Jay Sennett (JPEG 1024 x 685)
The craziest thing I have done in my life is a toss-up between creating and publishing cartoons, some of which are found in Self-Organizing Men, and actually publishing Self-Organizing Men. I can’t draw. In real time I don’t think I’m funny. But as a long-post, uber theoretical blogger, I suck some serious wind. So I decided that if I couldn’t say what I needed to say in a business-card sized cartoon, I had no business saying it.
Out of these experiences blogging and cartooning I created Self-Organizing Men. I got very, very tired of reading books where transsexual men were better than everyone else; or where everyone was genderqueer and beyond the binary; or where men were from uranus and women were from jupiter; or where we are just are the way we are because, well, you know, we’re all born that way.
Self-Organizing Men cover (JPEG)
I wanted complexity! What I wanted to create was a poly-vocal, multi-voiced book of images, poetry, essays, and personal reflections that functioned like a jazz ensemble, where masculinity was defined by the author. Where masculinity wasn’t about just clothing; or just hormones; or just genitals; or just communication styles; or just race; or just ability; but all of the above.
Here I try to explain about the what the title means, and I why I created the book.
So in the process of editing the book, I created Homofactus Press, a global digital micropress. We’re making history one book at a time, publishing books by, for and about transmasculine communities worldwide.
(BTW: The second craziest thing I have done in my life is change my gender. But that’s another story.)
Before creating Homofactus Press, I worked as a filmmaker. My film Phallocy played to international audiences and was a blast to both create and talk about. Phallocy was a 2002 PlanetOut Short Film and Video Festival Finalist as well as a finalist in the Pink Apple Film Festival, 2001, Frauenfeld, Switzerland, Short Film Competition. In the film I talk about some very frank topics ~ FtM sexuality ~ that I thought other guys weren’t talking about.
Phallocy Publicity Photo (JPEG)
How does a 32-year-old lesbian become a man? Phallocy is an autobiographical film using spoken word, music and experimental techniques to explore the struggles of a female-to-male transsexual. The double-exposed, sepia-toned footage and sharp editing create the mood for the filmmaker’s confrontation with living as female-bodied man.
When an audience member came up to me in Chicago to thank me for making the movie and said, “You’ve helped me vocalize a problem that I knew existed between me and my former FtM lover, but that he could never talk about,” I learned how powerful story telling and honesty can be.
My previous films and videos include Activism In Progress and The Parable. My production credits include Go Fish, Remembering Wei Yi-Fang Remembering Myself and The Cinematic Jazz Of Julie Dash.
I’ve been in the trans community since 1994, which makes me practically ancient, and was the first out trans writer for Outlines/Nightlines, Chicago’s gay and lesbian newspaper. I have over fifty published bylines; multiple speaking engagements at such places at the University of Michigan, Eastern Michigan University, DePaul University, the Mayor’s Office of Chicago, Ann Arbor City Council; and has keynoted at True Spirit Conference 2001 and at GenderQueer 2001: NW Transgender and Intersex Film and Video Festival and Forge Forward, 2007. My essay, “I am the Man! Performing Gender and Other Incongruities,” coauthored with Sarah Bay-Cheng, Ph. D., has been published in The Drag King Anthology (Haworthe Press, 2003).
In 2001, I was the first female-to-male transsexual given the Cultural Award by Detroit Gay and Lesbian Pride. In 1997 I believe I was the first out transsexual to be arrested for protesting the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia.
I continue to work on making Homofactus Press stronger, cartoon, observe masculinities and indulge in my passion for bespoke clothing.
