No Spoons Out Here is a series of Polaroid photographs and drawings and writing documenting my pursuit of a mid-life gender transition in the Lower Mainland region of B.C. Most of my life, every time I had an occasion to make a wish, I wished to become a woman, whether by magic or, a next life. I emerged from this impossibility though, forging a new life after coming out as queer in 2022 at the age of 41. I found a job in B.C. and flew from London, Ontario to Vancouver, staying with family until I found a small laneway apartment above a garage prone to blazing orange suburban sunsets.

In the enclosure of this apartment, hormone replacement therapy, new bodily practices, and online connections enabled the first phases of my gender transition. I grew my hair and gathered clothes as well as my intentions. No Spoons Out Here references the financial, spiritual, and existential precarity of my transition. A couple of non-binary folks I knew said we should meet up sometime "if I had the spoons,” referencing writer Christine Miserandino’s 2003 metaphor and metric of personal capacity amidst personal limitations. The measured utility of the metaphor, subtly became shorthand for me as well, a linguistic muse which I gravitated to when I was short on everything. 

These images attempt to articulate a new self and show the calculated negotiation still necessary to assert one’s transgender identity in most places in Canada today.I am extremely grateful for this project to be supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

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