“When Everyone Hates You It Makes Sense to Take What’s Yours”
Introduction: An Artist Talk in Three Parts
It’s been a couple of days since Donald Trump won another presidency in the United States, and a few more since Scott Moe and the Sask Party won a majority government in Saskatchewan for the fifth time in a row. Canada’s federal election looms.
Largely, trans people are struggling and afraid.
I’ve deleted the Instagram app from my phone. I want to spend my time making things and building robust community. I think that maybe that can save us or at least insulate us against the coming wave of bigotry and violence.
The following essays are part artist talk and an excuse to share my work with a wider audience, part plea to Saskatchewan’s arts community to take the work of trans liberation seriously and a way of building solidarity through sharing. I began writing them a few months ago – shortly after the Sask Party used the notwithstanding clause to override the rights of Saskatchewan’s trans youth and force teachers and school administration to out students to their parents if they were to request to use a new name or pronouns at school. Since then, Scott Moe has promised his first order of business after winning the election will be the addition of a policy that would ban those who were “born male” from women’s spaces including washrooms and change rooms in Saskatchewan’s schools. This will undoubtedly lead to wider bans on trans women’s access to public space. Things appear to be escalating just as I feared they would.
Making space for trans futurity is more important now than ever. The projects highlighted in the following essays offer gestures towards a way forward. A vibrant Saskatchewan arts ecology is diverse. A vibrant Saskatchewan arts ecology includes trans people and values the work we do in tangible and material ways.
Part One: On the State of Trans Artists and Art in Saskatchewan
Part Two: Tender Containers and Building Capacity for 2STNBGN Artists in Saskatchewan
