On November 5, I had the chance to lead a creative workshop as part of the 2022 Trans in the CLE Symposium, hosted by the LGBT Center of Greater Cleveland.
THE WORKSHOP
The main purpose of this storytelling workshop was to provide an opportunity for trans and nonbinary participants to connect with one another through personal narrative and creative expression. Too often, the media we see and the stories we are called upon to share as trans folks are limited to coming out stories and the steps of medical transition. In this participatory workshop, attendees explored and reflected upon our own experiences and narratives of acceptance and affirmation, of chosen family, of moments of gender euphoria, of taking a stand, of queer joy and rebellion.
LAYING THE FOUNDATION
Before we started sharing stories, participants were presented with a box of markers and a table covered with a roll of easel paper. To “get our creative juices flowing,” so to speak, we began writing and drawing on the paper in response to the question: What does gender euphoria look like for you? What does it sound like? Feel like? Does gender euphoria have a taste? A smell?
So often, as trans folks, we are asked to (or forced to) recount stories of gender dysphoria, or the sense of unease, the disconnect between who we know we are and the physical states of our bodies. We tell the story to doctors to access healthcare, to family members as a means of justifying “why” we are the way we are, to public officials, therapists, insurance companies, schools, employers… the list goes on. Gender euphoria, on the other hand, is a sense of pleasure, joy, possibility, playfulness, ease, “rightness” in one’s gender expression. Beyond our interactions with medicine and the state, it offers a celebratory means of identity exploration and community connection among transgender people.
GATHERING THE PIECES
Then, participants reflected on stories from their own lives, beyond coming out, beyond wanting or having surgery. They wrote snippets of those stories on colorful bits of construction paper. Each piece contains one story.
The prompts that inspired the stories:
“I’ve found family…”
“I’ve become an expert at…”
“You’ve got to take a stand when…”
PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER
After writing and drawing, creating a collection of our own stories, we created a mosaic of new, fuller, more layered trans narratives… literally. Each participant chose a story or two to tell as they taped their individual pieces to the larger paper, creating a colorful mosaic of lighthearted, difficult, hard-earned, ongoing, funny, contradictory, sweet, wise stories.
