Visibility and Voice

Visibility is a double edged sword.

Some of you may not know this but I spent the better part of 20 years being open about being trans and did so publicly as an artist in electronic music. The hate, harassment, violence and blacklisting I received from being so was often intense and at times so brutal that I still can’t feel my chin and have physical scars from the violence. The emotional ones have lasted significantly longer.

I was stopped from playing shows, dropped from agencies when other artists were violent/abusive because its easier to ditch one than to stand up against many. I had labels sign songs so they could delay them long enough to make their own version and release it before dropping my release altogether and shutting me out of events. I had people threatening me at shows and many threatening violence if I turned up to play them. If I asked promoters to make sure security kept those people out I was often dropped from the events for being ‘difficult to work with’. This happened for years. Every time I spoke out, I was told I was the problem.

There were a small handful of good promoters who did what they could (across New Zealand, where I’m from, and Aus, where I mostly toured) but many who weren’t and its much easier to just blacklist one person then to deal with a bunch of predators and abusers. So we built our own space, we put on our own events, eventually built our own record label, radiostation and spent a long time helping the people the people we could, in the ways that we could (something I learned from my mum).

It wasn’t until a few years ago, when we were systematically targeted, gaslit, abused and manipulated by someone who had pretended to be an ally that I lost the faith in what I was doing and why. It shook me to my core and the stress caused our body to collapse and completely shut down. It nearly killed us. The cost has been steep in more ways than I can put into words and we’ve spent the last few years learning to walk (and dance) again, rebuilding the ability to trust and know what is real. A lot of this was the reason we became less visible. Why I needed to take time away from being open about our life and what we’ve been through. I had no strength, no armor, only bare skin, bloody wounds and bruises.

I lost something I thought I’d never lose. The passion and love for music and performing, the faith in what we were doing and why. It’s been coming back slowly, and the creativity sometimes takes different forms (the comics, the stopmotion animation), but I’m starting to remember why I loved music so much and dedicated so much of my life to it. It’s pure emotion, a living, breathing moment that literally changes the energy of the world through the vibrations its made of.

Something happened over the last few years that I truly didn’t expect and it started to give me that faith back. Started to remind me of the ‘why’ and show me where the love I put in had weaved its way into the world. We toured around a lot, despite the dangers, and got to know a lot of people during that time. I was just being me, loving making music and playing it to people, living by the code of trying to leave peoples lives a little bit better from having been in it. It wasn’t always easy but it always felt like staying true to myself.

I had a lot of artists reach out who were just starting out their trans journey and it was a beautiful thing to be able to talk to them and help them but more than that, I’ve had so many parents reach out the last few years whose kids are starting that journey too. Those kids, who saw their parents being friends with and accepting me, saw that their parents were safe people and they talked to them. They reached out to talk about what it was like, to ask if their kids could reach out (and they did), and what they could do to help and support them in the best ways possible and it felt like all those years where I was often standing alone, feeling the brutality and viciousness of closed hearts, wasn’t for nothing. That I made a positive difference to those lives.

I spent so many years trying to fight to be seen and heard in an industry that didn’t want me to exist and still does everything it can to erase me from the history of it. Only to be truly seen and heard by the next generation who will take steps that I could only dream of. Now, I get to be an adopted aunt to some of the most amazing, caring, sensitive, creative and beautiful kids who know there is a place for people like us in the world. We get to spend our days helping other LBGT+ peeps, survivors and those living with chronic illness, CPTSD and the like through PHDM.

We get to support artists who would otherwise be invisible or seen as ‘too difficult’ to work with and make sure that they don’t fall through the cracks. That they know they are seen, appreciated and heard. The fight is far from over, and even now we are being used as a publicity shield by the worst predators imaginable, but the truth is; we’re part of a long line of love-filled fighters and we know joys and beauty that they are incapable of ever knowing. You may not see the way you affect the world for a long time, maybe not in your lifetime, but you do affect it, and its so so so fucking worth it.

I used to think I was a storyteller who wanted to become art but I realised I am a story in the art of becoming. So to others who are feeling invisible or that you, your art, your story or how you feel doesn’t matter. I see you. I love you. The world needs you. It needs your art, your story and your energy in it. You matter.

~Alice a.k.a Alexis K

Written by PHDM