This is an offering, and ritual collaborative experience. At first, this piece was originally supposed to be a protest. In anger and outrage a statement against the regime and all the attacks on the transgender community. I wanted to do this suspension in such a way, publicly, that people or passers-by could not look away and separate my trans body hanging from hooks from being a living human being worthy of love and compassion. To know that when the news talks about trans people that we actually have faces, names, friends, and family. Being trans is not an enemy, it is natural, just as natural as any interactions with another human being with the same needs, wants, desires and dreams. Then, I looked to my community. I saw how much we were hurting, how hard we are fighting for our lives and our future. I saw that Suspended Resilience was for my community, an offering to bring us all together. We needed solidarity: to be seen, to know each other, to experience our strength over violence, to stand together. And so this vision called out to me. In answering its call, I sought to collaborate and bring together this ritual for Trans Day or Remembrance and Resilience 2025. It began as a journey through my own transition: the tiny steps it took to have the courage to come out over and over again and be true to who I was with each explanation to a comrade or stranger. Each conversation solidifying something undeniably true, all while being unsure about my steps. Whoever this person is that is emerging, it is the most true understanding I’ve ever had of myself. It breaks from tradition and the cultural norms, which have told me who to be. Transition also comes with giving up the privileges I had been accustomed to and groomed in. I had to discover on such deeper levels the lie I was living beyond gender, and that is affirmed by this country. A lie that goes against this land and its ancestors. It made me question all. There was the slicing away and healing. There was the medical transition and medical interrogations. There was the choice to go through the process of hormones and surgery. Each choice, a step on the path my soul needed to take. I rediscovered and sculpted myself, this time as the creator of my own transformation full of joy and unknown fears. Every time I went under for another surgery I asked myself who would I wake up to be now as I navigated doctors and therapists. Cutting away at myself with intention was different than cutting myself as a youth. I cut myself to hurt and to feel because I didn’t know any other way to relieve the pain I felt inside. Now, I was making a choice to sculpt my being and remake it entirely. It is a brave undertaking, make no mistake. Every time I had to meet my own fears and move through them. Every physical change brought with it a mental change in how I saw myself and how others saw me. But oh, how I felt so whole and rewarded in the process. To know what it was to be both man and woman gave me such compassion for the full spectrum of human experience. Transition became a source of light in the darkness, and there was so much darkness. It guided me in my heart like a compass but there was also trauma, pain, and grief. There were many times when I thought I wouldn’t make it, wouldn't live another day. I remember being in and out of treatment, inpatient for 2 years between 16-18 with ptsd and an eating disorder. Even the doctors didn't think I would make a full recovery. I knew death or at least danced with it. The burden of having to be who I really was was almost too much. But I survived. I survived my attempts at suicide, the ER, hospitals, and inpatient facilities where I couldn’t even shit or piss by myself. I wish it had been easier to know this trans part of me sooner, but I also remember my father’s attempt at conversion therapy and how I had to hide this part of myself to survive as long as I did in the first place. That is why my heart aches for the trans youth of today. Those that are fortunate to know and be supported for who they are so early on but are now being denied proven care that works because of politics. It is to the trans youth and a fellow trans dancer who took their life that I dedicate this piece to. I was born a woman, with the ability to create life in the womb and nurture that life with milk from my own breasts. I have found a new substance for which I deem essential for life, and that is my HRT. HRT which is currently being threatened by the Trump administration for both youth and adults. I removed my breasts. My experience being transgender is also non-binary; there is still and will always be a part of womanhood I honor and retain. For this ritual I pierced 6 syringes through where my breast would be with the same size needles I use for my HRT. I filled these syringes with milk dyed pink on one side and blue on the other side, symbolic of the importance of HRT: a life saving medication for many transgender individuals. This milk dripped through my body and onto the white skirt I was wearing where the colors bleed into the fabric like a trans flag. The tails of the skirt were wrapped around my body like bandages, reminiscent of the bandages used after top surgery. The skirt itself was parted in 3 sections and long enough to flow out into the audience. I was pierced by 10 hooks on my body in front of the community gathered there. Tenderly and carefully performed by a team of sincere and compassionate piercers. There were 2 hooks in my back, 2 on each hip, a 2 on each knee, suspended in almost an upright seated, meditative position. There was a moment for those attending to breathe together with intention and sound healing uniting the ritual space led by Nekia Wright. Then, I began the dance. I danced to the live music of a dear friend and fellow trans artist, Gala Aranga. As a butoh inspired dancer I channeled my energy through the experiences and rites of passages of being a trans person in the USA today: the grief, joy, isolation, peace, sorrow, and love. As I approached my darkest moments in the dance, I met my transcestors, I saw their lives before me and how being trans has and will always exist. I took that energy and connected past with present, giving strength to this moment in history knowing we also have a beautiful future. In the last moment of the dance my knees and hip hooks were cut so that I could hang from my back only, gently untying the skirt that had now been painted by the handprints of the participating audience in blue or pink paint creating a community trans flag. I untied everything until I was naked holding the fabric for us all to see the flag we had created together. Then, I dropped the flag revealing my naked body after both top and bottom surgery. It was a very earnest, intimate, and vulnerable moment. Even in the discomfort, it was done with the intention of normalizing trans bodies and the transformation some choose to go through. My whole performance was a statement and testament to the resilience of our queer lineage and history. This is a painful moment for many of us, and I know we will get through it together. The strength I’ve seen in our queer, trans, non binary communities is radical and rich with pure and authentic connection. We are living the lives that truly make us free. My heart goes out to the youth. I will keep fighting for you. Please know that you are not alone in this struggle and you have the strength to get through. YOU are Loved and Valued and needed in this World. Our transcestors are here with us. They know this fight and give us strength. May this be a moment to come together to be truly seen and love who we are inside. All of the parts of us even if they are not all visible yet. I want to thank Jason Wyman / Queerly Complex, member of 465 Collective (a community spot and gallery) for providing the space, support, nourishment, and safe container. I want to honor Tray Smith / Realest Exposure for the honor of being apart of the closing ritual on his series Healing Through Self Expression. I want to thank Nekia Wright for the sound healing and harmony that brought us all together opening and closing the ritual. And I want to give deep gratitude to Gala Aranga for her grace and playing me like and instrument channeling the butoh energy sonically through my whole being with presence. Piercing was made possible by Melanie, Sasha, Jesse, and Cali, and I want to thank them for their attentive, gentle, and compassionate weaving of hooks and cord making the suspension possible. I also want to appreciate Willow for being my right hand and creative counsel adding their artistry and loving care to all the details. Beam was our event photographer, and his photos capture the transcendent beauty of the whole event; thank you. Finally, I give deep bows to the Community that showed up, who made the performance the incredible experience that is was, and to whom the performance was dedicated. And like all art, performance, and transformance, there are many more that all make it possible, showing up in such significant (and sometimes insignificant) ways, which allow this vision to be.