Is Seeking Mavis Beacon part of queer and trans cinema? After thanking me for giving them the opportunity to answer this specific question, this was Jones’ response:

Q&A Transcript

Jazmin Renée Jones: As a Black, queer, non-binary filmmaker, there’s no question that this is a Black film. It’s just, it’s Black cinema. Me being Black, regardless of what the subject of my film is, it’s a Black film. And I think it’s really interesting that queer cinema, it’s a little trickier. And it’s like, I think this [their film] is queer cinema. Olivia and I are gay as hell, but but it’s like absent of a love plot. It’s like we don’t qualify. And I think queer cinema is also just like, hey we’re queers, we’re out here.

Olivia McKayla Ross (associate producer and protagonist): It’s like we’re queering cinema [audience laugher]. Like, well, there’s a divestment I think from like a normative way of understanding the traditional structures that are upholding how what we deem is like a regular way to behave. And we bring as like, investigators, a femme politik to even encounter people’s space. And sometimes even overdoing it with like apologizing a lot, knocking on doors in a kind of way where like, it’s very common with investigative documentaries, you just have someone like waving a camera in your face, and like being very, um, there’s like a sense of like “it is my right because I’m holding a camera” and there’s these like dude, dude bro, like true crime. Yeah.

So I think there’s a way in which, um, like the fact of our queerness embeds in everything that we’re doing. And also the lessons I think, like, that we learn from queer and trans people of history about representation and how it can be a trap [muffled]. Invisibility the entire, yeah having visibility and having a voice…

Jazmin Renée Jones: Another thing, I think, coming back to your question too, we had a really interesting experience, Olivia and I. We went to film at a certain queer archive and the question came up of like why would we let you film here, your movie isn’t queer. And then we were like but no, we are, and then they’re like but your subject isn’t queer, and we’re like you got us there, maybe, I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her about that yet. So I think in general, I just, I’m excited for this to be in conversation with other queer films.

Olivia acknowledged that we spent a lot of time studying the hero’s journey and then the heroin’s journey, which I really love, um, but I also found it to be incredibly clunky in its gendered language, and so, it’s like I had to like translate like the divine feminine. And like okay that means intuition.

And so if anybody here also would like to work on like a gender nonconforming Journey which is basically us figuring out the principles of that without all of this gendered language, I would love that um, so yeah thank you.

Guetty Felin (producer): You’ve done it with Seeking Mavis Beacon.

Jazmin Renée Jones: Thank you.

Family Dynamics In Seeking Mavis Beacon

Call it a “Sundance moment”: I serendipitously sat down with several of Jazmin’s family members at a cafe near the Seeking Mavis Beacon premiere on my way to the press line, before having any idea who they were. I had seen an open chair at a table and politely asked if I could use it, and was immediately invited to take a seat with the family. We easily fell into conversation, and upon learning what I was there for, Jazmin’s mother shared with a big smile that they (Jazmin’s parents, step-parents, and more) were there for the same film too.

As I looked around the table in awe, I told them what a beautiful gift it was for me to witness such a unified front for Jazmin. Even though I didn’t know her and hadn’t seen her film yet, it meant so much to see a fellow queer and non-binary person being supported in big ways by their blood and chosen family on their special day.

I didn’t have to tell them that I and other queer and trans people don’t always get this support. I could tell they already knew.

My brief time sharing space with Jazmin’s family was filled with their father and step-father trading anecdotes about her always having a camera in her hand, the warm tones of their voices full of pride and nostalgia. Jazmin’s mother’s phone then dinged with a notification, followed by her alerting the table that Jazmin had asked that they meet her at the press tent.

Since I knew where it was, I offered to guide them there. “You’re our angel,” Jasmin’s mother said as I led them out the door, and we made our way through the snow to the little white tent where Jazmin was waiting inside.

From a respectful distance, I watched as Jazmin’s family celebrated her getting her flowers, then joining her for photos on the red carpet. As Jazmin’s mother walked over to me, I thanked her again for the shared moment and congratulated the family before I stepped away to find the passholder line for the screening so I could get a good seat.

