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by KB
Trannies testify. We testify that our lives are worth living. Everyday we struggle to live remembering this world is ours to create even as we fight for our existence within it. These are true tranny testimonials. They all begin again and again, becoming Truth, always Never-ending. Identities shift as coming out is the process of becoming ourselves, healing our hearts and living our lives without fearing their endings. These stories, the ones where we never die, never even bleed; they remind me that we speak truth to power in the creation of ourselves.
The creation of Tranny Fest, North America's first film festival and cultural
week dedicated to celebrating Tranny cultures, is living testament
that our life stories are forms of resistance. Tranny
Fest was born in 1997 by Co-Directors, Christopher Lee and
Al Austin in San Francisco, to create a cultural space through
film and video screenings, performances, panel discussions, parties,
workshops, and youth programs. The festival survived for many
years through grants from community-based non-profit agencies,
but, in 2003, with the Bush regime-escalating attacks on oppressed
communities struggling for social and economic justice, funding
was cut in half, endangering the festival's existence.
The City of Lost Angels
crew, along with Sundown Salon's Fritz Haeg, hosted an emergency
fundraiser to ensure that Tranny Fest lived to speak truth to our
cultures. Fritz understood the importance of our imaginings of
another world, one in which our stories of survival exist; the
stories of hope and triumph, of struggle and love, of families
and friends and change that each one of us needs to hear: to choose
life instead of death, hope instead of despair, love instead of
hate. Tranny Fest validates that our language whether spoken, written,
performed, or imagined visually transforms ourselves and our worlds
as we build new ideas, shape other thoughts, tell other stories,
fill silences, and move others to think and live in ways previously
unimagined. Our language confirms and creates our cultures and
Tranny Festís testimony to this transformation was saved on Sunday
July 27, 2003, when trannies, artists, and allies gathered in
Mount Washington at the Sundown Salon to Tranny Dome for "Hot Rods
n' Hot Pants," a day-long benefit with a hot art auction and bazaar,
steamy performances and sizzling trannies.
Sabrina Smith, City
of Lost Angels organizer, details the beginnings, "We
wanted to throw a party to build community between the San Francisco
and Los Angeles
queer and trans communities while raising money to keep Tranny
Fest alive. We created an organizing committee of artists and organizers,
which was a dynamic process, but we grew from each other: value
added. I’m not trans, but I traveled on an emotional roller
coaster with a trans man for many years. Tranny Fest and Christopher
Lee made me feel part of a broader trans community. Tranny Fest
helps create a queer community through visibility and understanding
and inclusion."
At the event, Lost Angels crew
member Karla Zombro observed the reflection of LA’s queer community, "What
struck me about the event was that even though it was all up in the
hills
and away from the clubs and enclaves like WeHo and Silverlake,
it really looked and felt like LA's queer community. I hate to
use a played out word like 'diversity,' but in terms
of race, gender, age, etc. it really reflected the diversity that's
here in the City of Lost Angels. "
Angel Franco, of the Lost Angels crew, discovered an
explosion of gender connections. "It was all new
to me, all the tranny identifications. It was a learning process.
Before
working with
the City of Lost Angels Crew, I only thought of people as gay,
straight or lesbian. There are a lot of people that aren’t
familiar with the whole gender, sex, sexual orientation, sexuality,
surgeries, hormones, and drag questions that trannies face.
Everyone knows what a drag queen is but really understanding
what it means
to be trans every second of every day is a lot. There’s
a lot to learn about transgender issues and I’m still
learning."
Artist and crewmember Young Chung engaged in building
an anti-essentialist coalition of artists mobilized by the desire
for gender justice. "I
was most impressed with the generosity of artists. We bridged
artists and organizers and folks with different gender politics.
Straight
people and queer people donated precious art because they
believed in the cause. Usually artists donate for nonprofits
or for disaster/disease
fundraisers. This was one of the first where we aligned ourselves
as part of the struggle for genderevolution."
The community who arrived to build the base for genderevolution
knew how to party. A fine young woman named Bootsy represented
for straight girls. "I was there. That shit was
off the hook. My friend bid on that badass Cathy Opie photo.
I bought art, t-shirts, lil’ soaps.
I saw Dred perform. It was a blast: beautiful weather,
beautiful space."
A tranny chaser named
Karl clarified identifications of MTFs and FTMs to facilitate
tranny hook-ups. "I went with a tall lanky Texan who
is bi mostly with women but hooks up with guys a lot so trannies
are perfect for
him. MTFs
were his expectation. At one point he said, 'Where
are all the trannies?' He was surrounded by trannyboys
at the time."
Lost Angels crew member and artist Lucas Michael bid
on some painful pleasure for the Cause. "I was hoping
to hook up with a gorgeous guy or tranny or somebody so the moment
they started auctioning for spankings,
I knew that this was my last chance to get some kind of action. I bid on a
spanking but I wasn’t satisfied with her. We took
it outside with a circle of people watching. She used
her silver platform
boots to kick me against the front door. My ass needed
it and so did Tranny Fest. It was for a good cause."
Lost Angels trannyfag Christian de la Chris fashioned
our dream performance sets with tranny magic. "The
performance line up was inspiring. It was a dream come
true; tranny
magic live and
direct from tranny wishes. The collection of performers
broke apart the predominantly white tranny paradigm.
It was transnasty magic:
hot and political and fun and sexy."
Tranny Fest’s existence speaks truth to our becoming:
becoming ourselves through the process of struggling to
imagine identities
that move beyond those of victims and survivors and toward
those of creators. Together we will fight to create ourselves
and our
world until the dream of living our lives replaces our
fight for existence.
This vision contains our history of resistance to
violence. In 1969, African-American and Latina
drag queens were
on the front
lines of the uprising against police brutality
in Greenwich Village that ignited the gay liberation
movement. The
public questioned
our reasoning and demanded an answer for our resistance: "Were
you fighting police brutality? Were you fighting
racism? Or for your right to be gay? Did you fight
because so few
of the queens
could produce the military draft cards government
agents demanded that night? Or because so many
of you were homeless
and hungry
and embattled on the street?"
Seventeen-year-old Puerto Rican trans revolutionist
Sylvia Rivera replied with quiet dignity, "We
were fighting for our lives."
Over thirty years later we continue the fight for
our lives. On Sunday July 27, 2003, we celebrated
life,
the beauty
of our existence – every
inch of our truly transexyselves. Fritz Haeg’s Sundown
Salon transitioned to the Trannydome and saved the life
of Tranny Fest,
a moment that testifies to the power of creating communities
and cultures who believe in the movement of tranny hearts
from dying
and surviving to healing, beating, and loving: Trannies
Live Forever!
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