"MILKSHAKE takes its audience on a tour around the winding backstreets of straight Malta. Local and international artists, photographers, authors and performers will approach issues of masculinity and femininity by working directly with people from the Maltese community"The project consists of visual artists and authors. For more information and updates one can follow the link http://milkshaketheproject.wordpress.com/about/ .
Since at the moment I have quite some time I can dedicate towards this project, I plan to do a couple of meetings and interviews with people from the LGBT community. Yesterday I did my first interview with Anne, whom I met a couple of weeks ago after seeing her video on YouTube calling for auditions from people interested in joining her Queer Teasers channel on Youtube. (See my Times They are A Changing post further down my blog for more info about this project).
"Queer is an umbrella term, anyone who confronts the hetronormativ views of gender can be described as queer. People who identify as both genders, genderless, pansexual and trans could all fall under this category. Queer is all about empowerment to be what you feel the need to be, without labels, without rules."
When asked if she sees the body as a trap, she said that for her, the body is a vessel rather than a trap, a vessel for who you are. Rather than the body itself, it is society and mind perceptions that trap the individual. The body should be treated as a canvas that expresses who we are, and can be easily changed, in permanent and not-so-permanent ways to suit our desires. Being afraid of changing your body to suit how you feel is the true entrapment.
I always questioned the fact that most LGBT people express themselves in ways that are seen as over-the-top by the public. By over the top, I don't mean transsexuals in flashy clothes and huge boobs acting stupid and slutty on some Saturday night show on local telly. Even the fact that lesbians make it a point to look like boys, cut their hair short, dress up all boyish...it seems that they want to make it a point that they are different. For Anne, the answer is simple. Queer manifestation is important because if you don't manifest the fact that some people are not born to be the same person through out their life, that is when you are trapped within your body. The process of discovering and reinventing yourself can be tough, and people may get lost, but at least they are going somewhere rather than being in a fixed position they are not comfortable with.
For Anne, feeling good about yourself seems to be the ultimate goal. For her, transsexuality is it’s about modifying your body into one you are comfortable in, and even then it’s not always about the full sex change operation and hormones, sometimes it’s just the hormones or just the operation, that is breaking the trap imposed on you by society's notion of gender. A very particular point mentioned was the fact that sometimes she feels that her body is responding to her both her genders in physical manners. Features of the body which defines sex can always be enhanced or played down if one feels like, such as using a push up bra to enhance boobs, or doing without make up, hair undone, hoodie and sports bra to get a boyish look if desired. It's all about playing with the level of male and female found within our bodies. (This idea of levels was something that I came up with as part of my concept a few weeks ago, and this interview made it clear to me that I should be developing it further in my artwork.)
"So you 're saying that being androgynous is the way to look?" "No, for me androgyny goes deeper than looks: it's about being able to be versatile. With androgyny you change the way you look, but it doesn't mean you can't go back."
Recently somebody asked Anne on Tumblr "Are you a lesbian girl?", and the only answer she can come up with was that her sex is female, her gender is male and female and her sexuality is fluid. She feels that there is no way for her body to fully express her gender, so she resolves to live day by day and express her gender daily. If she's going in a direction in a particular time, it doesn't mean she can't go back to where she started and head off in the opposite way. She believes that yes, body can be isolated from gender. While some people have their gender pre-designed by society's notions and are comfortable in it, some feel isolated from these notions and panic since they don't fit in and, as it is with everything against the norm, it is not easy for evryone to adjust your body to the gender you identify with.
More interviews are to follow soon, I'm still looking for an androgynous male that plays with this idea of levels and adjusts his looks according to his gender instincts frequently. Apart from these interviews I'm reading some very interesting queer literature, which I would discuss in an entry in the near future.
"So you 're saying that being androgynous is the way to look?" "No, for me androgyny goes deeper than looks: it's about being able to be versatile. With androgyny you change the way you look, but it doesn't mean you can't go back."
Recently somebody asked Anne on Tumblr "Are you a lesbian girl?", and the only answer she can come up with was that her sex is female, her gender is male and female and her sexuality is fluid. She feels that there is no way for her body to fully express her gender, so she resolves to live day by day and express her gender daily. If she's going in a direction in a particular time, it doesn't mean she can't go back to where she started and head off in the opposite way. She believes that yes, body can be isolated from gender. While some people have their gender pre-designed by society's notions and are comfortable in it, some feel isolated from these notions and panic since they don't fit in and, as it is with everything against the norm, it is not easy for evryone to adjust your body to the gender you identify with.
More interviews are to follow soon, I'm still looking for an androgynous male that plays with this idea of levels and adjusts his looks according to his gender instincts frequently. Apart from these interviews I'm reading some very interesting queer literature, which I would discuss in an entry in the near future.
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