Boot Camp offers a glimpse into the fear and violence that many transgendered, transexual & otherwise gender-variant people must survive on a daily basis.

This action consists of two performers engaged in boxing training; contextualized by a video montage of mediated violence against transfolk.

Performer 1 trains Performer 2, a male-to-other transperson, how to survive as a gender transgressor in the often dangerous environment created by the binary gender system.

Developed and performed by Llewyn Máire & Lisa Newman
Sound and video mixing by Try My Cabbage (Llewyn Máire)

WARNING: This action contains explicit [cut-up, mixed and manipulated] images of violence against gender variant people (source material from Boys Don't Cry, The Crying Game, The Passion of Jeanne d' Arc, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and Ghosts of the Civil Dead).

Dangerous social environments are created, in part, due to the forced gendering of individuals according to Western cultural ideals of "male" and "female". In order for this mainstream to maintain the binary gender system, transgressors are forced to learn how to pass as a single, prescribed gender.

Far too many transpeople are murdered every year because of a tendency of many people to harm, or attempt to control what they fear or do not understand. In order to survive, gender transgressors must struggle on many fronts.

Through political advocacy and direct action work is being done to establish basic rights and protections under the law. However, on the front lines there is an immediate need to develop survival skills to combat the daily oppressions encountered in transphobic/ heterosexist societies throughout the world.