Tag Archives: queer artist

Help FabledAsp Celebrate 40 yrs of Disabled Lesbian Activism and Show Your Support

For the past 40 years, San Francisco Bay Area lesbians with disabilities have been at the forefront of political, artistic, and cultural change. However, their stories and accomplishments are at risk of being lost. This was until Fabled Asp was formed.

Fabled Asp stands for Fabulous/Activist Bay area Lesbians with Disabilities: A Storytelling Project – They are a multi-cultural, multi-media organisation; that combine storytelling and filmmaking to document the revolution in queer disability arts, aesthetics, politics and culture.

Their mission is to empower disabled lesbians of diverse racial, cultural and age backgrounds to express stories, challenges, accomplishments and lessons of the movement.

In 2010, a groundbreaking and historic exhibition ‘Celebrating Fabulous/Activist Bay Area Lesbians with Disabilities: A 40 Year Retrospective’ was hosted in San Francisco Public Library. The show chronicled the accomplishments of disabled lesbian activists whose innovations had been largely obscured or misappropriated.

FabledAsp have now created an interactive virtual exhibition of the 2010 collection, to ensure the work is preserved and a wider audience can learn about disabled queer history.

Narrated by Fabled Asp member, Judith Masur, the virtual exhibition is a 40-year archive of historic and artistic moments, which cover a wide range of different disciplines; including art, music, and dance. Importantly, the exhibition displays an expansive timeline detailing the last 40 years of disabled lesbian accomplishments in America, including the ways the women participated in the national fight to implement federal legislation on disability rights and access.

How in 1977, these women were among those who protested for enforcement of Section 504 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act. How they sent representatives to Washington D.C. to testify at a time when people traveling in wheelchairs had to be loaded on planes via cargo equipment; and in the 1980s, when they created a groundbreaking special needs model for San Francisco’s Gay Pride Parade, including sign language interpreters, access lanes, and audience spaces designed for people with special needs.

“We stepped and rolled out of the shadows to demand and design changes in attitudes, laws and physical access.”

Fabled Asp

By throwing a bright spotlight on these women and events, they are giving the world and LGBT community a much needed lesson in how the past creates the present, and an invaluable guide to the intersections of disability, gender, race and sexuality.

“We gave the world and each other a new and expanded appreciation for the physical power and grace of our bodies, the verbal wit, intelligence, and emotional range of our political analysis.”

Wry Crips

You can explore the Fabled Asp website here.

Legacy- Disabled Lesbian History: The Fabled Asp Project

From Butch to Femme – Coco Layne Transformation to Secure a Job

How far would you go to get the perfect job? When artist Coco Layne was interviewing for a job that would require her to look “conservative,” she realised how slight changes in her look affected how people treated her. This thought inspired ‘Warpaint’ – a project that explores the gender presentation within the masculine and feminine spectrum – going from a tomboy to a lipstick-wearing lady.

Coco started her photo series wearing a striped button-up shirt, jeans, boots, no make-up and combed her bleached blonde hair back to reveal the shaved sides of her head. Gradually she adopted a more feminine pose in each frame, softening her hairstyle, adding eye liner, mascara, blush, bright red lip colour, jewellery and high heels topped off with a skirt and floaty blouse. The final shot shows her seductively pouting at the camera.

‘The project was a reflection of my existing style choices regarding gender presentation from day to day. Although my physical appearance may fluctuate, there’s never any behavioural shift with me. Warpaint comes from the perspective a cis-gendered queer woman of colour, so it reflects my own unique experience and isn’t meant to speak for other queer people, although our experiences may intersect in some ways. It’s important to open up this conversation about gender presentation because its often confused and read as gender identity. Gender presentation is not about sexual orientation at all! Playing around with gender expression is strictly an avenue to explore my identity as a queer person not my sexual identity. Some days I’ll feel like wearing a lot of make-up and heels, while other days I’ll just do my eyebrows and dress down. I’m always still the same person.’

Coco Layne