GI’s Anatomy: Drawing Sex, Drawing Gender, Drawing Bodies

GI’s Anatomy: Drawing Sex, Drawing Gender, Drawing Bodies

Anna McNay and Jay Stewart

Anna McNay is a freelance art writer and editor, based in London. She is Arts Editor for DIVA magazine and Deputy Editor for State Media.  Anna has reviewed many LGBT exhibitions, including those in which this review’s case studies have participated and has authored the review elements in this piece.

Jay Stewart is co-founder of Gendered Intelligence. He holds a PhD in Visual Cultures from Goldsmiths College, University of London.  Jay convened the GI Anatomy project and is author of the factual project information.

GI’s Anatomy: Introduction

In spring 2013, thirty transgender and intersex people participated in a series of practical life drawing workshops in London programmed by arts based organisation, Gendered Intelligence, in collaboration with life drawing tutors from London Drawing.[i] What made these art classes distinct was the fact that the models posing also identified as transgender and/or as having an intersex condition. The models had a range of body types, some of which were visibly identifiable as transgender or intersex, some not. The project aimed to engage the participants with complex ideas around sexed and gendered bodies that pertained to their own life experience. Throughout the project, the participants interrogated the ways in which scientific discourses and practices have come to shape our understanding of non-normatively sexed and gendered bodies.

To read this article in full, please see: http://tsq.dukejournals.org/content/2/2/330.abstract

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[i] See genderedintelligence.co.uk and http://www.londondrawing.com/. This project was funded by the Wellcome Trust as part of their arts award.

Report on the Silver Bo(x) Campaign

27/03/14

The Silver Bo(x) Campaign

The number of children born annually with an intersex condition is as hard to pin down as an agreed upon definition of the condition itself, but, with an estimated one in every 1,000-2,000 children becoming the subject of specialist medical attention, and many of these going on to be operated on in order to ‘correct’ the ‘defect’, the condition is more common a phenomenon than either autism or cystic fibrosis.

While binary gender classification assumes – and asserts – that babies should be born at one or other end of a continuum for sex, this is simply not the statistical truth. Regardless, the medical community continues to view hermaphroditism as something which can be 'solved' (Disorders of Sex Development - DSD) by ‘corrective’ surgery or by choosing which gender to raise an infant based on the extent of their physical development within – maximally – the first 18 months of life. Such an irreversible operation on a non-consenting baby’s genitalia is surely a horrific abuse of human rights? The current legal situation in the UK, however, which insists that we are allocated either male or female gender on our birth certificates and passports, merely fosters the tyranny.

Many countries around the world (Germany, Australia, New Zealand and India included) now recognise in law the existence of Intersex human beings, accordingly allowing for a third gender (x) to be marked on legal documents, with the individual, in each instance, having the choice of which box to tick. In an attempt to bring the UK in line with these, London-based visual and performance artist, XXXora, herself born with ambiguous sexual organs and raised as a boy before choosing, for herself, a female persona, has launched a petition to the government called the Silver Bo(x) Campaign.

Speaking to DIVA, XXXora explains: ‘I have set The Silver Bo(x) Campaign up myself because I am sick of there being such injustice and abuse of Intersex human rights, currently completely invisible under law. I am seeking the support of anyone who recognises that none of us has a choice over the body we are born into and that we must respect all human beings, regardless of their sexual organs. It frustrates me so much that the UK has still not sorted this barbaric and archaic mess out and so I have been compelled to mobilise this campaign for Intersex human rights. If we sell ourselves as a democratic and “civilized” society, we will finally have to accept scientific evidence over political agenda and give every human being legal equality, regardless of the sexual organs they are born with.’

Within the first week of its launch, the Silver Bo(x) Campaign was signed and supported by numerous notable figures in the arts, including Frances Segelman (sculptress to the Queen) and Sir Derek Jacobi. The campaign needs 100,000 signatures and an MP to back it, in order to be considered for debate in Government. ‘I have planted the seed,’ says XXXora, ‘it has now sprouted and I will continue to nourish it until harvest.’

Please sign the petition and spread the word by visiting:

https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/uk-government-the-silver-bo-x-campaign-stop-the-systematic-genital-mutilation-of-non-consenting-intersex-infants-and-recognise-in-all-legal-capacities-human-beings-born-with-ambiguous-sexual-organs

Please also see: http://www.divamag.co.uk/category/feature/special-feature/the-silver-bo(x)-campaign.aspx

Artist Profile: XXXora

27/03/14

Artist Profile: XXXora 

Once seen, 33-year-old Anglo-Spanish visual and performance artist XXXora is not easily forgotten. Dressed in monochrome and covering one side of her face with a silver mask, she has a distinctive look. “I've had to live in the binary,” she explains. “Now I will continue to enforce these unnecessary binary limitations on my work and appearance until the UK recognises the hermaphrodite in law and adds a third box to the category of gender in passports, following in the footsteps of countries like Australia, New Zealand and India.”

XXXora, whose pseudonym makes reference to chromosomes, was born with ambiguous sexual organs and raised as a boy. It was only after her time at Goldsmith’s College, that she began to live as her female persona. Since her debut exhibition at the Vyner Street Gallery in June 2012, XXXora has been using the power of art to educate and ignite democratic and scientifically led discourse in an attempt to prevent future generations from experiencing the degradation and abuse that she herself has had to endure. Her artwork focuses on androgyny, depicting both naturally occurring hermaphroditic flora and fauna and celebrities or politicians who either are androgynous themselves, or who exploit androgyny in their careers – “the only real role models that Silver Boxers like me have in this binary obsessed society.” 

Last year, XXXora began painting a series called The Captured Hermaphrodite, which seeks to document all naturally occurring hermaphroditic species. Thus far she has painted The Oak Tree, The Clownfish, The Pansy, The Salema and The Apple Tree. The latter, an alternative vision of Adam and Eve, recently provided the stage set for the Winter Pride UK Awards Ceremony. Every year until her death, XXXora promises to produce seven new paintings for the series. “If I'm honest,” she says, “it worries me that I may not live long enough to document and depict all of the different hermaphrodites in nature as there are so many, but I hope other artists will pick up the baton if I am unable to finish the series.” Hopefully, indeed, they will, and hopefully people will start to listen to her message long before then too.

http://www.xxxora.com

Photograph by Benjamin Wisely

XXXora is currently running a petition, the Silver Bo(x) Campaign, to stop the systematic, irreversible and barbaric genital mutilation of non-consenting Intersex infants.

https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/uk-government-the-silver-bo-x-campaign-stop-the-systematic-genital-mutilation-of-non-consenting-intersex-infants-and-recognise-in-all-legal-capacities-human-beings-born-with-ambiguous-sexual-organs




To see this full profile, please pick up a copy of the April 2014 issue of DIVA magazine.