Creating Trans Oral Traditions: A Community Storytelling Experience

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The flyer for Creating Trans Oral Traditions features a black and white photograph of Sylvia Rivera confronting a crowd of people. Sylvia Rivera, in the image, has wavy lighter colored hair with darker roots, and she has a serious expression on her face with her arms out at her sides while people look on at her, all around her. The flyer also contains Zoom information, scheduling information, and an address for this hybrid event that is all repeated in the body of this email. The text description for the flyer reads the following: Creating Trans Oral Traditions: A Community Storytelling Experience. We often struggle to find enough written history of our chosen families. History texts may misgender, misinterpret, or miss us. Instead of relying on the written word, we can build on memories of the past through performance. Let’s better remember trans lives by sharing stories today! On the week of Transgender Day of Remembrance, we will hold a storytelling circle with gender expansive community. Themes will be “Struggles and Triumphs” as attendees share knowledge purely from memory about other gender expansive people they know, know of, or once knew, and their connections, hardships, and achievements. As bards of our living trans history, we will practice passing down knowledge and memory by word of mouth and through performance, not through the pen. Those who wish to share are encouraged to do so without any notes or script, but are absolutely welcome to practice what they’d like to say. This is customary to oral tradition! The flyer also has an instructor biography for Arkaz, a white person with dark, thick curly hair and a beard and mustache. He is wearing a white tee shirt with a bright colorful graphic and red trim. The biography reads the following: Arkaz Vardanyan (he/she) is a genderqueer trans man and a historian of human sexuality. He has also worked as an LGBTQ+ Specialist, an educator, and an organizer for San Fernando Valley Pride 2023. She attended, facilitated for, and taught at Trans* Lounge for years before joining as the Program Supervisor. Arkaz loves tabletop roleplaying games, power metal, and people's history. He hopes to create brave spaces where everyone can express themselves, learn from others, and heal together.

When
November 15th, 2023 from  7:00 PM to  9:00 PM
Additional Event Information
Format Workshop
Pre-enrollment Required Yes
Presenter 1 Arkaz Vardanyan
Presenter 2
Presenter 3