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Aug. 21st, 2009 07:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adrienmundiFrom feministing:
A great photo series called A Series of Questions, in which trans people are photographed holding signs with some of the most common, awkward, clueless and painful questions they receive. It's bold, beautiful, and heartbreaking. I'd recommend you all check it out.
Of course, I have more than one reaction. My immediate, instantial take on each photo is full of words like 'amazing' and 'powerful'. I'm truly impressed, and a bit in awe. As a body of work, though, it's hard to avoid what looks like selection bias*; to my eyes, all the trans folk seem decidedly butch or "masculine" identified, and once that worms its way into my head, I begin to wonder if they aren't all female assigned at birth, as well.
None of this takes away from the power and importance of the work. It speaks to me, as a(n overly) sensitive person, a commie-socialist-liberal, and as a trans person. But as a trans person not terribly concerned with manifesting butchness or masculinity**, male assigned at birth, it looks like another instance of visible social interstitial space being staked out for others, members of a group to which I probably won't ever be a member, and that adds another layer of pain to already painful art.
*though without knowing the methodology involved, it could be self-selection bias on the part of the models
**no, really. that you might not see this is probably indicative of both my own failure to manifest and the societal perceptual filters which limit interpretation
A great photo series called A Series of Questions, in which trans people are photographed holding signs with some of the most common, awkward, clueless and painful questions they receive. It's bold, beautiful, and heartbreaking. I'd recommend you all check it out.
Of course, I have more than one reaction. My immediate, instantial take on each photo is full of words like 'amazing' and 'powerful'. I'm truly impressed, and a bit in awe. As a body of work, though, it's hard to avoid what looks like selection bias*; to my eyes, all the trans folk seem decidedly butch or "masculine" identified, and once that worms its way into my head, I begin to wonder if they aren't all female assigned at birth, as well.
None of this takes away from the power and importance of the work. It speaks to me, as a(n overly) sensitive person, a commie-socialist-liberal, and as a trans person. But as a trans person not terribly concerned with manifesting butchness or masculinity**, male assigned at birth, it looks like another instance of visible social interstitial space being staked out for others, members of a group to which I probably won't ever be a member, and that adds another layer of pain to already painful art.
*though without knowing the methodology involved, it could be self-selection bias on the part of the models
**no, really. that you might not see this is probably indicative of both my own failure to manifest and the societal perceptual filters which limit interpretation
