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TransGenderQueerPerson wins Eurovision…

11/05/2014
eurovision-song-contest-conchita-wurst-als-bondgirl-41-51776740

image courtesy Salzburg Nachrichten

Any ideas for the post on my return to this blog (after ‘time out’ at HaikuCity2014) were superceded last night by the winning of the Eurovision Song Contest by Conchita ‘Wunderbar’ Wurst of Austria.

Dubbed the ‘Bearded Lady’ and drag artist, this amazingly-androgynous, gender-blending singer with a belting voice, super-trimmed facial hair and lashes-for-days was the deserved winner with her song ‘Rise Like A Phoenix’.

Just as transwoman (and first transgender) contestant, Dana International caused a stirring of the Eurovision ashes in 1998 when she won for Israel, such celebrity winnings become ‘a phoenix of hope’ for trans people.

For me as a transgenderqueer individual striving for the acknowledgement of ‘person’ as the operative identity of any&everyone – rather than a binary gender identity of male or female – the vision of gender-busting Conchita singing-to-win was intensely moving.

When the fashion furore, the curiosity controversy & the glitz glamour publicity has died down, maybe – just maybe – this Austrian individual will be recognised as the not-a-rude-word-person that they are…

conchita_wurst_orf_06_orf_by_thomas_ramstorfer

image courtesy Thomas Ramstorfer

 

Enjoy these ‘transishews’ links (again)!

Announcement of Conchita’s win by the BBC  and Austrian news:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-27358560

http://www.salzburg.com/nachrichten/dossier/songcontest2014/sn/artikel/eurovision-song

YouTube video coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest winner:

http://youtu.be/t1LDkNuEHA4 

Conchita Wurst sings ‘Rise Like A Phoenix’:

http://youtu.be/e_fJQ-aOTv4

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Haiku City on the Go…

15/04/2014

Today is day 15 of the 30 days of April’s poem-a-day writing that is happening on Off the Trolley Production’s HaikuCity blog posts:

http://ottpshaikucity.wordpress.com/2014/04/15/haiku-no-15/ ‎

The theme of today’s haiku is housework – not one of my regular activities… But the ‘challenge’ of creating a haiku-per-day – and adding to that a fone foto or two – has been a spring cleaning for my spirit.

CreativityHaiku

The artwork above was created in March and based around a haiku composed at the beginning of that month.  This untitled piece features water-colouring & collaging of my now-shredded New Internationalist journal diary from 2009.  Having begun my gender transition in 2007, this diary would not offer clues to my hidden transgender nature (as investigated in the Retro Diary Enquiry category of this blog).

Creating art, however, has been a lifelong – and mostly regular – activity that has seen me through the challenges of not knowing/understanding my genderqueer – and bipolar and Aspergic – nature…

More haikus featured on this blog back in February:

https://offthetrolleyproductions.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/haikus-have-their-say/

 

 

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Homage to SE & SW Coastal Travel…

26/03/2014

SaltdeanBusCafe

Now that I live in Brighton & Hove, I find myself at least once a month taking the bus out of the city to Saltdean, for some therapeutic bodywork.  The bus route follows the coast eastward from the Pier, alongside the promenade out to Brighton Marina, mooring harbour for both millionaire yachts and working fishing boats. Then onward, the sea ever in view, through Rottingdean: pebble-dashed Sussex village, once home to poet-novelist, Rudyard Kipling and Pre-Raphaelite artist, Edward Burne-Jones.  Saltdean is the next seaside town with its art deco swimming Lido and restyled Thirties apartment buildings.

Return27BusPier

Three years ago, living in Devon my coastal travel took me, once a month, on the train from Totnes to Taunton in Somerset; I was travelling to the female-towards-male support group for the South West, like other Trans persons coming up from Cornwall or down from Bristol or Wales.  This train journey ran alongside the Teign and Exe estuaries in Devon – and the sea between – on the now-famed railway line that collapsed at Dawlish during the February storms.

Seeing that the beautiful coastal stretch of that rail line may now be quite defunct, I am delighted that I spontaneously captured it on mobile camera in June 2013 (returning home to the South East) when I found myself at an open train door window whilst waiting for the loo to become vacant! Here now – for posterity – is my fotovideo of that coastal travel:

 

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TransGenderQueer Space: in homage to…

20/02/2014

This post is ‘queer art homage’  –    in the form of a fonecamera fotovideo.

TransPrdBnrJL0214By way of introduction.

The following text is very close to that which I presented (alongside the premiere viewing of the 5-minute-long fotovideo below) at the Trans* History performance event at Brighton&Hove’s Jubilee Library on Saturday, 15th February…

 

http://www.brighton-hove-rpml.org.uk/WhatsOn/Pages/LGBTHistoryMonthatJubileeLibraryFeb14.aspx

When persons gender transition, it becomes hugely significant to them that they have appropriate spaces to go & facilities to use according to their gender identity.

That means for me that it is really important, for instance, that I can go swimming at a pool where there is a unisex – or gender neutral – changing space.

Luckily I dress pretty much entirely in recycled clothes so I am very familiar with the ‘gender-free’ charity shop fitting room  (as has been homage’d in the mid-90s with a sonnet ‘Ode to the Cubicle’…)

Most significantly, as this is a daily necessity, is for me to be able to find and use gender-neutral toilet space and that means mainly using an accessible toilet. (This is also necessary for other trans persons – especially in the early days of their transition.)

I  feel Aspergically and sensorily more comfortable (and safe) in a solitary and more spacious ‘loo’. I take Aspie pleasure in their architectural features, and in the fixtures and fittings.

The fotovideo is a celebration of the accessible public convenience  as transgenderqueer space.

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Trans* Rememberance…

26/11/2013

20th November is International Transgender Day of Rememberance, a day when around some parts of the world there is an acknowledgement of the hundreds of transgendered people who are murdered for being other: for being trans…

The recorded figures come close to 250 this year; the majority of those killed are transwomen of colour in South American countries, particularly Brazil.  However, there are estimated to be  closer to 1000+ transpersons whose violent deaths are not recorded, including those by suicide and deaths in prisons…

http://www.transrespect-transphobia.org/en_US/tvt-project/tmm-results/tdor-2013.htm

Rememberance gatherings in Brighton were held on the 20th at the University of Sussex and on Sunday, 23rd in the Methodist Church building where the Clare Project social drop-in gathering and counselling sessions are offered weekly to transgendered and questioning persons, from the City and beyond.

http://www.clareproject.org.uk/

By way of rememberance, I offer my photojournal screenshot ‘mosaics’ – from mobile phone camera; my favourites from June through November 2013.  These are a symbol of my good fortune, as a non-binary transperson in the UK, to live freely – and safely – by day and by night, expressing myself just as I am.  These also represent my appreciation of the City that has hosted the UK’s first Trans* Pride and whose Council leads the way in its commitment to improving and making equal the lives of young and adult transpersons, and in its zero tolerance of trans hate crime.

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