The Transgender Oral History Project emerged out of my personal search for community as a questioning young activist. I moved to Northampton, MA and immediately got involved with organizing New England Transgender Pride. The more I came to see our efforts as one to create and fortify community, the more I began to question the notion of a unified LGBT community. I was curious about the efforts trans people before us, but the answers I found in written queer histories were obscure and insubstantial. I decided to do an oral history project in order to capture the stories and voices of aging members of the trans community before it was too late.
The Transgender Oral History Project is a collaborative media initiative dedicated to collecting stories of transgender and gender non-conforming people and making them publicly available at low or not cost. The Project does this by supporting community members who are interested in creating media; hosting material that showcases transgender stories not featured prominently by mainstream media; and offering expertise in video production, interview techniques, and media-literacy. The project's guiding principals have been to:
-Build community through soliciting and sharing stories
-Encourage intergenerational discussions about our collective past
-Frame contemporary issues that trans folk face within a broader context
-Highlight individuals, communities, and organizations struggling with issues that are not address by mainstream discourses on what it means to be trans
-Portray the impact of political, social, and historical circumstances upon our lives
The Transgender Oral History Project (TOHP) is a work-in-progress. As a collective memory project, it should continue to grow and change to reflect the interests and concerns of trans people. This website is merely a platform, a place where I can centralize and organize the stories within the project. One of my major goals in putting this info online is to make it more accessible to viewers but also to encourage participation from everyday people like you. The TOHP is open to contributions from any member of the community including trans men and women, gender queers, SOFFAS, and allies.
When I began this project, the perennial question came up at each interview--what was I going to DO with these interviews? The website is a large part of that answer, as it gives people who are interested in the project access to as much of the material as possible. However, I thought it was important to create something the brought people together and created a physical space for people to engage with one another. I also attempted to make it as layered as possible so that different people could choose to engage with the media and content that resonated most with them. The result is a multimedia exhibition. Visit our Exhibition FAQ or contact me to learn more.
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