About
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Today & into the future...
The Trans Healing Arts Web has core organizing members including artists, activists, educators and healers Lamia Gibson, kumari giles, Naty Tremblay and Syrus Marcus Ware. And we are part of and actively building an ever expanding web of Trans artist and healer collaborators! Our north star is that: “when Trans people come together, collaborate and explore what our healing & creativity is, what spaces for our healing & creativity would look like, and what we need to manifest these, we will come up with the dreams, designs & demands we need”. We believe practicing healing & creativity together through the entire process is a new and experimental trans-liberatory approach. We hope to continue co-designing ongoing retreats, residencies, events and land based gatherings co-facilitated together with Trans community-collaborators and to co-document our processes together. We hope to archive and mobilize our learnings, knowledges and cultural practices as ways of making new worlds together with our kin and allies. <3 |
Two people sit on outdoor wooden benches and three more people are standing behind them leaning on a wooden railing.
Left to right: Lamia Gibson, kumari giles, Naty Tremblay, Syrus Marcus Ware, Carolina Brown.
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Histories of the Toronto based Trans Healing Arts Web (THAW):
In November 2018 local TorontoTrans community organizers Naty Tremblay, Syrus Marcus Ware & Kusha Dadui gathered just after the annual Trans Day of Remembrance event at the 519 LGBTQ Community Center to process. Our community was reeling from the loss of several trans people linked to street based violence, suicide, crushing poverty, criminalization & trauma. From our discussions that night, a central question emerged; “what would happen if we had space by and for trans people that centered our healing & creativity”? As Trans community organizers working for decades in the frontlines, we were all very aware of how few resources existed in Toronto that were by & for Trans people. There is ample literature about the import of spaces by & for marginalized communities (Arow & Clemens 2017, Palfrey 2018, Ladwig 2022) in order for them to co-organize & build collective resilience. Not just a 1 hour weekly program with a single designated “trans coordinator”, but physical spaces with sustained funding stewarded by & for Trans folks. Given that Toronto has one of the biggest & fastest growing Trans diasporas in the world, the lack of Trans specific resources is stark. Especially compared to cities like New York or San Francisco with equivalent populations that have had Trans led spaces for decades. The city of Toronto identifies Trans people as a priority group amongst the top 3 marginalized communities impacted by violence, homelessness, unemployment and mental distress (CD21.1 report for action, 2017). Two thirds of Trans Ontarians avoid public space out of fear of harassment (Trans PULSE e-Bulletin, 2014). By exploring Trans community wellness through the lenses of healing & creativity we also hoped to move through and beyond daily survival based community organizing towards prefigurative politics that imagine Trans thrivance & Trans futures. We were also interested in the contributions our Trans community does & can make more broadly through our unique approaches to healing, collective care, transformative justice, performance, art & creative innovation.
In 2019, Naty, Syrus and kumari giles formed the Trans Healing Arts Collective (THAC) and we pursued Toronto and Ontario Arts Council funding to explore our central questions with our Trans communities using healing arts based methodologies to conduct research. We hosted a brainstorming event in late 2019 as part of the Bricks & Glitter QTBIPOC arts festival & formed an advisory of multi-generational trans artists & healers which oriented us towards co-designing and hosting various arts based gatherings with Trans folks as our methodology. We have been developing various projects co-designed with Trans artists and healers since this time!
In November 2018 local TorontoTrans community organizers Naty Tremblay, Syrus Marcus Ware & Kusha Dadui gathered just after the annual Trans Day of Remembrance event at the 519 LGBTQ Community Center to process. Our community was reeling from the loss of several trans people linked to street based violence, suicide, crushing poverty, criminalization & trauma. From our discussions that night, a central question emerged; “what would happen if we had space by and for trans people that centered our healing & creativity”? As Trans community organizers working for decades in the frontlines, we were all very aware of how few resources existed in Toronto that were by & for Trans people. There is ample literature about the import of spaces by & for marginalized communities (Arow & Clemens 2017, Palfrey 2018, Ladwig 2022) in order for them to co-organize & build collective resilience. Not just a 1 hour weekly program with a single designated “trans coordinator”, but physical spaces with sustained funding stewarded by & for Trans folks. Given that Toronto has one of the biggest & fastest growing Trans diasporas in the world, the lack of Trans specific resources is stark. Especially compared to cities like New York or San Francisco with equivalent populations that have had Trans led spaces for decades. The city of Toronto identifies Trans people as a priority group amongst the top 3 marginalized communities impacted by violence, homelessness, unemployment and mental distress (CD21.1 report for action, 2017). Two thirds of Trans Ontarians avoid public space out of fear of harassment (Trans PULSE e-Bulletin, 2014). By exploring Trans community wellness through the lenses of healing & creativity we also hoped to move through and beyond daily survival based community organizing towards prefigurative politics that imagine Trans thrivance & Trans futures. We were also interested in the contributions our Trans community does & can make more broadly through our unique approaches to healing, collective care, transformative justice, performance, art & creative innovation.
In 2019, Naty, Syrus and kumari giles formed the Trans Healing Arts Collective (THAC) and we pursued Toronto and Ontario Arts Council funding to explore our central questions with our Trans communities using healing arts based methodologies to conduct research. We hosted a brainstorming event in late 2019 as part of the Bricks & Glitter QTBIPOC arts festival & formed an advisory of multi-generational trans artists & healers which oriented us towards co-designing and hosting various arts based gatherings with Trans folks as our methodology. We have been developing various projects co-designed with Trans artists and healers since this time!
*Trans - We use this term to offer a wide framework for self identification with non-normative, transitioning, transgressive and transformed gender expressions. We humbly hold the complexity, tensions & imperfections of this term as well.