Queer Family Legacies

Once inside the theatre, I was immediately surprised and delighted to see up on the big screen several of those same family members I had sat with in the cafe. Between scenes of their investigative work, Jazmin wove in the ways that her family held space for them and offered advice along her years-long journey to find the elusive woman behind one of her favorite childhood computer games.

Jazmin also included scenes of herself with vibrant queer and trans chosen family; her own angels supporting her on her quest for truth and resolution. Queerness and transness is embedded so deeply in the film that it seems impossible that anyone could watch this movie and not call it queer cinema.

Seeking Mavis Beacon tenderly holds a story about a Black woman’s fight for control over her own likeness and right to privacy, while Jazmin and Olivia experiment with subverting technology to find her—and the truth about themselves.

While I thought I was going to watch a film about the intersection of race, gender, and technology, what I experienced was a fascinating and complex story about the ways we as queer and trans people—especially Black and brown LGBGTQ+ folks—find representation in media that wasn’t necessarily created for us, cultivating family online and offline in traditional and nontraditional ways.

If we choose it, we can use technologies as tools to help us unlock the truth about who we are, while fostering familial connections along our path to self-actualization and healing.

Will a future e-girl/e-person make a film about seeking Jazmin Renée Jones because they saw so much of themselves in Seeking Mavis Beacon? I’m betting on it happening sooner than you think.

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Is Complicated Black Representation In Tech

One of the most influential Black women in technology is a figment of our collective imagination. The co-founder of Myspace invented Mavis Beacon to sell the world’s most popular typing software, but the real woman she was modeled after disappeared in 1995.

Seeking Mavis Beacon poses critical questions regarding anthropomorphization and the consumption of marginalized bodies in the tech industry, while reimagining the legacy of a missing historical figure.

Launched in the late ’80s, educational software Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing taught millions globally, but the program’s Haitian-born cover model vanished decades ago. In Seeking Mavis Beacon, two DIY investigators search for the unsung cultural icon, while questioning notions of digital security, AI, and Black representation in the digital realm.

TransLash’s guide to the 40th annual Sundance Film Festival will be released during this year’s fest. Subscribe to our newsletter to access our guide: www.translash.org/connect

Did you find this resource helpful? Consider supporting TransLash today with a tax-deductible donation. Did we miss anything? Let us know and we’ll update the guide with your suggestion, crediting you as the contributor.

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REWIND: HISTORY ON REPEAT spotlights Black LGBTQ+ experiences from the late 1970s to mid-1990s, and in particular, pays tribute to now-passed members of McCall’s chosen family. The exhibit is a snapshot of life during the era McCall remembers as a time of disco, the AIDS crisis, the LGBTQ+ rights movement, and anti-trans violence. Layering McCall’s personal photos, button embellishments, and archival materials, the exhibition is an invitation for all generations to feel empowered as they reflect on the past, present, and future of Black LGBTQ+ communities. 

TransLash spoke with McCall and Souleo about the exhibit, their shared artistic vision, and how we can draw strength from queer lineages. 

TransLash: Can you tell us a little bit about yourselves?

McCall: I am Beau McCall from Down South, Philadelphia. I am a self-taught button artist. My journey started many moons ago, over forty years to be precise, with a jar of clothing buttons in my mother’s basement. I saw the buttons just sitting there and talking to me. Eventually, I began to create wearable and visual art using buttons. That’s why they also call me The Button Man.

Souleo: I am a creative, curator, impresario, consultant, and muse. It sounds like a lot to digest but it’s really all about using creativity to tell stories (mainly underrepresented narratives) whether that is through exhibitions or public programs or writing. Oh, and I’m one of those rare New York-born and-raised individuals, you know, like the disco song. 

TransLash: Beau, can you talk about how you came to work on REWIND: MEMORIES ON REPEAT as a book? What was the artistic process like for you? How did the book evolve into an exhibit at the Stonewall Archives?

McCall: Nick Kline at Rutgers University’s SHINE Portrait Studio Press offered Souleo the opportunity to do an artists’ book. At the time, Souleo didn’t want to do a book about his experiences so he asked if I was interested and if he could edit the book. I thought about it for a minute and started reflecting on my core group of friends, or as I call them, my chosen family. They are all deceased. But mentally and spiritually I am still holding onto the memories of our time together. So I wanted to honor them in the book.

