Understanding Through Art: Reframing the Transgender Experience

Lela Smith

May 4th, 2023

Understanding Through Art: Reframing the Transgender Experience

When I first came out as transgender, the most common response I received from my cis-gendered friends and family was that they “didn’t get it.” It was baffling to them why I would want to change my gender. If I tried to explain that I wasn’t really “changing” anything–that I’d been a man all along, and I was merely changing my outward presentation to reflect that fact–they only grew more confused. As long as they’d known me, it had been an undeniable truth that I was a woman. Suddenly, that truth was changing, and their relationship with me would have to change with it.

To those unfamiliar with the process, transition can seem like this foreign, alien thing. The social aspects of transitioning–coming out to those closest to you, asking to go by a new name and a new set of pronouns–is daunting in and of itself. When you throw in physical aspects, like gender-affirming surgery and hormone replacement therapy, the entire process can seem exhausting, and sometimes even dangerous, to the inexperienced cis ally.

The odd thing about many cis-gendered people’s skepticism surrounding the trans experience is, more often than not, they’ve gone through a few transitions of their own.  It’s unlikely that you have the same hobbies, the same sense of style, or even the same hopes and dreams that you had as a young child. If you wanted to be an astronaut when you were six years old but decided to be a civil engineer as an adult, no one would bat an eye. Your change in career choice doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve given up on your dream of exploring space, or that you’re lying about your new ambition–it just means you want something different because you are someone different. That’s what growing up is all about, after all: Changing and growing as we gain a deeper understanding of who we are. 

Being transgender is all about metamorphosis–but so, arguably, is being a human being. When we view transitioning one’s gender as just one of the many journeys we go through throughout our lives, instead of this scary, othering experience it’s often painted as, it becomes much easier for an outsider to understand. 

Reframing the transgender experience in this way is most often, and arguably most effectively, done through art. We can see trans creatives drawing on their experience with gender in subtle ways even in mainstream media: Though it went unnoticed by most audiences, directors Lilly and Lana Wachowski have confirmed that their 1999 science fiction classic The Matrix is meant to be a trans allegory. 

Both trans women themselves, the Wachowskis originally wanted the film’s trans narrative to be much more explicit. According to star Keanu Reeves, an early draft of The Matrix even featured a side character who presented as male in the real world, but female in the Matrix–but the studio, Reeves recalled, “wasn’t ready for that” (Romano). This pushback Lana and Lilly experienced trying to get trans representation on screen is hardly unique to Hollywood–publishers, television networks, and yes, film studios are often hesitant to take a chance on trans folks trying to tell their stories. 

Though industry censorship prevented the Wachowskis from being able to fully realize their vision for The Matrix, they were still able to tell their story; most transgender creatives aren’t so lucky. Corporations’ refusal to invest in diverse narratives has led many trans authors, artists, and musicians to pursue their craft independently. 

Working this way allows these creators to retain full control over their intellectual property. On the other hand, without the backing of professional record labels, film studios, or publishers, these passion projects may never reach their full potential–or worse, they may be doomed to obscurity. This demand by trans creatives to have their voices heard, along with the lack of platforms that allow them to do so, is how hidden gems like Penny Parker’s solo EP De-Reconstruct stay hidden. 

Having originally found success creating gaming content on Youtube, Penny Parker rarely discusses her transition online. This is in part, she shared in a 2019 tweet, because she wishes to “not constantly be defined by the sole fact [she’s] trans” (Parker). After all, most of her content has little or nothing to do with her gender and sexuality. 

Parker is best known for her work on Snapcube’s Real-time Fandub, an improvised web series that she has hosted, edited, and acted in since its viral success in 2018. Like the vast majority of her work, Real-time Fandub is comedic in nature. The cast and crew’s real identities, including and especially Parker’s transness, is rarely if ever acknowledged within the fiction of the show. Boiling down Parker’s identity to just another “trans internet personality” is more than just inaccurate–it’s dismissive of the years of work she’s spent creating successful, engaging, and hilarious content (Parker). 

Penny’s hesitance to discuss her private life, however, is hardly unique to her transness. Having built her off of referential comedy like Real-time Fandub and its spin-off series Sonic Destruction, the influencer rarely talks about her personal struggles. The clear boundary Parker has created between herself and her online persona is one of many ways De-Reconstruct–a five-track collection themed around the thoughts and feelings she had in the midst of her transition–differs from the rest of her work. 

Though Penny had released two albums as part of the duo Go! Child in 2017 and 2019, their songs, much like the singer’s YouTube videos, rarely delved into serious or personal topics. Go! Child’s few solemn releases have focused not on the artists’ personal struggles, but on overarching societal issues or pre-existing fictional characters, as in their 2016 single Ruinous. As a result, De-Reconstruct’s 2021 release marked not only Parker’s first attempt at composing music on her own, but also one of the only times she has shared something of such a personal nature with her online audience. Parker’s inexperience as a composer shines through unfortunately often in this EP’s production–her frequent use of the same looped synth and electric piano melodies, while sometimes catchy, is just a touch too repetitive to be charming. 

