Some kind of we

Cleopatria Peterson’s illustrated mock newspaper The Transgender Times features an interview between the artist and their trans friends, emphasizing the t4t relationality at the centre of their project, as well as a personals section evoking t4t’s origins in personal ads published in periodicals and, later, on Craigslist. This project gestures towards a rich history of self-published print media through which trans people shared life-saving knowledge with each other, forming community across geographies, and disseminating trans cultural production within trans-run distribution networks.

Collaborators and partners Daze Jefferies and B.G-Osborne put forward an ambient poetic correspondence in this caress fathoms, combining video with sung and spoken poem in which the two artists’ voices fuse into one another. Similarities in Jefferies’ and B.G-Osborne’s voices forge a sonic unity, drawing on trans vocal malleability. An ethereal soundscape combines with childhood home video footage featuring bodies of water, layered with a hypnotic revolving interpretation of a sand dollar. A continuation of their collaborative work that positions water as a connector to trans foremothers, this video evokes a rural topography of trans experience and intergenerational longing, connecting the two artists’ respective upbringings in Kawartha Lakes, Ontario, and Bay of Exploits, Newfoundland, through their proximity to bodies of water.

In polished, B.G-Osborne and Benjamin Da Silva sit in a bath together and shave their faces, their conversation jumping from t4t dynamics to mental health and substance use, to their own experiences in each of their transitions. The video places emphasis on trans intimacy, sexuality, and personal narratives, while discussions of mental health and addiction allow for a non-utopic and nuanced perspective of t4t to become visible, emphasizing the sometimes arduous nature of navigating relationality while trans. B.G-Osborne and Da Silva offer a candid and intimate exploration of t4t in this video, echoing the sentiments and interpersonal dynamics present in Mirha-Soleil Ross and Xanthra Phillippa MacKay’s Gendertroublemakers. Here, a trans past fuses into a trans present, emphasizing the significant role that video continues to hold within trans cultural production.