The day before I began to work on the book my closest friend, Tracy, passed away. So it made it very difficult to begin because I had to mourn that loss. But in many ways working on the book while mourning was also cathartic. I was able to reminisce and reflect on how important these friendships are to me. 

In terms of the artistic process, I created the collages by hand using my historical photographs (mostly shot by me), archives, and detailed images from my actual wearable and visual artwork. Before social media and camera phones, I always had a disposable camera at hand in my pocket or bag. I would document all the things me and my friends were doing whether we were just hanging out at a club or putting on makeup. My friend in the book, Antoine aka DeeDee Somemore called me “picture crazy.” But at some point, I knew I was gonna utilize all the information I collected. I just didn’t know how I would use it. 

The photographs I selected are heartfelt, joyous, and fun. For example, the image of me and Saifuddin Muhammad at the Patti LaBelle concert is one of my favorites. I remember us being in the lobby at the Forrest Theatre in Philly. This photographer came up to me and saw I had a photo of Patti in the breast pocket of my blazer. He asked to photograph us and we said yes, not knowing where the image would end up. The next day we were in the Philadelphia Daily News and we got 15 minutes of fame off of that photograph. 

The book and the exhibition are full of such special moments. The exhibition was a vision me and Souleo had from the beginning when we first started working on the book. We both agreed that Stonewall National Museum, Library, & Archives (SNMLA) was the perfect place to launch the exhibition. 

TransLash: REWIND: History on repeat functions like a personal tribute and memorial, as well as evidence of life in the 70s-90s. What do you want people to understand about the friends who inspired this art? About this period in time?

McCall: I want people to understand that true friendship never dies. At some point, we all reflect on the past because your past has a lot to do with the current state of who you are. Because of my experience with my friends, I am who I am today. I’m grateful for them being in my life. This time period, despite its struggles, was also joyous. I had the time of my life with them. It made my life easier with these particular folks that I welcomed in as my chosen family. They were all unique, talented, and we all had something to offer each other and the world. So I really want people to know how special these individuals were and to reflect on the friends in their lives and to be thankful for those bonds.

TransLash: Souleo, can you describe a little bit about your process working as both an editor and curator for this collection? How did you and Beau begin working together?

Souleo: We started working together really from the beginning of our romantic relationship about thirteen years ago. But it was during the COVID-19 pandemic when I officially became a consultant and started representing him. In terms of working on this project, I had to balance my role as his lover with my professional duties. There were times he would break down in tears of pain or joy reflecting on his friendships. So I had to lend an ear and comfort him during those times as a romantic partner. At the same time, I had to keep us on track to make sure we hit our deadlines, I had to ask him a lot of questions to fact-check his memories as much as possible, and be objective enough to edit and curate the work even if it meant challenging him on certain aspects. 

TransLash: The exhibit description notes: “…select collages are paired with an archival item from SNMLA that relates to the theme of McCall’s artwork. This pairing draws a parallel between the personal experiences of McCall and his friends and the larger historical moments that impacted their lives.” 

Can you tell me about the historical and social contexts the exhibit speaks to? 

McCall: One of the biggest historical moments that shaped our lives and the collection is disco. We were friends during the height of disco in the 1970s. I remember going out every Friday listening to incredible music and watching people do the Hustle dance. When we went to the club we were free and didn’t have the pressure of society with a magnifying glass looking down on us for being part of the LGBTQ+ community. Disco allowed us a space that was welcoming and open to people of all backgrounds and identities because the music connected us. 

In terms of trans identity and expressions of gender, you have to remember that at that time we didn’t have the language we do today. There wasn’t a trans label for those who identified as such. You were just called a drag queen. In these disco clubs, I met individuals who were trans men and women. So that was fascinating to me because I was young and had never met a trans person. Seeing the confidence with which they carried themselves was inspiring to me. So the disco clubs created an environment where me and my friends felt safe enough to express ourselves in ways that were authentic to who we were and that challenged sexuality and gender norms.