Still, despite De-Reconstruct’s shortfalls technically, Parker’s lyrical expertise ensures every track still burns with raw emotion. Some lines obviously draw on her relationship with gender, describing the very transgender experience of wishing “to bridge the distant flesh and soul.” Most of the EP, however, describes transitioning in a more general sense. 

For example, to those that know of Parker’s identity as a trans woman, it’s clear that the song Hypothesis was inspired by her experience growing up transgender in a religious household. She makes frequent use of religious and spiritual verbiage to describe the shame and fear she felt, referencing the discomfort she felt with her body as “the perfect story of flesh mismatching soul.” In a wider sense, however, Hypothesis can be read as a story about the desire to be the master of one’s own fate–a tragic but hopeful tale of letting go of others’ expectations of who you’ll be. 

Throughout the song, an unseen authority figure–implied to represent both God and the narrator’s controlling father–seeks to prevent Penny from transitioning. This almighty being, who claims to be “the author of everything you are” refuses to let her stray from the path they’ve set out for her. Though these lyrics were written with the author’s own trauma in mind, they perfectly describe the common experience of being scared to leave behind who you were in order to become the person you’re meant to be. Parker’s desperation to “silence the inner yell” of the girl she wishes she was isn’t just a product of her transness, it’s a reflection of how we, as human beings, are often terrified of change. Through Hypothesis, a cis-gendered listener is invited to think of the hesitance many trans people feel in coming out not as the result of feeling ashamed of their identity, but as a manifestation of the very natural fear of falling short of others’ expectations.

In Electrolysis, Penny Parker explores the joyful aspects of transitioning. Although the song is named after the laser hair removal Penny underwent as part of her medical transition, the lyrics once again address the process of metamorphosis in a more general sense. The chorus touches on the literal medical process of electrolysis, with Parker repeatedly referencing the “sting” of the lasers on her face. The majority of the song, however, is cloaked in metaphor, encouraging the listener to find their own meaning in the words. 

The narrator describes the difficult but necessary process of enduring hardship in the present to pave the way for a better future. Though the vast majority of De-Reconstruct’s listeners have never undergone electrolysis, it’s likely they’ve all, at one point, had to “wince for what [they] want” as Penny Parker describes. In this way, Electrolysis can be about any hardship you’ve endured to reach a brighter tomorrow. Much like Hypothesis, Electrolysis reframes a part of transition that many cis people are confused by as a natural part of the human experience. Through Parker’s lyrics, the listener is encouraged to view electrolysis the way many trans women do, not simply as a cosmetic procedure, but as one step in a long journey they must go through to become who they want to be.

The song Electrolysis, and De-Reconstruct as a whole, answer the question I was asked most often when I started transitioning: Why? I was very open about how stressful my transition was in the beginning, and it left many of my friends and relatives questioning whether the process was even worth it. At the time, I found my motivations difficult to put into words. After listening to Penny Parker’s music for the first time years later, however, I realized the answer was quite simple. I knew I couldn’t “expect to gain without the pain,” as she had put it. 

This, in essence, is the importance of letting trans artists tell their stories. Hearing a fellow trans person recount her journey didn’t just help me feel less alone; it made me realize I’d never been alone. De-Reconstruct looks at transitioning not as the rare, unnatural experience many people are raised to believe it is, but as an extension of the metamorphosis we all have to go through as we discover who we are. When we start to look at “changing” one’s gender as one of many ways we grow and change throughout the course of our lives, we build much needed understanding between cis allies and their trans peers in need of support. 

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Works Cited

Connie Hanzhang Jin. ““I, Too, Was Living a Double Life”: Why Trans Fans Connect to “the Matrix.”” NPR, 22 Dec. 2021, www.npr.org/2021/12/22/1066554369/the-matrix-original-trans-fans-resurrections#:~:text=Another%20example%3A%20the%20Wachowskis%20wanted.

Go! Child. “Go! Child – Coffee and Ramen (Full Album + Lyrics).” Www.youtube.com, 7 June 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iZcIgkMPRU. Accessed 3 May 2023.

—. “Go! Child – the Masquerade (FULL ALBUM).” Www.youtube.com, 11 Jan. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6RXNIkpaBA. Accessed 3 May 2023.

Parker, Penny. “DeReconstruct (Full EP).” Www.youtube.com, 30 June 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa5aPIYoIkE. Accessed 3 May 2023.

—. “Https://Twitter.com/SnapsCube/Status/1105486268127952896?Lang=En.” Twitter, 12 Mar. 2019, twitter.com/SnapsCube/status/1105486268127952896?lang=en. Accessed 3 May 2023.

Romano, Nick. “Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss Resurrect a Love Story with “the Matrix” 4.0.” EW.com, 30 Nov. 2021, ew.com/movies/the-matrix-resurrections-keanu-reeves-carrie-anne-moss-cover-story/. Accessed 2 May 2023.