Eileen Myles (they/them, b. 1949) is a poet, novelist and art journalist whose practice of vernacular first-person writing has made them one of the most recognized writers of their generation. 

, with visuals in collaboration with Andrea Kirsch, here.

"I was born in Boston in
1949. I never wanted
this fact to be known, in
fact I’ve spent the better
half of my adult life
trying to sweep my early
years under the carpet
and have a life that
was clearly just mine
and independent of
the historic fate of
my family. Can you
imagine what it was
like to be one of them,
to be built like them,
to talk like them
to have the benefits
of being born into such
a wealthy and powerful
American family. I went
to the best schools,
had all kinds of tutors
and trainers, traveled
widely, met the famous,
the controversial, and
the not-so-admirable
and I knew from
a very early age that
if there were ever any
possibility of escaping
the collective fate of this famous
Boston family I would
take that route and
I have. I hopped
on an Amtrak to New
York in the early
‘70s and I guess
you could say
my hidden years
began. I thought
Well I’ll be a poet.
What could be more
foolish and obscure.
I became a lesbian.
Every woman in my
family looks like
a dyke but it’s really
stepping off the flag
when you become one.
While holding this ignominious
pose I have seen and
I have learned and
I am beginning to think
there is no escaping
history. A woman I
am currently having
an affair with said
you know you look
like a Kennedy. I felt
the blood rising in my
cheeks. People have
always laughed at
my Boston accent
confusing “large” for
“lodge,” “party”
for “potty.” But
when this unsuspecting
woman invoked for
the first time my
family name
I knew the jig
was up. Yes, I am,
I am a Kennedy.
My attempts to remain
obscure have not served
me well. Starting as
a humble poet I
quickly climbed to the
top of my profession
assuming a position of
leadership and honor.
It is right that a
woman should call
me out now. Yes,
I am a Kennedy.
And I await
your orders.
You are the New Americans.
The homeless are wandering
the streets of our nation’s
greatest city. Homeless
men with AIDS are among
them. Is that right?
That there are no homes
for the homeless, that
there is no free medical
help for these men. And women.
That they get the message
—as they are dying—
that this is not their home?
And how are your
teeth today? Can
you afford to fix them?
How high is your rent?
If art is the highest
and most honest form
of communication of
our times and the young
artist is no longer able
to move here to speak
to her time…Yes, I could,
but that was 15 years ago
and remember—as I must
I am a Kennedy.
Shouldn’t we all be Kennedys?
This nation’s greatest city
is home of the business-
man and home of the
rich artist. People with
beautiful teeth who are not
on the streets. What shall
we do about this dilemma?
Listen, I have been educated.
I have learned about Western
Civilization. Do you know
what the message of Western
Civilization is? I am alone.
Am I alone tonight?
I don’t think so. Am I
the only one with bleeding gums
tonight. Am I the only
homosexual in this room
tonight. Am I the only
one whose friends have
died, are dying now.
And my art can’t
be supported until it is
gigantic, bigger than
everyone else’s, confirming
the audience’s feeling that they are
alone. That they alone
are good, deserved
to buy the tickets
to see this Art.
Are working,
are healthy, should
survive, and are
normal. Are you
normal tonight? Everyone
here, are we all normal.
It is not normal for
me to be a Kennedy.
But I am no longer
ashamed, no longer
alone. I am not
alone tonight because
we are all Kennedys.
And I am your President."

An American Poem

An experimental documentary about the journey from butch dyke to trans man, visual time lapse photography of the filmmaker's beard growing in over a 21 day period in the 1992 when the filmmaker was a butch dyke with a beard, catches up with a poetic v.o. and text ten years later, in 2002, recorded and added to the film as the filmmaker was transitioning to male.

 was shot on my beloved Bolex camera. The film was conceived as a time-lapse documentary film experiment with shots of this once butch dyke filmmaker's beard growing in over a 21-day period in the early 1990's.


At the time it felt like it was a very transgressive act as an artist, transitioning gender, to grow the beard I had felt ashamed of for so many years, using my body to tell a story, coming to terms with the shame of being born Intersex in a creative and empowering way. Ten years later, in 2001, a potent voice over written and performed by the filmmaker after my transition from female to male was added; the film is an experimental documentary account of a butch dyke's journey to trans man, succinctly summing up the complexity of this journey in under 2 minutes. 

 was named one of the ten best trans films by Curve magazine.