TransLash: Beau, you’ve said that “Since the 1970s we have lost so many individuals to AIDS, drugs, and anti-trans violence. So I wanted to tell some of these lost stories through images of my own friends who experienced these issues. It is my way of honoring my friendship with them and bringing greater visibility and representation to the unsung everyday people of the Black LGBTQ+ community.”

Can you talk to me about how the three forces you name — AIDS, drugs, and anti-trans violence — have shaped queer and trans lives broadly, the lives of your friends, and the exhibit? 

McCall: AIDS was something that had a profound impact on my group of friends. Some of the images in the exhibition are from the height of the AIDS epidemic. I remember us all being on pins and needles as to who would be next to get AIDS and die. I’ve always been very particular about who I am intimate with so the fear of AIDS made me even more selective, which probably ended up saving my life. I remember each time when we would meet we’d hear of another person who died from the disease. In my circle, the disease kept getting closer and closer until it claimed the lives of some of my friends featured in the exhibition such as Antoine aka DeeDee Somemore, Joey aka Ericka World, and Saifuddin Muhammad. Mentally, it led me into a depression and I took about a ten-year hiatus from pursuing a professional creative career. I withdrew and became very guarded. After I started losing my friends I didn’t develop any new friendships in the LGBTQ+ community. 

On a positive note, these forces have led to the creation of more organizations and activism surrounding the LGBTQ+ community. There are more spaces where people can share their stories and find support. We didn’t have as much of that back then. All we had was each other. I think we’ve made a lot of progress in terms of visibility and in public policy. Of course, there is still a long way to go and the struggle continues as we see by current political efforts targeting the LGBTQ+ community. 

TransLash: When reading the exhibit description, I thought about what other generations of LGBTQ+ people might take from the exhibit, given our current political moment (and especially in Florida, where the Stonewall Archives are). Souleo, what do you hope people will take from the exhibit?

Souleo: I hope people walk away inspired on several fronts. In the queer community, some are rejected by members of their own families. So to be able to choose your family and have that support is very important. And we need to uplift those bonds as much as possible to add an alternative to the dominant traditional family narrative. 

I hope people walk away inspired with an appreciation for Black LGBTQ+ experiences. Within our own queer community, the Black experience and those of other similarly oppressed groups have been underrepresented. And when there is a spotlight it focuses on the same set of names. But with this project, we are sharing the everyday Black queer perspective from individuals who were surviving and living and trying to figure out life together. Along the way, some of them made important cultural contributions that deserve greater amplification and placement in the canon such as Moi Renee’s music and Beau’s artworks. 

I hope people are inspired to do as Beau did and start their own personal archives and eventually have them acquired or donated to institutions such as SNMLA. It is collections like these that add that emotional and human perspective to our collective history. In particular, this is also how we can expand archives to be more representative of Black LGBTQ+ experiences.

And finally, I hope people are inspired to take political action in one way or another by voting, signing petitions, donating to causes, or whatever it may be. The exhibition arrives during a time when LGBTQ+ rights are under assault in Florida and across the country with numerous bills introduced to restrict access to LGBTQ+ books and lessons in educational settings. That’s why I’m honored to curate this exhibition at SNMLA, because it is spaces like this where we are able to share important stories such as that of Beau’s chosen family.  

All Photos Courtesy of the Artist.

Sara Youngblood Gregory (she/they) is a non-binary lesbian journalist and writer. She is the author of THE POLYAMORY WORKBOOK and a former staff writer for POPSUGAR. She covers sex, queerness, disability, culture, and wellness. Her work has been featured in Vice, Teen Vogue, HuffPost, Bustle, DAME, Cosmo, Jezebel, and many others.

Sara serves on the board of the lesbian literary and arts journal Sinister Wisdom. As a poet, Sara has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best New Voices. She’s also attended the Kenyon Review Workshop in 2019 and 2022, as well as a Winter Tangerine poetry workshop. Her chapbook RUN. is out now.

To learn more and support Beau McCall’s work, visit his website.

To learn more and support Souleo’s work, visit his website.

