Trans*Tapes By The Transketeers Hosted by Anteros

Last December I went to see a screening of the Trans*Tapes as I was invited by M, which I knew for quite a while and whom I got reacquainted to last summer after a series of very interesting events.

As far as documentaties go, they always focus on the process of change, the medication and the surgery and mostly just the male to female perspective. There has been some progress though since that quite failed attempt a couple of years ago with "Debat op 2". Whereas Hij is en Zij is much better regarding content (I think Arie Boomsma learned a lot since chairing Debat op 2 and not everyone in Hij is een Zij opting for surgery) I personally feel the programme's title felt like clickbait.
Love me Gender did also a good job but due to serving a curious greater audience wasn't perfect either. For me it still feels transgenders are portrayed as being oddities, curiosities which you can inquire to no extent. I think I'm partly biased as being a transgender in Schrödingers closet.

Me next to the Anteros flag and too much empty coffee cups. Picture by M

After seeing the 6 mini documentaries made by the Transketeers I wondered why it couldn't be a bit more like that? The stories about Jackson, Layne, Suzanne, Aiste, Nathan and Susanne where in my opinion more from their personal perspective, than fulfilling the curiosity of the public at large. This is probably due to the Transketeers themselves being transgender and know how to avoid the usual pitfalls of portraying transgender people. To me, these documentaties have the most emancipatory value that I have seen up until now. Unfortunately M and I didn't got into much discussion with the audience afterwards but we both had a great evening with much insight gained (I think ;) )

An excerpt of the six documentaries can be found underneath. If you have the chance to see the full series, go see it.

The Transketeers can be found on both Facebook and Vimeo.

Amsterdam Museum Fragment from Transketeers on Vimeo.