Virtual Trans
intervention / performance, 2012-2014
Creation and distribution of “Facebook sex-change” tutorials in a campaign for deliberate gender confusion. Presented on Facebook and in the city of Criciúma, Brazil, as part of Semana de Ocupação Urbana (Week of Urban Occupation) in 2013.
Before 2014 Facebook only allowed its user profiles to be “male” or “female”, and all pronouns in notifications were adjusted accordingly to he/him or she/her. Changing one’s profile gender to the opposite sex, but not one’s name, created grammatical dissonances in the notifications tab - as in “Jefferson has updated her profile picture” or “Jefferson commented on her post”. When I first did it as an experiment, in 2012. I was interested in sabotaging Facebook’s increasingly insidious advertising practices. It was amusing to see it try to sell me purses, makeup and shoes. Data mining and direct advertising were not yet under public scrutiny at that time, so the experience was also eye-opening. At the same time several of my Facebook contacts, from family members to online acquaintances, rushed to inform me that my profile was “wrong”, that there was a “problem” needing to be “fixed”. The experiment had exposed gender normativity at the level of language, allowing me to experience a glimpse of the tremendous resistance that trans folks have to confront, on a daily basis and in almost all social spaces, virtual and physical. This project is all about helping others have these same educational experiences.
I launched the campaign in 2012 with the creation of a Facebook page and a simple 1-page tutorial to be shared as an image. Designed as social media campaign flyer, the tutorial instructs users step-by step on how to change the gender of their Facebook profiles. I then created a Portuguese version and, in collaboration with Mexican artist Yareth Fernández González, a Spanish version. These images circulated on Facebook throughout 2012.
In December 11th of 2013, the campaign reached beyond social media, onto the “real world”. As part of Semana de Ocupação Urbana (Week of Urban Occupation), a curated program of performance art in public spaces of Criciúma, Brazil, I distributed an updated version of the tutorial, as a pamphlet. Because I could not be present at the time, the curators invited local artists Joana Elyzabéty Moreira and Maíra Silveira to help with the distribution. 200 pamphlets were dsitributed. Photos by Fernanda Piccolo.
In February of 2014 Facebook announced its new custom gender options, bringing this project to a natural conclusion. The change was available in the English version of Facebook first, and gradually implemented in other languages. Today, Facebook allows for 12 genders and customized pronouns.