Audrey’s Beard

Tien is the first Asian trans man to publicly come out in the Vancouver, then, gay and lesbian community of 2001. In this profound and inspiring film, Tien shares his story as a trailblazing, racialised, transgender immigrant and his journey to discovering his true purpose in life — cultivating and becoming joy.

Becoming Queer Joy

is 2 minutes long experimental short film that explores the entanglements between the sensory experience of wearing a chest binder, the materiality of this object, and the intimate and emotional experiences that intersect with it. 

The voice-over was first written as a longer creative and multi-sensory audio description of the binder, subsequently shorten to function as voice-over. The images were obtained by experimenting with imprints of various stretchy fabrics on celluloid film and through rotoscope animation.

Binding Chests, Mending Hearts

 is a portrait of trans activists Leslie Feinberg and Riki Anne Wilchins who lead a movement to end a trans-exclusionary women's music festival.

 (created by Rhys Ernst, produced by Christine Bebe and presented by Focus Features), 

Frameline Film Festival, San Francisco, CA

Mezipatra Queer Film Festival, Czech Republic

Camp Trans 

Transgender teen, Jazz Jennings, narrates this documentary where young people interview a host of LGBTQ elders who came out in different historical eras from the 1950s through today.

Coming Out: A 50 Year History

In the mid-1990s, the first openly lesbian bar in South Korea, LesBos, opened its doors in Sinchon, Seoul. This documentary follows one of the bar’s proprietors, Myong-woo, whose witty commentary prompts a broader reflection on Seoul’s lesbian scene, and the evolution of the city’s queer spaces over the past five decades. In her feature debut, Kwon Aram documents generational change as she makes connections between past and present: from the 1976 police raid on Chanel, a women-only café that existed in Myeong-dong in the 1970s, to the more recent threat posed by Covid-19 to community solidarity. This is a film about a shared sense of belonging, and shared environments of kinship. Offering a rare insight into Seoul’s often-hidden lesbian history, Home Ground reveals the vibrancy and endurance of South Korea’s queer culture.

Home Ground

In this film I turn my body inside out to create a portal for inner listening. A heart monitor connects my pulse to animate a spotlight that illuminates my body. A contact microphone turns the sound of my breath into a sonic landscape. Exploring entrainment – the phenomenon by which biological rhythms like the heartbeat and breath gradually fall into sync – I invite viewers to tune into their bodies with me.

Inner Dawn

Leslie Feinberg—a long-time, internationally-known activist and award-winning author—came of age as a young butch lesbian in the factories and gay bars of Buffalo, NY in the 1960s. Hir works include Stone Butch Blues, Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman and Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue.

Leslie Feinberg in Buffalo, June 2, 2006

"In the film I decided to mix the various clips without following a chronological timeline, as the issues protested over the past few years are still ongoing, and as important as they were in the beginning. Having participated in the protest over the past three years, each time I felt like I was being suspended in time, each time I attended the event."

I made this short film originally for my 'archive film' assignment at uni. I went through the footage that I recorded over the 2021-2023 London Trans Prides. The annual events are still in early stages of existence, the first one was held only in 2019. The Trans Pride organisers make it clear that purpose of the gathering is not only to celebrate the diversity, but also to protest against the discrimination and lack of recognition that the queer and trans community faces daily on interpersonal and institutional basis. The Trans Pride was also set up to highlight the lack of representation and inclusion of people who find themselves restricted by the binaries of gender, to point out the commodification, corporatisation and rainbow capitalism ideology present in the official London Pride parade, as well as deconstruct the negative stigma connected to non-cis bodies also within the LGBTQA+ community itself. 

In the film I decided to mix the various clips without following a chronological timeline, as the issues protested over the past few years are still ongoing, and as important as they were in the beginning. Having participated in the protest over the past three years, each time I felt like I was being suspended in time, each time I attended the event. As a queer and gender non-binary person, I was surrounded by people who seemed to be just like me, and who welcomed me with open arms, which reminded me of the concept of a heterotopia - the Trans Pride parade created an environment of total inclusion, that is, an environment defined as the opposition to what the ‘outside world’ is. 

