KATIE POPPY MINTO
A Sunday at TISSUE: The trans reading event feeding the community
Born out of necessity and now on its 16th event, TISSUE is turning representation into fundraising.
TISSUE is just one of the many growing events fostering and funding the trans community. Created in 2022 by writers Donna Marcus Duke and Sam Moore after discussing the “buzzy queer, and especially trans, writing scene that was happening around London”. With our generation attempting to piece ourselves back together after COVID, community spaces and events were near to none. Donna and Sam recall having this innate urge to fix that, “we had this impulse of wanting to see people in a room rather than just see these names on a page” Donna tells me, “So we weirdly started these reading events in the basement of Frieze's building on Cork Street.”
Originally starting out as a way to bring trans writers under one roof, TISSUE soon snowballed into fundraisers for those within the community. After the UK Supreme Court ruling targeting and excluding trans women, Donna wanted to turn the events into something that was not only for the community but funded it as well, ‘I was too tired of thinking of these huge, horizonal changes or movement changes that were going to be achieved just by representation. It needed to become way smaller and it needed to come back to a mutual aid politic.’
Now being hosted at Goldsmiths CCA as part of their Artist Residency Programme, TISSUE has blossomed into its full form as a “reading series that tries to benefit the social, cultural, and material lives of trans people in our community.” On a Sunday afternoon in New Cross, their 16th event is doing exactly that – raising funds for Camp Trans, a trans camping and art festival known for hosting events, performances and workshops in South Wales. I arrived at Goldsmiths CCA promptly at 2PM, sweat tickling my lower back from speedwalking, not yet aware that these events always start fashionably late. Placing myself awkwardly on a metal fold-out seat in the back, people spilled into the makeshift room. One of them being Donna, feverishly striding around, setting up the mic and speakers. Her desktop appeared on the large screen, littered in untitled folders as she pulled up the event poster showing the names of the readers alongside a picture from last year’s Camp Trans event. As a reflex, I started reciting the names on the screen under my breath because I’m bad at these things, “Avie Jay, Elliot Lind, Tadhg Haran, Sheena Patel, Paige Murphy, Paige E. Young, Frank R Jagoe, Oona Evergreen, Manuel López Ramírez.” Luckily for me I’m in the best place to be awkwardly alone and it doesn’t take long for someone to introduce themselves, starting a polite yet warm conversation – to which they end on stating, to me and everyone around us, that “we are all friends now,” my shoulders dropped from my ears and took their normal position. Behind me the sunlight fell onto two wooden tables. One set with homemade blood orange cake, baklava and fresh lemonade made by the baking sibling duo, Moot. The other with Fort London’s screen-printed T-shirts, depicting a woman posed in front of a tree with the words ‘Nature is a Trans Girl’ above.
The crowd settled and amongst the flow of groups I must have missed the harnessed cat and Pomeranian’s entrance – they really do mean what they say with ‘come one, come all.’ First up was Elliot Lind with candid prose on last year’s Camp Trans and their experience hanging out with an older writer. Tadhg Haran spoke on goat brothers and watermelon vapes - as bizarre as it was beautiful - followed by Frank R Jagoe who delved into sex work and rat infestations. Paige Murphy talked of the workplace injuries of a hooker and Manuel López Ramírez read a story about being in a concealed relationship. Author of I’m A Fan, Sheena Patel, recited her favourite extract from the book and Avie Jay told of a life of tube strikes and office jobs. Oona Evergreen playfully reenacted getting panty checked at an all-women’s festival and Paige E. Young finished with an invigorating reading on her lesbian pussy. All to say, the readings were infused with just as much sincerity and significance as they were with humour and hedonism. And by the end of it I rather eagerly believed we were all friends now. Despite the modesty of the room, with its fold-out chairs, homemade lemonade and harnessed animals, the air was thick with a certain weight of talent. These are the people making the writing scene exciting and fresh with their unfiltered, profound and irreverent takes. And they’re doing it for each other, feeding their artistry back into the community. Exactly as it should be.