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My trans identity has always been about my body, but more so about my womb, my desire to bear a child and be a mother. As a trans femme person assigned male at birth (AMAB), I felt uncomfortable naming my experience with my womb. I could recount all the times I felt it throb and felt its thirst to hold something, but I struggled to articulate it. 

I wish I could find solace in a celebration of all that I have been able to give birth to. Poems. Artwork. Writings. Songs. A spirit school for developing spiritual practitioners. Yet my womb, my desire to bear children in my body is what brought me to my transness, to my spiritual practice, and to the community I needed to carry me through this transcendental journey. 

As the years passed, motherhood felt like it had become more intangible—further from me. I was vulnerable to my body’s changes at 28 years old. I was entering Dad-Bod mode, my facial hair was growing in thicker, I was squaring, and my weight was creating a lot of body dysmorphia for me with no child in my belly. I wanted to see what could help me feel more connected to my gender expression and my femininity.

Recently, I reached out to a health specialist at FOLX to inquire about Hormonal Replacement Therapy. We talked about a lot in the 30-minute consultation I paid $59.00 for, but there was one particular moment that felt full circle. While I knew the effect estrogen would have on my testosterone production and fertility, I wasn’t expecting for this to come up in the conversation. Thinking ahead and considering sperm banking took me for a spin. I hit the brakes and my whole life tumbled before me. The point of entry to my transness (birthing, bearing children, and fertility) seemed to find me even as I tried to ignore it to lessen the grief.

I was also having concerns about growing older. My body had changed dramatically over a short period of time. I had gained weight after surviving Covid-19 and a car accident that left me with traumatic brain injury (TBI). I was economically affected as I could not produce work. I was dealing with PTSD, my little brother’s death, a new disability, all while still not having a partner, a child, or building a family like many others around me. Cis heteronormative pressures of all colonized types began to creep into my trans body. I logged out of the zoom consultation, reviewed all the notes I took, and began processing. I immediately started calculating when all the birthing people in my family had children. I realized I was past the age my mom was when she gave birth to me. Anxiety fueled me to math in ways I never could before. I felt incompentent, as though I had failed at being and doing what I was supposed to do on this earth—birthing from my body, something pivotal and important within me. I was single and had no love interest in mind, so I questioned when I’d be able to experience motherhood. Clearly, I was also associating motherhood with being partnered and in love as if they’re mutually exclusive. 

I mourned. I cried. Maybe I could do it on my own. But did I want to walk the same traumatic, difficult, yet path experience my mom had as a single parent? Did I have money to go through lengthy procedures that involved a medical system I didn’t trust? What if the person holding my baby ran away with them? How do I deal with the legalities that come with having a surrogate? It is all so unbearably confusing! I would lay in bed in wrath thinking of all the men I could’ve convinced to impregnate me. I wrote into the first night angrily, and every night after, until it became clearer. 

I want to name the culture of immediate fixing: superficially healing wounds by intellectualizing the experience instead of feeling and studying the emotions that naturally arise. It’s clear we want to avoid the inevitable suffering that comes with holding said emotions, even the good ones. When sharing my painful truth regarding my womb, my desire to childbear as a trans person, I have been asked to pivot and instead look at all that I’ve been able to birth, symbolically—but finding satisfaction in symbolic birth wasn’t helping me move past this. People jump to finding solutions when they don’t want to see me suffer because they love me, but I believe that it is essential for us to hold this pain longer, to bear witness to this revealing longer, and let it change us. Our instinct is to run away from the discomfort of the questions my relationship to my womb, childbearing, and my trans experience may bring up in all of us. Whether my experience may be too spiritual, too unscientific or unquantifiable, or too sensitive—it’s real. This may feel new to folks who are unfamiliar with yearning for a physiological function, an organ, or a defining experience they can’t live through its completion because of their physical impediments. So I want to challenge us to consider that maybe what I’m revealing is actually an ancient, Indigenous reality for so many humans on this planet that don’t have the language or safety to be able to live in their truth. 

I was reminded of a funeral, a spiritual miscarriage I experienced many years ago in the dirt lot of my first home. My mother prepared a bath for me with romero, lavender, dry roses, and sea salt after my flooding came. The flooding felt like something visceral spilling out of me followed by a sinking feeling that I had, without consent and control, been separated from something within me. I had been in ceremony with myself the days leading up to that moment around childbearing, identifying my womb, naming it, and questioning why I had been thrust into a body without the function I knew was a part of me. Semi-answers started pouring through during the ceremony, and after the bath, I felt more healed. I was able to enter a womb of my own needing. The romero protected my spiritually open womb from any more transgressions. The lavender laid me to rest. The dry roses helped ease my pain, held me in a sweet aroma and tenderness. The sea salt absorbed the heaviness and helped create space to be vulnerable and affirmed. My mother bore witness to my suffering and wrapped me in a white towel. I knew it was a wound from time immemorial. A past life? Or maybe it was all the stress I was under at the time. One thing was certain, I was grieving the loss of a child I never had, a miscarriage in multiple ways. I had just begun my training to become a postpartum doula through Birthworkers of Color. The experience activated something in me that I was afraid to know existed. I have a womb. Even if it’s one that can’t exist how I need it to, or bear the children I wish to home. It’s invisible yet alive within me. There is no science or way for me to conjure my ancestors, spirit guides, or TransGod to prove otherwise. Yet my mother held me after she pulled me out of the bathtub, and together we held vigil to a spirit child within me that could not metastasize fully. I drowned in tears and my mother wept with me. We mourned the children we’ve lost, lit candles, and tied red string around my waist to keep whatever was left of me together.

It has been years since that incident, and I’ve never given myself space to allow my yearning to be a birthing person unfurl. The way my mother held space for me in our yard that night is not the way the world-at-large holds me. I fear reliving the pain of being told I’m unacceptable, alien, sick, or taking up space that isn’t mine. It has kept me from articulating my truth in the ways I’m doing now. 

My truth is that if I could, I’d have a womb surgically introduced to my body. I’d be whole if I did. Having a womb would let me breathe fuller. My calling is to be a mother, a birther of beautiful things, but being limited by a physiological counterpart is distressing. It’s a quiet doom to find hope in all the other births. To have the ability to birth life in this way would make me feel like I am not broken, unlovable, incapable. 

I want to believe that before I entered this life on earth I chose my experience: my body, it’s diaspora, my eye color, my family, my laugh, my community, my hair etc. At least in my choosing I could blame myself for not having what I needed. I could blame myself for my brokenness. With this perspective it’s easier to solve the mystery, find answers and consolation amidst the grief: I did this, I am to blame. It’s a “lesson” of my own making. Maybe I was brought to suffer in this way so that I could write about it and hopefully help someone else who’s going through something similar? Maybe I’m here to reveal to the world more about their humanity through my suffering? It’s hard to create this narrative to lessen the damage of my reality—although it could very well be true. On horrible days I condemn nature and TransGod for taking from me what I need to be complete: a functioning womb in the body I’m in. But alas, there is only this féi, capable of birthwork to help redefine and expand notions of mother/parent hood and non-nuclear families. 

My hope is that through this essay we can move beyond a linear process of healing (eg: pain to happiness), expand the space for complex identities, and hold our emotions longer. Through this essay I offer my process as one of revelation with many waves of elation, discovery, grief, joy, and peace that move to their own rhythm. Even in my longing, I am birthing a new world. There’s no consolation for the kind of birthing I wish I was capable of, but I gift you, my reader, this: my truth.

In the present, so many of us TGNC (Trans Gender Non-Confirming) BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) are already under constant attack. We regularly face violence from the state, family, community, or ourselves (from all the internalized stigmatization). So nowadays we search for sweet resolves, answers for us by us, resolutions with happy endings, and decolonial hope. 

I hope that by exploring trans AMAB folk’s yearning for child bearing we can make room for a new world of possibilities for all types of bodies and experiences. Although this lived experience is painful, it has given me the opportunity to reshape my inner world and how I operate outside of it.

