Enter
But your work also invites scrutiny about
how your body is not the same as other
bodies. How important is your identification as transgender to your work? If
you’re not going to exist as your
biologically-assigned gender or
you’re not operating [as a transgender person] on one end of the
gender spectrum, then you end up
in that in-between space, inviting
that scrutiny. Still, I would hate
for my work to be dismissed or
relegated to only being about being
transgender. I’m trying to push or
create a kind of visual language for
my subjectivity — trying to create
visual options. You can tap into
people’s psyches and have them
imagine things that they don’t yet
have words for. I think that’s very
powerful. I’m trying to create a
slippery language, one — much like
my body — that doesn’t fit.
One of your most visible projects was
making out with Lady Gaga in her
“Telephone” video. How do you feel
about her relationship with the LGBT
community? If someone can inspire someone young and ignite
a certain fire within them to become something, I think that’s
a good thing. Her whole “I was
picked on by kids in high school”
— it’s like “Poor you, you were a
HUFFINGTON
07.15.12
Q&A
very wealthy child that went to
an Upper West Side private girls
school.” There are ways that you
can dismiss this narrative that’s
about being “other” and the fact
that it has been potentially used
as a marketing campaign. But
there are kids out
there who do feel
bullied and do feel
You
like they’re differcan tap into
ent and they do need
people’s
someone to say that
psyches and
to them.
have them
imagine
things that
they don’t
yet have
words for.”
Your appearance in the
“Telephone” video presented many people with
an unfamiliar image. What
are your thoughts on representations of transgender people in mainstream
society? There’s not that much out
there but there’s definitely more
than there used to be, which is
good. It’s often highly sensationalized using this ridiculous language
and focusing on this one aspect
of the person ins ѕ