DANIEL HERRLE, FERNDALE, MICHIGAN
“Once I had top surgery, I pulled away from the queer community almost entirely. I focused on my education and my career, which was great, and extremely rewarding. After a few years I did kind of start to feel like, “Why am I shying away from this so much?” I realized that by avoiding being involved with the queer community I was ignoring what my passion was.
I decided I wanted to create a database that allows trans folks to review and look for trans resources. I ended up running into the group, RAD Remedy, that did the same thing in Philly at the Trans Health Conference. I asked them if they needed a designer, and they were like, “YES!” So, then they brought me on the team.
Advocating, personally for me, gives me a sense of community. I don’t have a lot of spare time, by not a lot I mean, most of the social stuff I do is through a group I am apart of called FtM Detroit. We do at least two social events every month. It’s work-fun and not so much regular fun but I always have a great time anyway.
In the next month or so, I am pulling back from advocating a little bit. I think Rad Remedy will grow and be an extremely helpful tool for the community. FtM Detroit has already helped get our little brother organization established about forty-five mins away from here.
In the past two years or so, I’ve taken a step back from my own art and projects. Personally, I want to look at queer advocacy within art now. I miss doing projects that are inherent and specific to myself. It’s therapeutic to be in your own zone. What is important for me and my biggest next step that I want to take, is ensuring that my identity as a designer, an artist, a queer person, a trans person, a partner, and all the identities I have are involved. I want my work to encompass an intersection of all of those identities. I don’t know what that will look like, I don’t want to know what that will look like because that’s what the process is for. I shouldn’t know what it looks like until it’s already happening.”
