Trans* Inclusion from the Grassroots

How do trans* and non-binary artists rebuild community after two years of restrictions and social isolation? What kind of ecology do we want to build for the future and how can we lead this at a grassroots level? How can we support each other to grow and become more resilient to confidently move forward?

These were the questions I had in mind last year, as we were beginning to emerge from lockdown, back into physical spaces and ‘normal life’. In the 12 months since then, I have been fortunate enough to be supported by the Trailblazer fund to undertake practice-based research into these questions. I have used the opportunity to progress my inclusion practice while trialling immediate support interventions in the community at this uncertain and challenging time.

While I don’t have all the answers yet, I thought I’d share a bit about the process I’ve been on and what I learned along the way.

From Dancefloors and Drag Queens

As an inclusion producer working in the South West for the last several years, my focus has been on creating spaces of care for the communities I exist in as a trans woman. To do this, I’ve worked within cultural institutions and as a grassroots organiser through Thorny, a Bristol-based queer arts platform I founded in 2015.

We put on performance nights and provocative parties for local queer people, over the last 7 years, we have welcomed over 4,000 to see exciting work, meet like-minded people and dance with us. We’ve programmed artists from across disciplines including performance, spoken word, sound, drag and cabaret. Disrupting a range of local spaces from LGBTQ+ bars and clubs to cultural venues including Arnolfini.

Through my organising practice and lived experience within the creative industries as a software engineer and creative producer, I have developed a foundational knowledge and understanding of the inclusion barriers facing my community when navigating and progressing in the creative industries, so I feel well positioned to undertake this work.

Image Credit, Paul Samuel White

Towards a Prototype

I started by thinking about the types of barriers the community has been facing in recent years. Existing research into this isn’t new by now - we know that still only half of trans people feel that their workplace is inclusive (Stonewall, 2019). Wider mental health statistics also paint a stark picture: almost half of trans people (46 per cent) have thought about taking their own life in the last year (LGBT in Britain, 2018), and this will only have worsened after two years of widespread separation and lack of support.

Independent artists have been asking questions about how we make our practice sustainable for several years, in a climate of cuts to public services and arts funding under Tory austerity. Despite this, artists have continued to innovate and create challenging, boundary-pushing work. Our survival has only been possible through the networks of support we build for ourselves, which enable collective knowledge sharing, learning, healing and empowerment.

Taking all of this into account, I thought that establishing a physical space for people to meet after so much separation would be a good place to start. This space would provide a gentle reintroduction to IRL (In Real Life) socialising, where we could begin to think collectively about what we might need in order to rebuild. I would mobilise my experience as an artist and organiser to offer tailored mentoring support to individuals - upskilling and empowering local creatives and building their confidence to grow.

This was the premise for Bristol Trans and Non-Binary Creatives, a monthly meetup space held at Watershed and open to anyone who has a creative practice and identifies outside of the gender binary.

The Meetup Model

In the UK, the distinct lack of support services for trans people and the risk of discrimination and abuse in public spaces are at the root of the social exclusion that the community faces. To counteract this, community-led social meetups have become popular and necessary spaces for trans people to make new connections and find a sense of belonging.

I used this format for its familiarity and low barrier to access, as a place from which we could grow iteratively and in response to group feedback and reflection, gaining a stronger collective identity and critical voice. After finding our feet during the first sessions I took a short break at the beginning of 2022 to review and kicked off the new year by inviting members of the community to facilitate sessions for the group, to expand the expertise and experience in the room.

We were lucky to be joined by Sammy Paloma, an interdisciplinary artist and witch who shared divination tools to support creative intuition; Nathan Taylor, visual artist and nail technician who invited us to explore our value systems for ethical business development; and Freddie Wulf, artist and access consultant who gave a talk on access for Disabled and neurodivergent practitioners, who are overrepresented in the trans community.

The Challenges

The sessions were rich with discussion and well attended by creatives and professionals from across sectors including film and television, animation, journalism, theatre, performance and gaming. Participants were struggling with a myriad of challenges which went far beyond more familiar issues such as lack of awareness and staff training in workplaces, and the group produced some ideas for how we might collectively innovate to address these.

One suggestion was to create a database of local trans and non-binary creatives as a resource to help us find collaborators for projects and to aid employers in building inclusive workforces and freelance talent pools. This raised safeguarding concerns around how the resource would be managed - access would need to be dependent on businesses and organisations meeting certain criteria to ensure members are protected.

So many independent creatives are working with big clients and brands in the tech industry and the inherent power imbalance can make it feel impossible for individuals to protect themselves from discrimination, exploitative contracts and tokenistic representation. We thought about a toolkit for equitable partnerships which equips individuals with a framework to operate from, helping them to spot red flags early on.

We discussed how dominant technologies in the public domain are authored and primarily controlled by economically privileged white cisheterosexual men, and explored what a wider and more inclusive definition of technology itself could look like. Marginalised communities have been innovating our own technologies throughout history for our safety, preservation and survival, and to counteract and resist the systems which oppress us. 

What I Learned

For me, the project has been a success and while we achieved a lot in this short time, I feel we’ve only scraped the surface of what is possible. I have found that facilitated spaces which are community-led and owned have huge potential as a foundation for building inclusive ecologies, and those which nurture strong representation from across disciplines and industries will have increased potential for collective learning and growth.

While I did my best to connect individual members with opportunities through networks I have the privilege to be a member of, such as the Pervasive Media Studio, I feel there is more that could be done to create bridges between the community and the cluster to ensure sustainable and inclusive growth which benefits all. I would like to see more engagement from the partners of the Bristol + Bath Creative R+D programme with the space so that learning doesn’t just happen in a vacuum and more of the conversations can progress into tangible solutions.

Looking Forward

As the project comes to an official end, the last two months have been focused on its legacy, and I have handed over the organisation of the space to community members to take forward. During the transition, I have acted as a bit of a conduit: supporting the new leadership through mentoring and practical support, and refining the relationship with Watershed so the meetup is better integrated into the organisation’s offer.

I have also established a new partnership with national trans-led charity Not a Phase, who will kindly be supporting the project with ongoing funding to help with running costs. I will continue to support the new organisers in an ad hoc capacity and seek further opportunities to join up with industry partners to ensure we don’t lose momentum.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to undertake this work during these uncertain times and I hope that it can continue to contribute to a more supportive and inclusive environment for trans and non-binary creatives in the South West in the future.

Bristol Trans & Non-Binary Creatives Meetup takes place on the last Sunday of every month at Watershed.