To give more context to the film, I decided to ask my trans friends about their thoughts and experiences from the times they attended London Trans Pride. The final film is a combination of images and voices from the contemporary queer community. 

Filmed, directed and edited by Arti Siudem (they/them), IG: @janusz_santana 

Big thanks to Santiago Franco Schicke, Martina, Fillo Deportaberta and Siren for participation in the project. Also huge thanks to Valentino Vecchietti for the inspiring speech at Soho Square.

London Trans Pride Archive Film

 is a community history project documenting twenty transmasculine people sharing their experiences playing, watching, loving, and building football spaces. From grassroots teams to playing for Manchester United, these vital, underrepresented stories were shared at Centre For Live Art Yorkshire in Leeds in July 2023, accompanied by a panel about the future of trans representation in sports.



 Marlowe is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work focuses on trans and queer historical and community research, writing, and film-making. The basis for their art is to create cases for inclusion, to preserve, uncover, and challenge histories and culture, and to build connections between the community through time and space.

The Offside Project originated when Marlowe was trying to find a football community that shared their experience, and discovering a dearth of transmasculine people. After two years of finalising, Marlowe got to chat with other transmasc people, building connections between our stories and what our futures can look like. During the interview stage of the project, the all-transmasculine football match on Trans Day of Visibility was played, changing the nature of transmasculine invisibility in sport spaces.


Most of the interviews took place over the course of two months, after which fourteen of them were edited into 15-20min audio-visual pieces shown in a gallery space on five different screens. Alongside the exhibition there was a sports-themed drag show featuring the artist and musician Ding Frisby, as well as the films Lotus Sports Club (dir. Vanna Hem)* and Who I Am Now (dir. Jack Goessens), both of which offer international perspectives on transness and sports.


The highlight of the event was a panel about transmasculine futures in football.** Each of the panellists gave a unique perspective on grassroots, professional, and spectator-based challenges in football spaces.** In addition there are interviews with Natalie Washington (Football v Transphobia) and Lucy Clarke (TRUK) about the work they do for the future of trans inclusive football.

*Learn more about Lotus Sports Club in Cambodia and to donate to its continued running


Project Managing, Interviews, Editing/Subtitling/Transcription, Event planning and hosting: Marlowe Mitchell
Interview production (London): Rico Jacob Chase
Creative Producer: Kit Miles
Social media: Robyn Leadbeater
Panel filming and editing/subtitling: SABLE (Leeds)
Event managing: Jessica Sweet (Centre for Live Art Yorkshire)
Oral histories training: Laura Mitchison, On The Record
Archiving: Otherness Archive, Bishopsgate Institute, West Yorkshire Archive
Panelists: Frank Lamb, Caz Fields, Ingrid Banerjee Marvin
Thank you to: On The Record, REED, Laura Mitchison, Kate Holland, Mimi Kimmling, Orlen Crawford, Frank Lamb, Caz Fields, Ding Frisby, Tommaso Colognese, Jack Goessens, Emma, You Can Play, Team Out And Proud, SABLE, The Arts Council, Kit Heyam, Adam Kashmiry, CLAY, Sweatmother, Robyn Leadbeater

Offside Project 

A song about Ryan Cassata's experience transitioning from female to male and his transformed relationship from being my dads daughter to being his son.

Ryan Cassata - Daughter

The documentary cover an overview of historical and contemporary Native American concepts of gender, sexuality and sexual orientation. This documentary explores the berdache tradition in Native American culture, in which individuals who embody feminine and masculine qualities act as a conduit between the physical and spiritual world, and because of this are placed in positions of power within the community.

Two Spirit People

 travels the Plains, gathering and sharing stories. Featuring archival images and dramatized re-enactments, this film shares a Cuthand family oral story, honouring and respecting Woman Dress without imposing colonial binaries on them.


TJ Cuthand is a filmmaker and performance artist, writer and curator of Plains Cree as well as Scottish and Irish descent. He is credited with coining the term Indigiqueer, for modern Indigenous LGBTQ people. 

Woman Dress

An illustrated film, based on the oral histories of Zander Keig. 

shows the transitional wisdom that Zander has learned while paralyzed, in a mental hospital, a gang, in the military, transitioning from female-to-male and as a social worker.

Categories

Oral History