a livable past, or Sheriff Victoria (2023) (Patreon)

Here is another shot from this nascent series I'm working on, of me in Bayhorse, ID. Bayhorse (elevation 6,178') was similar to the town of Custer from yesterday's shot; it was just a silver town, instead of a gold town like Custer. It was founded in 1877, peaked in the mid-1880s, and had burned significantly in a fire by 1889; subsequent water shortages kept most residents away, and most non-mine buildings were all abandoned shortly thereafter. 

a mockup of the e-book cover for this project.

The vibe for this shoot for me, of course, was some sort of fictionalized ideal of the Western sheriff. Yesterday, I put together the nascent beginnings of the photo series/book/pdf that these old West photos would be part of (see a mock-up of the cover); thus far, it's been extremely short stories (two sets of nine captioned photos, edited/written/typefaced to look as though they were taken in the era that I am mimicking) about fictional past selves in the actual towns I visited.

The idea is not to mimic the actual past; the idea is to create fiction that allows me to imagine existing in some other era. While America's history is obviously a horrifying bloodbath, there is, generally, some documentation of interesting, brave people from virtually every imaginable background, race, gender identity, etc... except transfemmes. There are precious few exceptions (Jennie June or Frances Thompson come to mind) but largely, there is no solid documentation of our existence in America until the post-World-War-II era. 

It's understandable, since not being stealth generally meant death (Frances, for example, died in her thirties after being brutally abused during her imprisonment for "cross-dressing").

This project doesn't seek to correct any historical wrongs or pretend that this wasn't the reality of things. It has always been the reality of things. Every trans person lives in the closet, comes out of the closet, and walks into the world knowing that it is still the reality of things, and it likely will continue to be for quite a while. None of us as trans people seriously envision a past that could have been happy; precious few imagine satisfying futures. 

This project presupposes that just for a moment, we could suspend disbelief in the manner of Westerns and pulp-fiction adventure novels. I can let myself pretend there was an interesting past I could have lived. If I allow myself that indulgence, it might just make imagining a livable future that much easier for me, too.