As a result of all this, I considered more deeply what limited beliefs I still carried that I needed to let go of. What is family? What is “community”? I realized how limited my imagination was in conjuring the life I wanted to live. I couldn’t see my experience as a love story because I was told I was not enough, ill, or missing something. My imagination existed within a colonial context and I needed to burn it all down. I couldn’t believe the discourse I had daily: did I want a tall handsome cis man of color to be the parent of my children? Was I constructing, in my soul, the prototype the American dream had sold so many immigrants? I can only be a mother if the child comes from my own body. I didn’t actually believe any of this. My soul began to break through the limited scope of my understanding. Soft tender light shone through and pulled me out. 

I began building the blueprint for a home for TGNC BIPOC parents and children. When I close my eyes I see a purple, pink, and blue five story house. Designed and built as a community. The house is in a meadow surrounded by pine trees and the scent of the ocean in the wind. It’s a safe haven to blossom and build a world where we can center love. The bounds of connection are endless. We are possible in ways unimaginable. Everyone’s fulfilled in the body they need and our understanding of being is expansive. We co-parent gently and fiercely as a community, or in units of one’s consensual choosing. This is the world I want my children to grow in, which means I must live in it now.

I still have moments like the zoom call with the consultant with FOLX that take me back to the start of my journey as a trans person. There’s something that says let your experience be a full one. Let every single part of your body speak, let every need be named, let everything that needs to bloom blossom, and all that needs to shift transform. Let your metamorphosis engulf you and have everyone see you, so they can see themselves too. There’s something that guides me to and from certain people. I want to believe it’s the child I lost and mourn that guides me towards their young being. The closer I feel with my child the more I realize the work is in decolonizing motherhood, transness, the body, birthing, and living in a fuller, safer world. The more I allow the possibility of my experience to reveal the possibilities of life on Earth, outside of the lens of Western colonialism, I can see that my child and I are possible right now. In this very moment we are together and in presence, even if a physical body is what keeps us apart. While this brings me consolation on a bad day, there’s the grief that exists regardless. Touching each other is beyond even the strongest spiritual connection. As I allow myself space to mourn and wallow, the more I am able to get back up and live, patiently awaiting the slow reveal of what this was all for. I, as well as my community, shouldn’t have to fight to be alive, feel full, or human. Being alive, surviving, or on a good day thriving in a capitalist and colonized world is something we celebrate because we are bound by it; but I want to know what my experience would be like in a world where fate is us becoming all that we need to without the fear of persecution and systemic violence. 

I will have children eventually, even if it won’t be directly from my body. I am open too, in acknowledging how much fulfillment and joy I have experienced mothering Kosmoh, my TransGod sent puppy. I am open to seeing my creations both private to me and public to others alike be held in the reverence they deserve as my children. Especially Hood Criatura, my first full length poetry collection published by Sundress Publications. Yet, while I maintain a healthy (sometimes obsessive) relationship with birthing new projects, more grand every time, it doesn’t always feel fulfilling in the ways I need it to. I have also become open to exploring a life where motherhood is only one facet of my purpose. I wonder how many experiences I’ve missed out on or have kept myself from because bearing children was always so central to my becoming. I want to give myself the opportunity to be sensual, find pleasure, turn my acts of service inward (no pun intended), and continue to surround myself with community that sees me in truth. 

I stand on my porch sometimes overlooking the dirt lot in my yard. We still haven’t found the time to prepare for a garden to blossom, but right where we buried my spiritual child, yellow flowers always bloom.

Featured image by Taryn Elliott.

féi hernandez is a trans, Inglewood-raised, formerly undocumented immigrant author of the full-length poetry collection Hood Criatura, which was on NPR’s Best Books of 2020. They are a Define American Fellow for 2021 and are currently the Board President of Gender Justice Los Angeles. They have been published in POETRY, Autostraddle, Immigrant Report, The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, forthcoming Somewhere We are Human, and more. féi is the founder of The House of Ethér a center that provides spiritual healing. féi launched Spirit School for the Divinely Gifted, which centers spiritual teachings for TGNC BIPOC practitioners.

