Issue 111 / November 2022

PREVIEWS
“Transition was nothing
less than alchemy. I
am so blessed and
privileged to have made
peace with a body I
once waged war with”
FESTIVAL
FOX FISHER
Homotopia – 29/10-15/11
Award-winning artist, filmmaker and campaigner discusses
their artistry and upcoming residency at Homotopia festival.
Homotopia’s arts and culture fest returns to Liverpool
with a programme promising its unique blend of
queer performance, visual art and new voices across
the transgender spectrum. Celebrated annually since
2004, the UK’s longest-running LGBTQIA arts and culture
festival will this year invite award-winning filmmaker and trans
rights campaigner, FOX FISHER, to be their artist in residence.
Fisher will take part in a number of workshops, collaborative
artwork events and a curated screening of My Genderation – a
film project co-founded with Lewis Hancox celebrating the trans
experience – followed by a discussion on trans life in the UK.
Ahead of Fisher’s highly anticipated residency, we caught
up with them to discuss the current transgender landscape,
representation in the media and what they have planned for the
16th arts and culture fest.
You were invited to design the artwork for Brighton Pride 2020,
an event which took place online for the first time in its history.
How did its taking place online affect the event?
As an awkward teen, my first ever Pride was Brighton Pride, so
it meant so much to be asked to create the illustrations for this
year’s event. I have to admit, I was disappointed to not see the
illustrations put to use around the park, which is always so lively.
It’s been a strange year for Pride. I was involved with so many
online panels and events (including Brighton Pride) that I still
managed to experience the annual Pride season burnout.
For the past few months, the digital sphere has certainly
become something of a refuge for those struggling
with isolation. Has this greater dependency on global
interconnectedness and the availability of social media
transformed how trans people make sense of their identity?
It certainly has. Although trans people have always existed, the
internet is invaluable for trans people to recognise who we are.
This is through creating profiles that match who we feel to be,
and by having access to chatrooms on trans topics, and YouTube
vlogs made by trans people sharing every part of the process of a
social and medical transition. When I was starting my transition,
and for many years before, I would feast off of trans vlogs that
documented people’s medical transitions. I would particularly seek
out those who were a bit similar to myself in stature, to see how I
might look after taking testosterone for a while.
Gaming also attracts a lot of trans people to create characters
more fitting to who they are and recently we’ve been treated
to the video game Tell Me Why, where one of the two main
characters is a trans man.
How have conversations and the greater transgender landscape
changed since My Transsexual Summer back in 2011? Are we
still waiting for language to keep up with conceptualisations of
identity?
When I came out as trans back in 2011, I knew I was coming
out to a world that didn’t fully understand trans issues. A lot has
happened since then and, while we’ve definitely moved forwards
in terms of public understanding, we still have a long way to go.
Many of us felt that 2015 was a tipping point for trans rights,
with Laverne Cox on the front cover of Time magazine, but I don’t
think it’s quite happened yet. In the past five years there has
been a really harmful and visceral media campaign against trans
people, with many of the current attacks focused on young trans
people and their access to puberty blockers (which are life-saving
and simply press pause on the wrong puberty) or trans people’s
access to spaces and services that they need.
We’ve also seen influential writers and figures speak out against
trans rights and there is still a huge gap in people’s understanding
of what it means to be trans and what we need to be safe in
society. In recent years there have been more conversations about
being non-binary, albeit sometimes at an absurd level, like when
my partner and I were grilled for 15 minutes by Piers Morgan on
live morning television.
Seeing my comrade Munroe Bergdorf on the front cover of Time
magazine this month ignites hope again.
Your experiences on My Transsexual Summer inspired you to
further explore and shed more light on the (often neglected)
experiences of trans people. As you continue to grow and
develop greater understanding about your own identity, has
anything surprised you about yourself?
I think the past years have definitely given me time to learn new
things about myself and explore what it really means to be me.
I first came out as trans at the same time I took part in the My
Trans Summer series and C4 wasn’t ready for me to talk about
being non-binary. In recent years, the conversation has opened
up to what it is to be non-binary. Non-binary people have seen
resistance and prejudice, even from within the trans community.
