West Hollywood City Council Chambers will host a performance Tuesday evening in recognition of Transgender Day of Visibility.
TransPowerProject is bringing “Lovely Bouquet of Flowers” to the Chambers, a stage work exploring non-traditional gender voices through story, movement, and music. It features 8TPS, a professional trans vocal ensemble, performing songs from the play live. Doors at 7, out by 9, tickets $10 for TGI2+ community members and $20 general admission tickets here. Refreshments will be there. The City’s arts grant program helped make it happen. It’s both a celebration to the trans community and allies alike.
Trans Day of Visibility or TDOV is the result of one person saying they were done with trauma being the only vibe associated with the trans community. Rachel Crandall had had enough. Back in 2010, every story she saw about trans lives was about someone who’d been hurt or killed. She started Transgender Day of Visibility to push back against that narrative, for at least one day to recognize the community was so much more than that.
Still the backdrop of the day is isn’t easy. There’s no denying that. Trump has signed orders barring transgender people from military service and targeting them in federal employment and healthcare. 740 anti-trans bills are under consideration across the country this year, according to the Trans Legislation Tracker. The American Medical Association first declared violence against transgender people an epidemic in 2019. Black trans women bear the worst of it.
West Hollywood has been on the other side of that history for a long time. The City is one of the first in the country to form a Transgender Advisory Board, which meets the first Wednesday of every month and makes direct recommendations to the City Council on programs, policies, and ordinances affecting the transgender community. Since 2013, the City has offered the Transgender, Gender Diverse, Intersex Arts Grant, which funds work in West Hollywood by and about the transgender, non-binary, intersex, and gender nonconforming community — the same grant program that supports Tuesday’s performance.
The City’s Transgender Resource Guide, with legal, health, and social services available throughout greater Los Angeles, is at weho.org.
In a time that calls for clarity, courage, and truth, we come together not in fear, but in love.
