Mirha-Soleil Ross

Mirha-Soleil Ross is a transsexual videographer, performance artist, sex worker and activist. Her work since the early 1990s in Montreal and Toronto has focused on transsexual rights, access to resources, advocacy for sex workers and animal rights.

Mirha-Soleil Ross
Born1969
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
NationalityCanadian
Other namesJeanne B
Known forTranssexual, sex-worker and animal-rights activism, films

Early life

Ross grew up in a poor neighbourhood of Montreal, Quebec. As a teenager during the 1980s, she became aware of animal abuse.[1] At that time, Ross became a vegetarian and involved with animal rights activism.[1] She said that although people often ask her what it was like to try to pass as a woman, she struggled much more when she was trying to "pass" as a boy and was often attacked for looking too feminine.[2] Ross moved from Montreal to Toronto during the early 1990s, where she was a sex worker and began producing zines and videos.

gendertrash from hell

From 1993 to 1995 Ross and partner Xanthra Phillippa MacKay published gendertrash from hell, a quarterly zine which "[gave] a voice to gender queers, who've been discouraged from speaking out & communicating with each other".[3] They managed the zine's publisher, genderpress, which also distributed other transsexual pamphlets and literature, corresponded with local organizations and sold buttons.

In standard zine format, gendertrash was a combination of art, poetry, resource lists, serialized fiction, calls to action, classified ads, illustrations and collages and movie reviews. By and for transsexual, transgender and transvestite people, it addressed gender experiences at the individual and societal level and prioritized sex workers, low-income queers, trans people of colour and prisoners.[3] Articles frequently addressed the erasure of transsexuals from lesbian, gay, bi and queer communities and the communities' co-opting of trans identities and issues.[4] Five issues of gendertrash were published, and its run ended in 1995.[5]

Videos

Ross' videos, primarily short films, centre on gender, sexuality, animal rights and the humour and beauty of the transsexual body. Her videos are distributed by V tape in Toronto.[6]

Videography
Title Date Credits Length Summary
Chroniques 1992 Mirha-Soleil Ross 12:00 Clips from Ross' video diary in which she recounts situations where she had unsafe sex with a client.[7]
An Adventure in Tucking with Jeanne B 1993 Mirha-Soleil Ross 5:00 A humorous video that shows Ross attempting to tuck with scotch tape before meeting a client.[8]
Gendertroublemakers 1993 Mirha-Soleil Ross and Xanthra MacKay 20:00 Ross and MacKay speak frankly with each other about their sexuality and negative experiences with gay men.[9]
I never would have known: A conversation with Peter Dunnigan 1997 Mirha-Soleil Ross 24:00 An interview with Toronto activist and trans man Peter Dunnigan about his transition, sexuality, addiction, and recovery.[10]
Dysfunctional 1997 Mirha-Soleil Ross 9:00 A response to society's fascination and repulsion of transsexual bodies.[11]
Journée Internationale de la Transsexualité 1998 Mirha-Soleil Ross 38:00 A documentary about the trans women's event hosted by l'Association des Transsexuels-les du Québec.[12]
G-SPrOuT! 2000 Mirha-Soleil Ross and Mark Karbusicky 12:00 "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."[13]
Tales from the Derrière 2000 Mirha-Soleil Ross 24:51 A video of Ross 1999 performance of the same name which featured stories from her work and stories about her anus.[14]
Tremblement de Chair 2001 Mirha-Soleil Ross and Mark Karbusicky 3:40 "A poetic meditation on the beauty, perils and power of sexuality in a transsexual woman's body."[15]
Madame Lauraine's Transsexual Touch 2001 Mirha-Soleil Ross, Viviane Namaste, and Monica Forrester 34:00 A film on safer sex between transsexual sex workers and their clients.[16]
Lullaby 2001 Mirha-Soleil Ross 4:00 A video produced as part of Ross performance art piece where she simulated pregnancy for 9 months.[17]
Yapping Out Loud: Contagious Thoughts from an Unrepentant Whore 2002 Mirha-Soleil Ross and Mark Karbusicky 74:00 A film of Ross' one-woman show by the same name.[18]
Proud Lives 2002 Mirha-Soleil Ross and Mark Karbusicky 5:00 Film footage of Ross as the grand marshal of Toronto's Pride Parade in 2001.[19]
Allo Performance! 2002 Mirha-Soleil Ross and Mark Karbusicky 13:00 A video of Ross at the Golden Gate Bridge as part of her 9-month Pregnancy Project.[20]
Materstina (Langue Maternelle) 2003 Mirha-Soleil Ross and Mark Karbusicky 11:40 "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."[21]
Live eXXXpressions: Sex Workers Stand Up 2006 Mirha-Soleil Ross and Mark Karbusicky 15:00 Footage of Forum XXX, a four-day sex workers' activist event held in Montréal in May 2005.[22]
Brandee aka Lana Lamarre 2007 Mirha-Soleil Ross and Mark Karbusicky 3:00 A memorial video for the performer Brandee, who passed away in 2007.[23]
Les Vérités Vo(i)lées 2007 Mirha-Soleil Ross 31:45 A look at sex workers' response to panic and scapegoating of sex workers for the spread of HIV/AIDS and other STIs.[24]

