An Incomplete History of Trans Immortality by Zeyn Joukhadar

Sharing this because its one of my favorite things I’ve read in the past few weeks.

I’m so drawn to Zeyn’s work for the obvious reasons - we’re both transexual Syrians living and making work in diaspora. His existance alone would be enough for me. But this piece of his writing speaks to my soul in ways that go beyond our shared identities. He is speaking to transness as part of a lineage that goes beyond our understanding of time.

Zeyn writes “Terrible things happen all the time, I assure you, of which most of us know nothing. My question is what we do with unanswered prayers?”

“What do I do with the past selves who live in this body that slips through time?”

questions that I’ve asked myself without the words to formulate the question

“The body was a door for the sacred.”

and

“If what Ibn ‘Arabi says is true, then I possess immortality—like eternity—in this very moment, in my very body. Listen: I am trying to arrive at the miracle by the door of my trans flesh. I will not believe them when they write that I am dead.”

the final quote that has stuck with me

“I can’t pluck my past selves from the rack of pain, just as I will never know most of the trans siblings who were afforded no miracles. I came back for myself, as we come for each other.”

You can read the full article here: https://electricliterature.com/my-transition-will-never-be-finished/

Blood Oath

The demo tape for my band Pure Terror is out now.

I might write more later - but I’m really proud of this one. Thank you John, Dani and Nader for everything. Thanks Matt for recording this in your basement and thank you Will Killingsworth for mastering it. Thank you Nour for coming to one of our first practices and telling me to “bring the heat little man.” And thank you to everyone who offered to help us put this out.

We have like 3 more shows this Summer?

PAN ARAB HARDCORE

As Ancient As Time

Lately I’ve been thinking about transness as a sort of timelessness.

Or at least, the closest I’ve come to it. Trans time really shifts the narrative of a linear timeline - at least in the way that we see it played out in the lives of cisgendered folks. Trans time is an expression that is often used in the communities I’ve been a part of. Trans time is when you go through multiple puberties - sometimes as late as your 60s. Going on and off of hormones, picking up where you left off. Trans time is when we reparent ourselves, nurturing the child in us and creating the childhood we wish we could have had. Trans time is sometimes loosing years - even decades - to dysphoria. Living lives that are unintentional. And as Audre Lorde says “the unintentional are those who do not wish to guide their own destinies.”

As trans people we have taken the reigns, shaped ourselves and stepped into the power that has always been ours. We as trans people have existed since the beginning of time. Cultures have feared us, revered us, acknowledged us and tried to hide us. But we have always shaped culture. We have always created community. We have always held our own and we will continue to do so with grace, dignity and power - despite whatever authority tries to strip us of all of the above. Our power is undeniable. Why else would they feel so threatened?

I’ve been thinking about the old tattoo adage “As ancient as time, as modern as tomorrow” often used by traditional tattooers who acknowledge the ancient history of tattooing. And in this time, when its terrifying for me - as a trans person to look at the news, I see how this very same truth applies to my own gender. Which runs deep as time itself. Every queer ancestor who has existed and loved in spite of impossible circumstances has brought us this far. We know that the powers that be are fighting a battle they can’t win.

My heart is broken for every trans sister who has been lost to trans-misogyny, every child that will grow up with oppressive laws that strip them of their basic human rights, every trans person who has to feel the fear that I know we all feel. Its really hard to wake up and just exist these days without feeling the weight of this reality. I saw a tweet that went something like “If you’re trans your existence is a gift. You need to just keep existing, everything else is bonus.” And I think about Miss Major, Tala Brandeis, Pat Califia, Akwake Emezi and the multitudes of queer and trans friends and family who have made me who I am today.

All we need to do is exist. Make it from this moment into the next.

Angela Davis has spoken on the importance of our transness - showing the possibilities of resistance:

“And I don't think we would be where we are today—encouraging ever larger numbers of people to think within an abolitionist frame—had not the trans community taught us that it is possible to effectively challenge that which is considered the very foundation of our sense of normalcy. So if it is possible to challenge the gender binary, then we can certainly, effectively, resist prisons, and jails, and police.”

Some days I don’t know how we’re going to make it. But I know that I can look to my elders and ancestors for wisdom. Our trans ancestors threw bricks, resisted oppression, lived entire lives but always looked after their own. And I know that if we continue in their footsteps - liberation is sure to come.


Mix for A Better World ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

This past month I had the honor of showing work along Em Aull and Zakiya Mowat at Blade Study - a gallery in the lower east side/ chinatown area of Manhattan. The show was curated by superstar Paula Martinez and the whole experience was truly so inspiring.

A few weeks after the opening Em had the idea for all of the artists to compile a mixtape of some songs that inspired the work in the show. We had a week to put one together and then he dubbed them on cassettes that were available at the gallery while the show was up.