I spent a long time trying to be someone I wasn’t, constantly
trying to fit in and find some sort of peace. But coming out as
trans has really given me that peace of mind and I’ve been able to
really get to know myself and let everyone else get to know me.
I guess my biggest surprise was that I’ve managed to achieve so
much, to catch up for lost time, and that’s a direct result of being
able to be myself.
As an advisor to All About Trans, you help with representations
of transgender people within the media. Could you tell us a little
more about this role?
All About Trans is a project run by the charity On Road Media,
and it centres around creating a more positive portrayal for trans
people in the media and beyond. Through my work with AAT I
have been a part of many interactions, where we bring a group
of trans people to meet a group of journalists (or staff) and spend
the day together to learn more about trans issues in the media.
We’ve visited most major platforms in the country, including The
Guardian, [The S*n], The Daily Mail, BBC, daytime TV series, ITV
and more. We’ve also been working with publishing companies
like Hachette, so we reach a wide audience. What makes AAT
so powerful is that we create an environment where journalists
or staff can really connect to trans people on a human level and
we can have honest, positive and constructive conversations,
where they get a chance to learn from us. The impact has been
huge and continues to be, including positive media stories, more
accurate storylines on major TV series and a lot of connectivity
and education from behind the scenes.
The value of truth as the bedrock of civic society is currently
being undermined and devalued across the world. For you, what
does the next few years look like in terms of combatting fake
news to ensure the experiences and validity of transgender
people are heard in the media, social media, etc?
I think one of the biggest dangers of fake news is that it is often
used to incite hatred against minorities to divert away from
real issues where our rights and liberty are being taken away.
I think one of the biggest ways to combat that is to elevate trans
people to tell their own stories, as most people learn about trans
people from people who aren’t trans. This leaves a lot of room for
disinformation to be spread and for people to get it wrong.
This is why it’s so important for trans people to be ‘in the room’
for content creation and relaying information. We need to see
more trans people as news presenters, as directors, writers and
producers, and in visible positions. We need people to understand
that trans people are people you meet in real life, and we aren’t
just an isolated group of people that doesn’t partake in society.
We are your colleagues, your children’s teachers, your social
workers, your NHS staff, your friends, your family.
People need to be able to think for themselves a bit more and be
critical of the information they are receiving online. I think a huge
amount of work needs to be put into combatting this with real
stories of real people.
We’re looking forward to you being artist in residence at this
year’s Homotopia, the theme of which is Show Your Working.
What were your immediate thoughts on this theme and how
did you go about designing your elements of the programme?
As you can imagine, the theme for Homotopia changed and
evolved as this unusual year progressed. I think Show Your
Working is apt because activism can show someone’s stance on a
topic but there needs to be an action point or initiative. Otherwise
it risks being seen as slacktivism.
We need people to be visible in their support. We’re essentially
asking people to show their receipts, by asking what people are
actually doing to help people who are being discriminated against
or targeted because of their gender identity, gender expression
or sexuality. Now is the time to speak up because simply being
passive or quiet about it is negligent and potentially damaging.
This idea of not claiming to know the answer but showing you
have a plan is intriguing. Your voice and identity shines through
your screen printing; how can ideas of gender and art work
together to create a shared commonality among those who
feel at the fringes of the UK’s creative culture?
For me, transition was nothing less than alchemy. I am so
blessed and privileged to have made peace with a body I once
waged war with. My art is a reflection of that, where I am able
to express what it is to be a human being with a variety of
intersections, particularly being brown, queer, trans masculine
and non-binary.
I think art is one of the most powerful tools we have, and it can
pave change and raise awareness of different issues, whether
that’s art that is directly political and challenging, or even if it’s
art pieces created by someone who has a voice. Art can really
connect people from such different backgrounds, and I am
always really excited to see people turn their experiences into
something so powerful as art. !
Words: Matthew Berks / @hewniverse_
homotopia.net
As well as being this year’s artist in residence, Fox Fisher
is taking part in three Homotopia events: Transtopia on
6th November, My Genderation on 7th and Fox Fisher In
Conversation on 8th.
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