Ongoing Legacies of Transmisogyny

About a year ago, I attended an artist talk hosted by an arts organization dedicated specifically to serving queer artists. After relishing a rich conversation between featured artists of many different identities, one attendee expressed that they couldn’t help but notice a heavy absence of trans women in the artist talk and in the room more generally, and inquired about the organization’s history of engaging trans women artists. While the critique was warranted, it felt overly simplistic to attribute this failure to one artist talk or one arts organization; at that moment, there were no trans artists being shown at the Toronto galleries that I frequented, many of which had programming histories that didn’t include trans women artists at all.

In recent years, I’ve read job postings that explicitly encourage applications from trans people, received emails from cisgender gallery staff with their pronouns in their email signatures, and read exhibition statements that use some variation of the term “women and femmes” to supposedly signal inclusivity of diverse gender identities. While many trans artists have achievements worth celebrating, this institutional inclusivity rarely goes beyond linguistics and appearance-focused actions. We are still in an arts landscape that is desolate in terms of actual trans people being given presentation opportunities—whether in larger institutions, commercial galleries, or even artist-run centres. When trans people are granted access, it’s important to consider which factions are prioritized, how and why they’re supported (or not supported), and the potential of other models of inclusion based in self-determination.

I spoke with three trans women artists who have contributed to the Canadian arts scene over the past decade—Luis De Filippis, Kama La Mackerel, and Kim Ninkuru—each of whom generously shared with me their experiences. We discussed the ways that the arts have failed to include and support trans women, the structural changes that