While the show just came down yesterday - you can still read about it here. And you can listen to both sides of my tape below.

For most of my life I’ve seen myself as primarily a visual artist - even though I’ve always been a part of some music scene. I’ve made flyers, merch and have been road dog for years. But I finally started playing with a band this year (Pure Terror - tape coming soon) for the first time since high school (shoutout to Chemical X). It’s been so incredible to break out of my own expectations of myself and make the music I’ve always wanted to make.

This is one of my first mixes so excuse the hiccups! I want to eventually re-record these and start putting together more things like this. Music includes: Egyptian Lover, Sade, Myriam Fares (the music video for this song was a key point in awakening my sexuality lol), Chris & Cosey and more.

I hear the tapes will be available soon through the Demystification Fanzine Store <3 <3 <3

Thank you Em, Paula and Ambrose for making this happen!

You Make My Desire Pure

This is a video I’ve been wanting to make for a long time.

I’ve been trying to find a way to blur the lines between blood and pomegranate juice, in a sensual and compelling way for years. As tattooers - we work primarily with blood. So much to the point where we almost become desensitized to it. But blood can mean so much. It’s our life force and what ties us to our ancestors. For this project - I wanted to explore blood, outside of the literal sense. I wanted to have fun with it.

This is the first video I’ve ever made and I’m super grateful for my friends for letting me pour juice all over them for a few hours on a Chicago rooftop in late summer. Very grateful to River for lending me this video camera. And very grateful to Heather and Seth for letting me use this track.

(which you can purchase here: https://hide3.bandcamp.com/album/girl-on-girl)

I hope you like it.

ALTAR// ALTER

*excerpts from a work in progress


“You and I, our verging inward

Maps, folding old futures in, Might we 



Be eaten and eat, my dear? As pomegranates 

quicken awhile longer, come, inside me, you”



-Trish Saleh “Wanting in Arabic”

______________________________________________



Floating some place above my physical form - I look down on the body I’ve made. A place of worship. Built by the memories of ghosts related by both blood and spirit. Every apparition that inhabits my altar body is crucial to its architecture. I set out food for these ghosts. An offering of pomegranates, halawa and rose water. 



The question that’s been haunting me since I first read the words - “How do we care for the ghosts that take such good care of us?”

 I care for my body with the knowledge that it is the culmination of so many who’ve come before me.



“Our ancestors prove to us that our lives are livable because they have in fact been already lived.”

I can wake up with the knowledge that these eyes have opened before. And will open again. I’m always existing in the middle of a past I’ve never seen and a future I will never know. 



_______________________________________



I write to shed light on a subject that's been haunting me for every year I’ve been alive. 

This body is not just mine. 

I’ve shared it with countless lovers and every ancestor whose memories live within me. I’ve offered it as an example. A blueprint, an archive on my flesh of someone (like everyone else) trying their best to get free. 



I glance down to my altered skin.  Almost every inch is filled with pictures. 

Like a client's  mother once told him - after seeing the tattoo I made on her son 

“Its like graffiti on a marble wall” 

Only words a mother could say. What she doesn’t know is that we are constructing the temple we’ve found ourselves inhabiting. Finding more and more presence with every alteration. 



I wasn’t born knowing myself. I’ve learned about myself by studying my history. A queer arab transsexual history. The lived reality suggested in the studio portraiture of Hashem El Madani. A diasporic struggle that bubbled up through my bloodline. A map to the surface.



“The past is in the present in the form of a hunting this is what about other things we imagine for queer history since it involves openness to the possibility of being haunted even inhabited by ghosts”

Carla Freccero “Queer Spectralities: Haunting the Past”



Or as Jose Esteban Munoz describes “a backwards glance that enacts a future vision”



My body is an archival work. 



But it was my Jidu who taught me about poetry. Khalil Gibran (the “g” pronounced as you would “Jidu”) was his favorite poet. Years after he died I found his copy of the prophet. With only a few words underlined. 



“Let these be your desires:

  To melt and be like a running brook

that sings its melody to the night.

  To know the pain of too much tenderness.

  To be wounded by your own under-

standing of love;

  And to bleed willingly and joyfully.”

_______________________________________

The definition of magic is ritual with intent


Each tattoo is a ritual and the best tattoos I’ve made were not made by me at all but rather uncovered. Letting the magic do its work. Letting the image organically unfold. Some of the most valuable tattoos I’ve ever made were absolutely free.

A gift with more intention poured in than if it were bought.

Someone asked me if I was sick of tattooing pomegranates already. Repeating the same image. It's only repetition in the way that ritual is. 

Each time I am grateful. Each time I am grateful.