Trans* history is now and your story matters. This speculative trans oral history workshop responds to the widespread erasure of trans lives and histories by the Trump Administration by creating an opportunity for everyday trans people to reimagine, share, and amplify our origin stories.
In conjunction with a free health and wellness clinic by and for TGI communities, participants will be guided through prompts to develop their stories and then given the opportunity to record and contribute those stories to a larger archive of trans voices and power.
Instead of focusing on the pain and trauma of living through this extraordinary, harrowing historic moment this workshop creates space for T4T care, listening, and freedom (in a range of modalities, including disability justice, health and wellness, and advocacy). Participants will be given the freedom to fabulate, speculate, and self-mythologize within this workshop. In a world that is screaming at us that we do not know who we are, we want to empower trans people with something like the opposite: we know that you know who you are. Let us share that story with the world.
Storytellers will be compensated for their time and a public reception will be held in November with an installation of the audio recordings. Participants will also be invited to contribute their stories and voices to a larger, living public art project, combining trans voices with a large-scale visual and sound art installation.
This program is organized by Gender Justice LA and Ashton Phillips as part of Circa: Queer Histories Festival 2025, presented by One Institute.
Pieter is a home for all people to dance, create, and heal together with the belief that embodiment liberates. We say “all people” because dance spaces historically exclude those who are non-white, non-able, non-“fit,” non-“healthy,” non-young, non-cisgendered and non-independently-wealthy. Dance includes a broad spectrum of body-based practices and the cultivation of culture. Rooted in Los Angeles, Pieter fosters a just and expansive community of movement artists, healers and activists.