Performance art

Ross produced a one-woman show, Yapping Out Loud: Contagious Thoughts from an Unrepentant Whore, based on her sex work and activism, at the 2002 Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts and in 2004 at the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre.[25] The show intended to educate audiences about issues facing sex workers and refute stereotypes contributing to violence against them.[26] Yapping Out Loud also incorporated Ross' animal-rights activism with images of coyotes and comparisons between oppression faced by sex workers and coyotes, inspired by the American sex-worker organization Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics.[25] In 2001 and 2002 she performed a nine-month Pregnancy Project, appearing in public with a prosthetic belly to have conversations about gender, motherhood and the possibility of womb transplants for transsexuals.[27]

Counting Past 2

In 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2002 Ross ran Counting Past 2 (CP2), a transsexual and transgender film, video, performance and spoken-word festival which provided a space for transsexual and transgender people to speak for themselves without catering to the aesthetic standards or curiosity of cisgender audiences.[28] The festival's goal was to be more inclusive and encouraging of trans artists than mainstream gay and lesbian film festivals by centring trans voices, accepting less-polished work and including cabaret and performance components instead of restricting submissions to films.[29] Performers included Aiyyana Maracle and Max Wolf Valerio.[30] In a 2007 interview with Viviane Namaste, Ross said that her efforts with CP2 to create transsexual spaces outside a lesbian and gay framework had failed and she regretted that those spaces had disappeared or been absorbed by the LGBT community.[31]

Social service

During the 1990s and early 2000s, Ross was involved in social-service work for the transsexual and sex-worker communities in Toronto. In 1999 she was the founding coordinator of Meal-Trans at the 519 Church Street Community Centre, a drop-in program offering meals and peer support to trans people. Ross was involved in the general expansion of the 519's trans programs, providing services for transsexuals who are HIV positive and sex workers and founding peer-support groups for trans men and trans women with colleague Rupert Raj.[32]

Ross and her friends worked to improve access to social services for Toronto transsexuals, particularly those who were sex workers, HIV-positive, low-income or immigrants.[33] She worked with women's shelters, community centres and sex-worker organizations such as Maggie's to improve access and educate service providers.[34] As a sex worker, Ross was involved in pushing back against efforts by residents' organizations in the Gay Village and Allan Gardens areas to expel sex workers.[35]

Awards

Ross has received several grants from the Canada Council for the Arts. Her video, Mateřština (co-directed with Mark Karbusicky), won the Marian McMahon Award at the 2004 Images Festival in Toronto.[36] In 2001, Ross was the Grand Marshal of Toronto's Pride Parade.[37] In 2011, she was inducted into Canada's Q Hall of Fame.[38]

References
  1. "Satya Oct 03: Interview with Mirha-Soleil Ross". satyamag.com. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 14 December 2016. In the mid-80s, when I was about 16 years old, I watched a TV documentary about fur that included footage of animals caught in snares and leg-hold traps. It changed my life forever.
  2. Bell, Shannon (1995). Whore Carnival. New York: Autonomedia. p. 141.
  3. Mackay, Xanthra Phillippa; Ross, Mirha-Soleil (1993). gendertrash from hell, vol 1. Toronto, ON: genderpress.
  4. Namaste, Viviane (2011). Sex Change Social Change: Reflections on Identity, Institutions, and Imperialism. Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars' Press. p. 121.
  5. Mackay, Xanthra Phillippa; Ross, Mirha-Soleil (1995). gendertrash from hell, vol. 5. Toronto, ON: genderpress.
  6. V Tape (n.d.). "Artist: Mirha-Soleil Ross". V tape.
  7. "Chroniques". V tape.
  8. "An Adventure in Tucking with Jeanne B". V tape.
  9. "Gendertroublemakers". V tape.
  10. "I never would have known: A conversation with Peter Dunnigan". V tape.
  11. "Dysfunctional". V tape.
  12. "Journée Internationale de la Transsexualité". V tape.
  13. "G-SPrOuT!". V tape.
  14. "Tales from the Derriere". V tape.
  15. "Tremblement de Chair". V tape.
  16. "Madame Lauraine's Transsexual Touch". V tape.
  17. "Lullaby". V tape.
  18. "Yapping Out Loud: Contagious Thoughts from an Unrepentant Whore". V tape.
  19. "Proud Lives". V tape.
  20. "Allo Performance!". V tape.
  21. "Materstina (Langue Maternelle)". V tape.
  22. "Live eXXXpressions: Sex Workers Stand Up". V tape.
  23. "Brandee aka Lana Lamarre". V tape.
  24. "Les Vérités Vo(i)lées". V tape.
  25. Salah, T. (2007). What's All the Yap? Reading Mirha-Soleil Ross's Performance of Activist Pedagogy. Canadian Theater Review.
  26. "Sex trade imbalance". Xtra!. April 17, 2002.
  27. Brown, Eleanor (June 13, 2001). "Pride's special people". Xtra!.
  28. Namaste, Viviane (2011). "Examining Transsexuals' Access to the Media: Beyond Image Content". Sex Change Social Change: Reflections on Identity, Institutions, and Imperialism. Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars' Press. pp. 67–68.
  29. Cowan, T. L. (2016). Householder & Mars (ed.). "cabaret performance and the social politics of scene-making". More Caught in the Act: An Anthology of Performance Art by Canadian Women. Toronto & Montreal: yyz. ISBN 978-0-920397-64-0.
  30. Ross, Mirha-Soleil (1998). Counting Past 2 Program.
  31. Namaste, Viviane (2011). ""Activists can't go on forever acting in the abstract.": An Interview with Mirha-Soleil Ross". Sex Change Social Change: Reflections on Identity, Institutions, and Imperialism. Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars' Press. p. 121.
  32. "When she was a boy". Xtra!. June 15, 1999.
  33. Namaste, Viviane (2011). ""Activists can't go on forever acting in the abstract.": An Interview with Mirha-Soleil Ross". Sex Change Social Change. Toronto, ON.: Canadian Scholars' Press. p. 118.
  34. "The Toolbox: What Works for Sex Workers (p.38-41)" (PDF).
  35. Rebecka Sheffield, "Trans Programming at the 519 Church Street Community Centre: A Case Study in Social Entrepreneurship" (Toronto:CAMH, 2011), 7.
  36. Irving, D. "Against the Grain: Teaching Transgender Human Rights." Sexualities (2013): 319-35. Print.
  37. "Pride Toronto | June 2015". m.worldpridetoronto.com.
  38. "Inductees Q Hall of Fame". www.qhalloffame.ca. Archived from the original on 2014-03-01. Retrieved 2016-01-10.
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