male saloons in India are performative spaces by themselves, but it is not a tradition limited to the country, these spaces are and have been culturally significant in allowing for care between male bodies across the world. grooming of course is central to it’s tenderness while offering ritualistic gossip and an escape from the typical hyper-masculine gaze.

in the work Soft touch I bring to surface this tradition, an age old practice, brought to the eye as a trans refuge.

i think about our desires for futures that protect and safeguard trans people, affirm their belonging to spaces that are common to all, but also urge a re-examination into the ways in which we are constructing these utopias. urging us, diasporic, migrant, and self-exiled trans people in these foreign lands to reject these westernised ideas of utopia, the one’s that call for isolation as a form of protection and safety.

i ask,

whom do these spaces exclude by default, to make safe for others?

are we preventing for some an access to trans-ness that could be instrumental in their own journey of self actualisation without the criticality needed towards class and caste?