TRACING THE HISTORY OF TRANS FILMMAKING WITH THE TRANSGENDER MEDIA PORTAL

LAURA HORAK @TheLorak

TransgenderMediaPortal.org @TransMediaPortl

CARLETON UNIVERSITY, ALGONQUIN TERRITORY

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ALL ATTENTION GOES TO CIS-MADE WORK

Trans artists have made thousands of films and videos—incredible, funny, devastating, aesthetically innovative work in all different genres.

But this work can be hard to find.

TRANS WORK NOT BEING ARCHIVED

From The Transvestite Today (1987) at the Transgender Archives at the University of Victoria

HIGHLIGHTS FROM 100 YEARS OF TRANS FILMMAKING

THE SILENT ERA (1890S-1930S)“Trans and cinema have grown up together.”

– Susan Stryker in Disclosure (2020)

Writer Karl Martha BaerAKA N. O. Body

German-Jewish trans intersex man1907 autobiography, Memoirs of a Man’s

Maiden Years, adapted to film in 1919

Performer Edna AKA Billy FosterAmerican child actor (active 1911-1915)

29 films, mostly boy roles“They always give me boy parts and I like them better than just being a girl.”

Christine Jorgensen greeting the NYC press in 1953

Director Ed Wood as Glen in Glen or Glenda (1953)

1950S: SPECTACULAR TRANS FEMININITIES

1960S & 1970S: COUNTERCULTURE & EDUCATORS

• Flawless Sabrina’s The Queen (1968)• Warhol superstars Candy Darling,

Jackie Curtis, and Holly Woodlawn• John Waters’ early films with Divine• Wendy Carlos: A Clockwork Orange

(1971), The Shining (1980), TRON(1982)

• Erickson Educational Foundation• I Am Not This Body (1970)

Erickson Educational Foundation Newsletter 3, no. 2 (Fall 1970): 2.

1960S & 1970S: COUNTERCULTURE & EDUCATORS

1990S: FIRST TRANS FILM FESTIVALS

Toronto, OntarioSeptember 12, 1997

London, EnglandOctober 29 – November 2, 1997

San Francisco, CaliforniaNovember 22, 1997

2000S & 2010S: RISE OF AMATEURS & PROS• Over 800,000 trans-made YouTube

videos• YouTube celebs: NikkiTutorials, Gigi

Gorgeous, Nikita Dragun, MilesChronicles, etc.

• Web series: Her Story, Eden’s Garden, These Thems, Razor Tongue

2000S & 2010S: RISE OF AMATEURS & PROS• Hollywood: Janet Mock,

Laverne Cox, Zackary Drucker, Sam Feder, Silas Howard

Yance Ford

• Yance Ford nominated for Academy Award in 2018

BUILDING THE TRANSGENDER MEDIA PORTAL

GOALS1. Make trans-made film more available2. Research landscape of trans filmmaking

• What kinds of aesthetic, generic, and narrative strategies have trans filmmakers used?

• How has trans-made cinema changed over time? • What kinds of arts infrastructures have made it

possible for trans people to create audiovisual work? • How have trans-made films circulated and how have

these circuits been created and sustained?

STAGE 1 (NOW)• Public website TransgenderMediaPortal.org

• List of BIPOC trans filmmakers• “Support Trans Artists”• Bibliographies• Syllabi

• Pilot private database• Records for Filmmakers, Films, Festivals, Archives,

Distributors, Funding Bodies• 1536 records—566 people and 476 films

STAGE 2 (FALL 2023)• Database open to the public

• Search and browse all database records• Public able to add, edit, and delete content• Edit-a-thons at trans and LGBT film festivals

MAKING THE TMP A TRANS TECHNOLOGY1. Involving trans people in every part of process2. Designing to meet stated needs of trans

filmmakers, programmers, students & activists3. Paying trans RAs, speakers & testers quickly

and well4. Materially supporting trans artists

DATA ABOUT PEOPLE’S IDENTITIES• Open vocabularies• Multiple values• No standard vocabularies (at this point)• Maintain specificity of language• Prioritize language coming out of grassroots

communities not institutions• Deadnames: Included in records but hidden

CHALLENGES• Messy metadata• Interoperability• Data analysis• White-dominated research teamSee trans user feedback and our project’s commitments to BIPOC trans leadership in our usability test report on Humanities Commonshttps://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:30641/

Go to: carleton.ca/TransMediaLab

carleton.ca/TransMediaLab TransgenderMediaPortal.org @TransMediaPortl