Trans Bodies, Trans Choices: Resources

Recommended Reading

• Meet Me in the Yes: Transition After Sexual Assault
• Finally Feeling Comfortable: The Necessity of Trans-Affirming, Trauma-Informed Care

Trans Bodies, Trans Choices Films

• Watch Trans Bodies, Trans Choices here and access the transcript.
• Watch I Didn’t Think I’d Make It here and access the transcript.
• Watch My Abortion Saved My Life here and access the transcript.
• Watch the Trans Bodies, Trans Choices: Having a Baby IG Live replay here and access the transcript.
• Watch the #TransBodiesTransChoices Online Townhall replay here and access the transcript.

Getting an Abortion

• Under 18 and need an abortion + free legal representation for judicial bypass? Call or text Jane’s Due Process: 1-866-999-5263
• The National Network of Abortion Funds connects abortion seekers with grassroots organizations that can support financial and logistical needs here
• Tips on how to choose a good abortion provider and questions to ask a clinic
• The Brigid Alliance arranges and funds travel, along with related needs, to support individuals across the country who are forced to travel for later abortion care. 

For Clinicians and Providers 

• Trans-Inclusive Abortion Services: a manual for providers on operationalizing trans-incluslive policies and practices in an abortion setting 

Calls to Action

• Sign on and Demand #AbortionWithinReach: Abortion funds have come together to deliver an unprecedented bold statement, explicitly identifying what it means for abortion to be truly accessible for our callers. As we shine a light on these demands, we also want to spotlight independent clinics, who are our partners on the front lines giving support and care to abortion seekers. Independent clinics perform the majority of abortions in the U.S., and show up big as plaintiffs in the monumental cases of the past few years. 
• Expand the Supreme Court & Save Abortion Rights. Sign the petition here.
• Urge federal elected officials to end the Hyde Amendment, the Global Gag Rule, and the Helms Amendment. Learn more and take action to expressly urge support for the EACH Act, the Global Health, Empowerment, & Rights Act, and the Abortion is Healthcare Everywhere Act. 
• Invest in abortion clinics, especially community-led health care facilities. 
• Talk about abortion! Change culture and shift stigma through powerful, values-based conversations. We believe dialogue, storytelling, and intentional conversations are powerful tools to organize and strengthen our movement. This guide for heart-to-heart abortion conversations from NNAF   and this toolkit from Chicago Abortion Fund will support you to hold a small group gathering, house party, or action space where you can invite your friends, family, and acquaintances into meaningful conversations about abortion, issues that relate to abortion, and why you support abortion funds.
• Support the Black reproductive justice policy agenda, which outlines proactive policy solutions to address issues at the intersections of race, gender, class, sexual orientation, and gender identity within the situational impacts of economics, politics and culture that make up the lived experiences of Black women, femmes, girls and gender-expansive individuals in the United States.

• Invest in long-term sustainable models of care that supplement existing structures of support and center the expertise of those who have been laying this groundwork for years so that communities have reliable support systems that contribute to one’s current and future ability to thrive. 
• We urge all individuals knowledgeable about a person’s reproductive choices to make a commitment to not – under any circumstances – punish, criminalize or report any person for any pregnancy decision or seeking medical assistance for a decision. This includes abortion funders, public health authorities, clinicians, law enforcement, prosecutors, and community members.

Resources on Pregnancy as a Transgender Person

• Trans Bodies, Trans Choices: Having a Baby – IG Live Replay
• The Queer & Trans People of Color Birthwerq Project
• BOOK: How We Do Family: From Adoption to Trans Pregnancy, What We Learned about Love and LGBTQ Parenthood by Trystan Reese
• Meet the birth workers helping transgender parents bring babies into the world and break stigmas.
• Preparing for Pregnancy as a Non-Binary Person (Family Equality)
• Transgender Pregnancy: Moving Past Misconceptions (Healthline)
• From erasure to opportunity: a qualitative study of the experiences of transgender men around pregnancy and recommendations for providers.
• TransLash Podcast, Episode 13 ‘Trans Love’ feat. Precious Brady-Davis, who appeared with her husband Myles on the TLC special, My Pregnant Husband.
• If a transgender man stops taking his testosterone, his menstrual cycle often returns, reportedly within about 6 months.
• Explore TransLash’s guide for trans dads and TGNC parents.

‘Trans Bodies, Trans Choices’ Press

• Teen Vogue [EXCLUSIVE]

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