Oslo Fusion, the queer film festival in town, is always a treasure trove of engaging material. Last year I was incredibly energised, and it came at a great time, right before the first Queer Church. This year I’ve been having a harder time, so it was probably a good distraction to watch some queer shit.
The first thing I caught was a silver screen showing of Her Story, the web series that has promise of so much more. I don’t have a lot to say about it, because you can see it for yourself. All six episodes are available to watch online, and they offer a neat, digestible storyline that is incredibly relatable, while being performed in a wholly unique way. Jen Richards and Laura Zak have written and performed two honest, beautiful characters that I crave to see so much more of.
I can’t push this hard enough: Her Story is a perfect encapsulation of romance, recognition, respect and intersectional feminism as it applies directly to trans people. If you need any specific reason to watch, watch it because these things happen to me. From the site:
‘Her Story’ depicts the unique, complicated, and very human women we see in queer communities, and explores how these women navigate the intersections of label identity and love.
Sneaking in a heading about other feelings
Last week I sat down with a friend who was visiting from out of town and I told her that I was so tired and upset about my friends misgendering me, and sometimes not even using my name. I can’t begin to describe the weirdness of the feeling that I call these people my friends. Is that a friend? Someone who considers you a friend but doesn’t know your name?
When strangers do it — and I invariably struggle to correct them when they do — I wonder how they feel when they find me on Facebook and read my posts. When they see my trans activism. If they realise. I can’t even remember the many ways in which I tried to subtly work into a conversation that perhaps I wish to be addressed properly at literally every social event I attended in the past two weeks. At least they’re strangers. If they want to become friends, they can start with the right name and pronouns.
More Than T
On Saturday, I attended a screening of More Than T, the documentary about interesting people who also happen to be trans. It’s directed and produced by trans people, and like Her Story it shows. There is nothing inherently different about trans people other than their transness, and that transness is so personal and specific that it isn’t worth generalising it. The documentary shows beautiful complex people who in their own way have become like bedrock to their communities.
While transness is different for every trans person, some common traits are always there. Anohni says that trans women are all born with a natural religion
, and I’d only change that to say that it’s not just trans women but also everyone else on the trans spectrum. Whether non-binary, genderqueer, genderfluid, or of a more fixed gender expression, we’ve all considered gender and recognised it as both essentially unimportant and yet personally significant. Perhaps that internalised paradox helps guide us to see others in their own right as well.
For what it’s worth, that’s what I consider to be my witchcraft. Visit me in my hovel. I bake bread and will curse your enemies.
Jen Richards was in attendance and I had only one burning feeling that I decided not to articulate in the audience. But now that I’ve spent more time with it, I come away with one sad gut feeling that I can’t shake: so many trans people end up becoming carers. It’s survivor bias in its truest sense.