Hey just looking for clarification regarding whether or not submissions should have content obviously related to our gendered experiences or just anything produced by trans women? I do a lot of black and white landscape photography for example, a few examples of which I'd be happy to submit.
Thanks for asking, this is an important question.
Our impetus in creating Missive is the relative lack of platforms / venues / mediums for transfeminist thought. We’re totally exhausted with having our dialogues constantly derailed and diminished, or stuck at the 101 level of “but we really are actually women”.
There are a lot of smart trans women out there on the wilds of the internet saying a lot of smart things about being trans women, and we’d like to package some of those smart things up so that they can get more exposure.
So, yes, we are looking specifically for submissions relating to gendered experiences and/or to your understanding of transfeminism. We do not have a party line on transfeminism, and do not think a party line would be a good thing. Such a construction of transfeminism would probably serve to advance only the needs of the most privileged. We do not want to repeat the mistakes of the second-wave. We’re more interested in transfeminisms than we are in transfeminism.
This is not to say that everything submitted needs to be literary or even written. The connection to your experience as a trans woman can absolutely be an abstract one. If you have landscape photography that you feel communicates something powerful / funny / sad / smart / introspective about your experience as a trans woman, by all means, submit away (perhaps with an artist’s statement, perhaps not).