Marking Trans Remembrance Day

To mark Trans Remembrance Day, the Student and Staff Solidarity Network (SSSN), the Staff Pride Network (SPN) and the UCU held a collaborative event entitled Trans Lives: Poetry, Videogames and Allyship. During the panel discussion, Dr Gina Gwenffrewi, Dr Merlyn Seller and Dr Jo Edge spoke about trans art and representation in media as well as the importance of allyship with the trans community.

“Art can be a very affirming space for minorities,” said Gina as the event drew to a close, and I thought about how this space has been too. The event had started with the students from SSSN (Student – Staff Solidarity Network) who were chairing the event reminding us that now, as ever, is a time to stand with our trans friends. Given the time we’re currently living in and the all too real nature of the reminder, the event could have been a gloomy one. But it wasn’t. It was a joyful reminder of the power that art, creativity, kinship and community can wield over oppression. Even when the odds feel stacked against us, when we uplift each other, we ourselves feel uplifted.

Though the event felt hopeful, it was not unserious. The poetry read by Gina Gwenffrewi was a reminder of the unjust challenges faced by trans people. Poems by Roz Kaveney, C.A. Conrad and Paul Preciado explored ideas around place, belonging and healthcare. Both beautiful and sad, they highlighted the importance and necessity of Trans Remembrance Day. Hearing from different trans voices was the perfect way to begin the event. Personal experiences, revealed through creative practice can tell us so much about the world and each other and it was a joy to hear the poems read by Gina who lent her own voice to them as well.

Turning towards a slightly different and more modern art form, Merlyn Seller brought to light the value and variety of trans representation in videogames, exploring how such representations can help give meaning to the trans experience. Touching on ideas of phenomenology, time and place, Merlyn took us through the history of trans representation in video games, landing on the game If Found that was released 2020. Merlyn highlighted how the game uses themes of erasure and time to explore gender identity; “As a trans player I found myself experience a friction between the present and the past.” As someone who is unfamiliar with the world of video games, I found Merlyn’s portrayal of them to be at once in-depth and highly accessible as she emphasised how visual representations of trans identity can help trans people to make sense of their own experiences as well as (hopefully) invoking empathy in cis gender players. I was reminded that art comes in a variety of forms and that visual representations are vessels through which we can understand ourselves and others. A point raised by Merlyn that I found particularly moving was the idea that you do not always need to be moving towards a perfected and completed end point, sometimes it is simply enough to know what you are not.

Moving away from art and towards themes of allyship, Jo Edge spoke about how her experiences of discrimination in the psychiatric system and being an autistic woman taught her the importance of taking other people at their word and cooperating across marginalized communities. Jo spoke of the difficulty faced by marginalized groups when only one ‘perfect’ example of the minority is allowed to speak for the group, thus effacing the diversity of experiences and identities of that community. Drawing on magic as an entity that can’t be pinned down by a fixed definition, Jo reminded us that definitions don’t hold as much power as we give them, and some things are simply undefinable. In the end, she says “what really undermines all of us are biological essentialism and the far right.” Working together in communities like unions, Jo points out, can be a productive way of tackling a common enemy, with the UCU being at the forefront of trans inclusivity among unions.

After Jo, the chairs opened the floor to questions from the students. I found this to be one of the most uplifting parts of the event as the importance of creativity, art and cooperation came together to create a sense of hope for the future. Gina reminded us again that oppressed groups face a common enemy under capitalism and that capitalism runs on inequality which calls us to be both anti-capitalist and intersectional in our activism. She also highlighted the importance of finding safety in creative communities such as theatre. “Art finds a new language for something,” said Merlyn. It’s a hopeful thought that we can always turn to creative expression to create a better world for ourselves; the recent display of trans pride through flags painted around the city provides a pertinent example. Jo pointed out that being able to do what we love should be the point of our existence and she called for “karaoke for the masses.” I left the event in the hope that maybe one day, trans lives won’t be questioned or threatened and the biggest issue we all face will be what song to choose on a karaoke machine.

Author Bio

Amy Life is a fourth year French and Philosophy student and the Undergraduate Communications Intern for GENDER.ED. She has previously been the president of Edinburgh University’s Feminist Society and is one of the founders of #MeToo Edinburgh University.