Art Metropole

#16681

gender liberators

Artist

Sky Syzygy

Date

2024

Publisher

Women's Studio Workshop

Format

Artists' Books

ISBN

978-1-943039-35-7

Size

18 × 25.4 × 3.5 cm

Length

352 pp

Genre

Queer Art & Artists, Feminist Theory, Activism, Rare & Out of Print

gender liberators is an anthology of writing, poetry, correspondence, photos, paintings, flyers, and other ephemera by trans*, Two-spirit, nonbinary, and trans-adjacent authors and creators from 20th-century Turtle Island/North America. The materials in this book were identified and selected based on hundreds of interviews that Sky Syzygy has conducted with elders, archivists, scholars, and cultural workers about their lives and work and about moments, individuals, and groups that were deeply influential but have been underappreciated in accounts of trans* history. Through this community guidance, this anthology centers the perspectives and visual and print culture of trans and queer life and resists some of the biases of existing histories and archives that under represent the geographic South and Midwest, trans* communities of color, and trans masculine communities.

This book seeks to let the included authors and materials speak for themselves and dialogue with each other while honoring the multiplicity of voices, formats, and perspectives: gender liberators is printed on more than a dozen different paper colors with multiple inks and printing techniques, including risograph, letterpress, digital offset, and with traditional paper marbling on each unique cover. Each book includes a companion booklet that acts as the combined colophon, bibliography, and index for researchers. It meticulously catalogues the included materials and underscores the level of care and research that went into the project.

Over the course of the past six years, Syzygy located and digitized over 13,000 pages of documents of trans* history in several dozen university, community, and private collections and is sharing these on the digital archive at http://gender.network. Most of these materials were not previously digitized or accessible outside the archives in which they are held. Syzygy believes collecting and sharing these stories is healing: “Our stories are key to healing our communities from the scars of transphobia. We heal when we connect with ancestors and learn more about ourselves through them. We heal when we receive testament to our continued existence in this world. We heal when given the opportunity to repair rifts from past conflicts. Finally, we heal when we can grow from the wisdom of passing time. Gathering around material histories and holding space for dialogue offers us the opportunity to engage with all these modes of healing.”