Full piece on Nothing But Hope And Passion.
Oftentimes, when we see the music industry making an effort to support gender diversity, it is about shedding light on cis women, with some exceptions for trans women. Apart from a few inclusive bubbles, nonbinary, trans – especially non-passing, genderfluid, or agender folks, however, are mostly forgotten or excluded.
6zm, Venusloc, Strip Down, and Mad Kate are artists with different gender expressions that the industry often overlooks. 6zm and Mad Kate are based in Berlin, Strip Down made a move from Berlin to Brighton, and Venusloc lives and works in Detroit. Each has different hats in the arts industry, such as educator, technician, promoter, dancer, visual artist… – and 6zm is a co-founding member of dif e.V. Still, they are all united by a lengthy and diversified practice of music composition and performance.
About the too-common labelling of “female” spaces, line-ups, and awards, Strip Down explains that “Female isn’t a gender identity, it is a biological description. Bioessentialism can be dangerous, and only has a function within a transphobic, homophobic, femphobic, and sexist system. When calling it things like female or female-identifying, we massively contribute to mainstream transphobia and gender segregation under the binary system.”
Venusloc adds about sub-standard representation that often stops at adding women to male ventures, “I especially do not think that there is enough visibility for those who are trans and non-passing, as well as nonbinary folks who blur the lines of gender presentation.” And 6zm sees this mainstream conversation as “mere tokenism that falls short of real transformation, unless we add sufficient representation within the decision-making groups of the music industry. True progress requires the inclusion of marginalised identities in all roles.”
Indeed, inclusion needs to happen on stage and all the way to the decision-making top to become real and have a chance of improving working conditions for all marginalised parties involved. According to Strip Down, “every issue of marginalisation, discrimination, and lack of inclusivity, tends to filter from the top down. If everybody who is instrumental in curating something, meaning who has the most power, is a white, cis, non-disabled man – or another highly privileged person, it seems ludicrous that they would all sit around trying to work out how they can create a more inclusive line-up. There needs to be more trans people, more people of colour, more disabled people, just more people with varied life experiences, right at the top.”
Bouncing back on the idea of intersectionality, where gender is only a piece of the equation, Mad Kate comments that “all of our bodies are intersectional, meaning that we find ourselves at different points on many axes of power – race, gender, sex, class, ability… The particular intersection that we find ourselves defines a lot about what we have access to, what we see, where we are invited, how we are categorised and read, and ultimately can influence where we can go and how we can move.” As conclusion to this very layered subject, they expressed their “wish that no one feels discriminated against because of their gender, feels free to express themselves, feels encouraged to learn, and feels as though they are always already assumed to be a body who has potential to learn and be a great musician or artist, regardless of how they look.”