Bastian DeBont

The trans body is a contentious body. Existing equally between the medical and the monstrous, inspiring fetishisation and disgust, the trans body is dictated by its inability to conform to typical vernacular and medical sex. When sex is the way a body is humanized, as evidenced by the sexing of babies at birth if not before, a body that cannot or will not conform is excluded from their humanity. Matador is a series of self-portraits that both is and is not representative. They embody the masculine and feminine, animal and human and monster, three-dimensional and two-dimensional, print and textiles, dwelling comfortably between binaries and categories and refusing to belong to any entirely. Matador is transness as defiance, weaving a new mode of self-representation from old pieces, and depicting my own trans body in a way that respects and encompasses all that I am without compromise.