Queer artists

Every now and then I visit queer events – I want to know my enemies.

That’s why I had been in the audience of the artists’ talk of Molly Landreth (photographer from Seattle/US) and Amelia Tovey (video artist and filmmaker from Sydney/Australia). I walked through their exhibition “Embodiment – A Portrait of Queer Life in America” and I kind of liked some of the photos that showed lesbians or lesbians couples. I also liked the two young women, their passion for their project (they toured the US for 4 weeks to make the photos), their obvious friendship and I particularly liked the idea that my city is the first where their work is exhibited.

Now on to some more details:
I was completely surprised when a man from the audience asked them if female-to-male transgender actually exist because he hadn’t seen them in the exhibition nor had they been mentioned in their lecture. I immediately realized that he was right. The photos show mostly men: lots of gay men, drag queens, mtf transgender and a few lesbians (probably only because Molly identifies as lesbian). Ftm transsexuals are extremely rare. Molly answered by showing one photo and explaining that there are lots of ftms but didn’t go into more detail as to why they are so rare in their exhibition.
To me the explanation is obvious. She said during her lecture that “performers like to be on film”. Women are not raised to be performers that’s why ftm don’t have the publicity of mtf and are not of the same interest to her.
An ftm transsexual was in the audience, too, however. She (to me she remains a woman) was drunk and desperate but managed to keep quiet until questions were allowed. Even in her bad English (the event was all English, of course) it was obvious that she was in great desperation, not accepted as a man in her environment. Such a person was very obviously not of any interest to Molly and Amelia. They are not interested in the pain that transsexualism/transgenderism can do to a person but are flattered by the obvious delight of mtf to perform. (I tried to find the ftm after the event but couldn’t find her. She seemed to have left earlier and since she had been sitting way behind me I hadn’t noticed.)

I also didn’t like a quote of Judith Halberstam (queer-theorist) by Amelia in order to explain what queer theory is all about.

I find it so very sad that these two young women don’t even notice how much they help in the adoration of men.

In case you are interested, here is the link to their blog:

http://qusa.blogspot.com/2009/12/dec-22-tovey-time.html

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