlier this week and turned her back and walked away without quickening her pace or glancing back isn’t afraid of me, that isn’t what fear looks like. Fear looks like leaving your house fearing what the cost of being yourself might be. I don’t have gender dysphoria, the world does. I know what my body looks like and I know who I am, it’s the world that wants it to all fit. My dysphoria springs not from me, but from the way I’m treated. Some of my choices are for me, others have to be for safety.
So stop. Stop today, we’ve had enough. Killing us and calling us names and using the wrong pronouns won’t make us go away. Take a vow to these new 10 commandments. Spread the word with the speed of negativity and stop others when you see it. If you don’t think anything I’ve said applies to you, prove it in actions. I have a student, I teach quilting classes, she’s 75 years old and she has, on more than one occasion, corrected others when they use the wrong pronoun, and corrected herself. That is what an ally looks like. That is how acceptance becomes real. Don’t turn a miss-gendering into a situation where the transperson is making you feel better for getting it wrong. Own your mistake and do the work because it’s yours to do.
This is your last lesson in how to behave. You have all you need to go forth and make change.
Thank you all so much for coming and I sincerely hope you enjoy the show.
© Seven Victor 2018
