‘Harkens back to the Aids quilt’: using art as protest for the trans community

Since its inception in 2009, Transgender Day of Visibility – which occurs every year on 31 March – has been a focus point for greater awareness of the challenges faced by transgender people in the United States, as well as a celebration of the community’s strength and diversity. In 2015, for instance, a selfie campaign via social media caught on, drawing in trans celebrities and leading to heightened awareness and understanding of trans people. In 2021, it reached a milestone, as Joe Biden became the first US president to formally recognize the day.

This year, Transgender Day of Visibility falls amid a widespread campaign against the rights of transgender people – with nearly 500 anti-trans bills advanced in 2024 alone, following up on hundreds more bills in previous years, trans people in America now find themselves with restricted access to things like medically necessary healthcare, the ability to participate in sports, the use of crisis shelters, bathrooms, and other essential facilities, and even the right to have proper identification. These actions have led to internal refugees throughout America, with trans people fleeing hostile states for safer ones.

To draw attention to the these developments, as well as to share the joy and beauty of the transgender community, this year, the artist Cassils will partner with the National Center for Transgender Equality to create a massive cyanotype titled Etched in Light on the National Mall in Washington DC. The creation of the piece will occur amid a full day of activities, including a rally by the NCTE to spearhead its TRANSform the Vote campaign, designed to leverage a voting bloc of trans, nonbinary and intersex people and their allies.

For Etched in Light, Cassills will invite over 100 trans and nonbinary individuals onto the surface of a 60ft by 15ft piece of cyanotype-coated muslin. As the participants lay still on the muslin in various poses, the sun’s UV rays will etch their forms into the photographic medium, and then the resultant piece will be washed with water so that the final image will appear before the eyes of spectators. As the work is coming together, three vocalists from the group Blood Is Here will slowly process down cyanotype, singing improvised musical notes. “It really harkens back to the Aids Quilt and die-ins,” Cassills told me in an interview, “and it’s very much a visual that lands itself in the language of protest.”

According to Cassils, the project in part emerged from the reality that, even after the so-called transgender tipping point, representation does not equal rights for the trans community. Realizing that, they searched for ways to represent trans bodies amid a time of heightened danger and violence, eventually arriving at the medium of the cyanotype. They liked that it was one of the earliest forms of photographic representation, and they were also drawn to the fact that it is a process that would require trans bodies to gather together and spend time in physical contact. “I’m thinking about this problem of what it is to be seen when one needs to be protected,” they told me. “It’s about the vulnerability of taking up space, but also about the use of nature to incorporate our bodies into a time and place. It’s a very double-edged kind of thing, being very beautiful but also grounding us in at a certain moment of pain.”

The creation of Etched in Light occurs alongside a celebration of the National Center for Transgender Equality’s TRANSform the Vote campaign. The NCTE made headlines earlier this year for releasing initial results of its US Trans Survey, which it touts as the largest-ever survey of trans people in the United States. According to Josie Caballero, director of voting and elections at NCTE, TRANSform the Vote is meant to build on the engagement created by that survey, and to keep the momentum going.

She told me that TRANSform the Vote intends to demonstrate to politicians that the trans community is an important voting constituency – to that end the NCTE plans a massive voter registration and voting-rights education campaign. Her hope is that mobilizing large groups of trans voters can make enough of a difference in states where harmful legislation is being passed.

“Even in states like Florida, these very toxic bills are only passing by slim margins,” she said. “We can have a lot of power to block these bills. In a lot of these close races we can be the margin of victory.” Caballero also pointed out that trans candidates have been winning in surprising places, where one might not imagine trans people to reach elected office. She pointed to Olivia Hill, who became Tennessee’s first trans elected official when she became part of the Nashville city council in 2023.

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“It’s really hard to see every day in the news, more legislation, more tragedy,” she told me. “It fills me with anxiety to know that people are running to reverse the clock on our rights. It underscores the ongoing fight for equality and acceptance.”

For Cassils, who has spent years finding ways to create art that expresses trans freedom in opposition to a political system that they believe has increasingly sought to marginalize trans lives, the idea of mobilizing trans voters feels both counterintuitive and necessary. They noted that, as an immigrant from Canada, they have experienced what it is to be in the US and not have the right to vote, and they also pointed out that many trans Americans can’t participate in the political system because they do not have the proper ID. In spite of that, they still do believe that electoral politics is a viable route for trans people. “I have this romanticization of art and its possibilities,” they said. “I do not have that for our political institutions. But I do think that one can be really strategic, so I think it’s a combination of strategy and envisioning.”

Ultimately, Cassils, who grew up before the advent of the internet and who did not knowingly meet another queer person until the age of 23, finds the idea of creating art in collaboration with their own community to be incredibly meaningful. Since 2016, with the advent of the Trump administration, they have created an ongoing series titled Human Measure that has specifically sought to create community-based art. As a part of this series, Etched in Light will be a powerful experience in of overcoming their own past and of pushing back against the anti-trans tone set by many politicians. “For me, to make these works and bring together hundreds of trans and nonbinary performers, to harness all of our talents – it’s an incredibly healing thing for me.”

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