Document Type
Article - Open Access
Publication Title
Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies
Publication Date
11-2013
Abstract/ Summary
In 2009, Amos Mac and Rocco Kayiatos, two transgender men, created Original Plumbing (OP) magazine, in an effort to “[document] diversity within trans male lifestyles through photographic portraits, essays, personal narratives and interviews.” In this essay, I argue that OP becomes a platform from which to understand the relational performance of transmale life. The magazine provides a foundation for transmen to take ownership of self-determination by constructing identity through a non-heteronormative framework, made possible through the queer worldmaking practices of an exclusively FTM (female- to-male) space. Throughout this essay, I critique what the magazine elects to value as “diversity,” tackling necessary questions about the politics of class and race in the transmasculine community. Building on the important work of queer of color critique, I highlight the ways in which OP both does and does not provide an intersectional account of trans lives.
Repository Citation
Tiffe, R.
(2013). Original Plumbing: Performing Gender Variance Through Relational Self-Determination. Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, 9(4), 1-19.
Available at: https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/com_facpub/1
Included in
Gender and Sexuality Commons, Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication Commons, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons
