After I finish giving the last queerly failing haircut of the day I look back at the installation, all the polaroid's I have taken of participants, the massive pile of hair on the floor, and I think about how in this ephemeral space we have made a utopian queer universe that is porous in both who identifies under the sign if queer community and where the personal and physical boundaries are drawn. My hope is that the conversations move outward as each participant creates their own acts of queer worlding before and after their haircuts grow out.
1 For info in violence perpetrated against trans femmes of color see the HRC website: https://www.hrc.org/resources/violence-against-the-trans-and-gender-non-conforming-community-in-2020, also see the Transgender Law Center website at: https://www.hrc.org/resources/violence-against-the-trans-and-gender-non-conforming-community-in-2020. NCTE, “Murders of Transgender People in 2020 Surpasses Total for Last Year in Just Seven Months,” in NationalCenter for Transgender Equality, August 7, 2020, https://transequali
ty.org/blog/murders-of-transgender-people-in-2020-surpasses-total-for-last-year-in-just-seven-months, Elinor Aspergen, “Transgender Murders are ‘Rampant” in 2020: Human Rights Campaign counts 21 So Far, Nearly Matching Total of a Year Ago,” in USA Today, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/08/trangender-murders-2020-human-rights-campaign/5395092002/.
cárdenas “Dark Shimmers,” 161-181. She discusses how heightened imaging of trans people has impacted other trans folks (170-173). Morgan Collado, “A Trans Woman of Color Responds to the Trauma of Tangerine,” Autostradle, 26 August 2015, https://www.autostraddle.com/a-trans-woman-of-color-responds-to-the-trauma-of-tangerine-301607/, (accessed December 8, 2018). Miss Major Griffin-Gracy and CeceMcDonald in Conversation with Toshio Meronick, “Cautious Living: Black Trans Women and the Politics of Documentation,” in Tourmaline, 29. McDonald points out that she herself does not readily fit the narrow prescription of what a trans femme should be and look like. For more on CeCe McDonald see: Sabrina Rubin Erdely, “The Transgender Crucible,” in Rolling Stone, July 30, 2014. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/the-transgender-crucible-114095/; Dee Lockett, “The Traumatic Reality of Getting Sent to Solitary Confinement for Being Trans That Orange Is The New Black Can’t Show” Vulture June 28, 2016. https://www.vulture.com/2016/06/cece-mcdonald-as-told-to-orange-is-the-new-black.html) accessed July 19, 2019. Also see: CecE McDonald, “I Use My love to Guide Me Through Those Fears,” in BCRW, http://bcrw.barnard.edu/fellows/cece-mcdonald/; also see: Selena Qian “Activist CeCe McDonald takes allies to task in public talk,” Chronicle, Dune University, November 11, 2017, https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2017/ 11/171129-qian-cece-mcdonald
2 I had done a residency at the Wassaic project in 2018. See: https://www.wassaicproject.org/artists/artist-profiles/list/ace-lehner . Wassaic Summer exhibition site: https://www.wassaicproject.org/events/2019-summer-exhibition
3 J. Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011).
4 For examples see: Nancy Dillon, “transgender man in California haircut discrimination beef wins settlement from barbershop,” New York Daily News, August 22, 2016 https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/transgender-man-haircut-discrimination-beef-wins-settlement-article-1.2761192. Harriet Hernando, “transgender man refused haircut after being told ‘you’re female and this is a male barber’s shop,’” Mirror June 3, 2016 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/transgender-man-refused-haircut-after-8106752. Tim Loc, “Transgender Man Settles Lawsuit With Barbershop That Denied Him A Haircut,” LAist, August 19, 2016 https://laist.com/2016/08/19/transgender_man_settles_lawsuit_aft.php.
cárdenas “Dark Shimmers,” 161-181. She discusses how heightened imaging of trans people has impacted other trans folks (170-173). Morgan Collado, “A Trans Woman of Color Responds to the Trauma of Tangerine,” Autostradle, 26 August 2015, https://www.autostraddle.com/a-trans-woman-of-color-responds-to-the-trauma-of-tangerine-301607/, (accessed December 8, 2018). Miss Major Griffin-Gracy and CeceMcDonald in Conversation with Toshio Meronick, “Cautious Living: Black Trans Women and the Politics of Documentation,” in Tourmaline, 29. McDonald points out that she herself does not readily fit the narrow prescription of what a trans femme should be and look like. For more on CeCe McDonald see: Sabrina Rubin Erdely, “The Transgender Crucible,” in Rolling Stone, July 30, 2014. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/the-transgender-crucible-114095/; Dee Lockett, “The Traumatic Reality of Getting Sent to Solitary Confinement for Being Trans That Orange Is The New Black Can’t Show” Vulture June 28, 2016. https://www.vulture.com/2016/06/cece-mcdonald-as-told-to-orange-is-the-new-black.html) accessed July 19, 2019. Also see: CecE McDonald, “I Use My love to Guide Me Through Those Fears,” in BCRW, http://bcrw.barnard.edu/fellows/cece-mcdonald/; also see: Selena Qian “Activist CeCe McDonald takes allies to task in public talk,” Chronicle, Dune University, November 11, 2017, https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2017/ 11/171129-qian-cece-mcdonald
2 I had done a residency at the Wassaic project in 2018. See: https://www.wassaicproject.org/artists/artist-profiles/list/ace-lehner . Wassaic Summer exhibition site: https://www.wassaicproject.org/events/2019-summer-exhibition
3 J. Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011).
4 For examples see: Nancy Dillon, “transgender man in California haircut discrimination beef wins settlement from barbershop,” New York Daily News, August 22, 2016 https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/transgender-man-haircut-discrimination-beef-wins-settlement-article-1.2761192. Harriet Hernando, “transgender man refused haircut after being told ‘you’re female and this is a male barber’s shop,’” Mirror June 3, 2016 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/transgender-man-refused-haircut-after-8106752. Tim Loc, “Transgender Man Settles Lawsuit With Barbershop That Denied Him A Haircut,” LAist, August 19, 2016 https://laist.com/2016/08/19/transgender_man_settles_lawsuit_aft.php.