Becoming‑with and together: Indigenous transgender and transcultural practices
Blak Dot Gallery’s Midsumma show Tran‑Sational uses, as one of its key video installations, a montage of archival interviews of trans and gender‑diverse Indigenous community members. The interviews are cut together from footage taken during the Kunghah retreat held in November, a gathering that hosted gender‑diverse Indigenous people from all over Australia and ended on Transgender day of Remembrance. The video installation, much like the event itself, is a reminder that the trans identity is a culturally contingent one; a well‑travelled word. For Indigenous trans peoples, there is a struggle to understand our gendered and sexual identities in relation to colonialism, to our relationships with religion, and our place within the queer community at large.