Brighton trans*formed have launched their new website designed by Melanie Menard.
THE site features photographs and the full interview transcripts that formed the basis of the Brighton trans*formed book, published last October.
Funded by Heritage Lottery Fund, Brighton Trans*formed is a ground-breaking digital project that highlights transgender lives in Brighton – “powerful stories that need to be told, and shared.”
The website is based on QueenSpark Books’ 104th book – a beautifully edited compendium of writing, memories, oral histories, design and photography.
Through this new digital form, the website Brighton Trans*formed chronicles the lives and experiences of Brighton and Hove’s Transgender community. It features, in their own words, the rich variety of Trans lives in Brighton & Hove today.
This web platform preserves previously untold stories for future generations, with a much-needed exploration into the diversity of gender expression within the city.
Juliet Jacques said: “Brighton & Hove is a place where trans people are increasingly seen and heard, understood and respected, and Brighton Trans*formed shows how far we’ve come, and how far there is to go.”
The website’s contributors range from 18 to 81 years old with very different life experiences. All of their testimonies have in common an absolute honesty and openness: contributors shared their joys and tragedies; adversities faced, and a display of strength and resolve to be themselves.
Contributors worked through confidence issues and self-protective boundaries to appear on posters, radio, in public art and this website – in order to express what being a trans person in Brighton is really like.
Trans people in Brighton have a long history, but more recently, significant developments in how the community connects and organises itself have allowed new groups to blossom, complementing the stalwart Clare Project.
These groups offer peer support (FTM Brighton and Transformers), social (Trans Pride and Trans Swimming Club) and activism (Trans Alliance), have been established and are led by trans-identified people. Now is a perfect time to capture a newly found confidence and preserve the life stories of some of those who make the community what it is.
For over 40 years, QueenSpark Books has been producing books about the people of Brighton & Hove, with a focus on enabling ‘lesser-heard’ voices to tell their stories.
With the website Brighton Trans*formed, this objective was paramount. Participants and editors have sought to empower and enable the community with opportunities that, by virtue of its trans status and all that this entails, had previously been unforthcoming.
This is what community projects, public art and oral testimony can do. Brighton Trans*formed is the evidence.
To view the website, click here: