Proud Lives

What happens when two trans women get sick of non-transsexuals' uninformed representation of their sexualities and their lives? They grab their 8 millimeter home video camera, their last 200 bucks, and come up with an uncompromising in-your-face flick about their shitty relationships with gay men and their unabashed attraction to other transsexual women.

Mirha-Soleil Ross is a transsexual prostitute who has practiced unsafe sex in her personal and professional life. In this performance, she uses video, images, music, text, and one on one contact with members of the audience to contrast the various dynamics involved and the interests at stake in this debate.

A cyberspace encounter turns into a trans/polysexual vegan-docu-porno featuring urban veggie lovers speaking out on dating, intimacy and sex in a meat-centered culture.

Legendary Warwick Hotel Superstar BRANDEE —aka Al Lana Lamarre— passed away during her sleep on April 7th, 2007. She was 80 years old and some dust... A life-long entertainer, BRANDEE was appreciated and loved by family, friends and fans alike. This brief vignette featuring Brandee and her friend Georgie was recorded by Mirha-Soleil Ross and Mark Karbusicky on the December 17th, 2006.

An in your face response to society's fascination and repulsion for transsexual genitals, bodies, and sexualities.

A poetic meditation on the beauty, perils and power of sexuality in a transsexual woman's body.

Three video-diary segments in which a transsexual prostitute recounts different circumstances that lead her to practice unsafe sex with clients.

Spend an evening at Madame Lauraine's transsexual whorehouse where you can either eat in or take out!

Every year, l'Association des Transsexuels-les du Québec organizes, in collaboration with Café Cléopatre, an evening of transsexual pride. Entitled "Journée Internationale de la Transsexualité," the event is an opportunity for several generations of transsexual women to get together, recognize the involvement of many in their community and pay tribute to individuals who figure importantly in their history.

A candid home video capturing a transgender sex worker in a very sticky situation.

LULLABY was created by Mirha-Soleil Ross for the SEXIN' CHANGE Conference in Toronto, October 2001, as part of her 9 month long performance art PREGNANCY PROJECT. The PREGNANCY PROJECT explores transsexual women's relationship to the personal and institutional aspects of motherhood and hopes to foster community discussion about the ethical and political implications of "controversial" reproductive technologies such as surrogacy, female reproductive organ transplant, and cloning. LULLABY was presented within an installation that invited the conference participants to give metaphorical ovum and spermatozoan donations. LULLABY sings to the experience of being a barren or wombless woman in a culture that assigns to females who can bear children particular qualities and a specific status within the cosmological order.

Besmette Stad features works by video-guerrillero Paul Garrin, choreographer Meg Stuart, filmmaker Pascal Baes, performance artist Alison Murray, and participants of a filmmakers’ workshop in Molenbeek, initiated by Francisca Lambrechts. Upon invitation by the Belgian TV program Ziggurat, Johan Grimonprez portrays the urban landscape of Brussels as a 'state of mind'. This short film zooms in on the interaction between film, performance, dance and literature during the festival Besmette Stad |The Infected City, organized by the Beursschouwburg.

A video recording of a 1999 performance in which a transsexual prostitute shares work-related anecdotes spiced-up with political comments about her butthole.

A conversation with Toronto community activist and female-to-male transsexual Peter Dunnigan. He speaks openly about addiction, recovery, sexuality, and life as a gender outcast. More than an educational tool for a general audience, this video is a call for transsexuals, both female-to-males and male-to-females, to unite, heal, and resist.

A documentary based on first-person Toronto performance show (7 monologues) dealing with prostitution and anti-prostitution. A tour de force by Canada’s most famous transsexual sexworker animal-rights activist performance artist, Yapping is hilarious and moving --half autobiographical, half agitprop satire, fully unforgettable.

A Czech woman speaks about her exile in Canada and about her sense of loss as it relates to language and her relationship with her children.