The ongoing legacy of historical media misrepresentation of transgender and gender non-conforming people continues to translate into overlapping forms violence. To address the inaccuracies, tropes, and the need for decentering singular narratives, Communi-T conducted a workshop on trans-affirmative reporting in partnership with Canada in India. Follow along below.

Panel discussion on ‘Reporting it Right’ with Vikramaditya Sahai (They), Satvik Sharma (He/They), Dhrubo Jyoti (They):

Vikramaditya Sahai (They/Them) is a post graduate in political science from University of Delhi. They have previously worked as faculty at the Gender Studies Department, Ambedkar University, Delhi and as a consultant on a project to study non-normative sexuality and gender housed at the Advanced Centre for Women Studies, TISS, Bombay. They are interested in sex, feeling, and the structure and narrative of living in their relation with forms of sociality, law and politics.

Sahai on ‘Reporting it Right’ (edited, in the speaker’s words):

I want to raise slightly abstract questions about representation. One is that there is the predominance of trans women, Hijra women as intra-trans conversations.

We might want to unpack what that representation looks like.

One is that trans women continue to be the file photo for all queer-related happenings in the world, right. So all pride parades are represented either by gay men kissing, or by trans women celebrating and dancing.

And this continues to exist — literally there will be an article about something that has happened with trans women and file images are from a pride parade, right? It's that kind of relation between the imagined deviance and criminality, of trans women and pride parades. It's kind of a carnival-esque space, that's fun and so outside the normal.

So those two images are condensed into one image: no matter if gay men are marching for marriage, to whether trans women are sitting in protest — the file photo is trans women in a pride parade, or dancing and so on.

And it's that same image that's been used since 2006, it's not even that they're taking new pictures. That leads to the second thing.

Continued: https://www.pixstory.com/story/reportwithpride-it-takes-a-lot-of-humor-to-survive-this-world-vikramaditya-sahai1655957227/109204