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Tuesday, 04 November 2008 09:39
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 photo by: Natalie Ross By Jacob Anderson-Minshall
“Many trans men don’t consider me trans at all,” laments performance artist and playwright, Joshua Bastian Cole. “[Just] because I don’t consider myself male. Even though I’ve socially transitioned and have been on [testosterone] for seven years, I consider myself exactly what I am: a female-to-male transsexual. It’s a physical reality. It’s not like I…got a new body, and now I’m like any cisgender male. That’s just not true—for me. Which doesn’t make me less of a man, just a different kind of man.”
Cole says he’s not even interested in becoming legally male.
It’s “a visibility thing,” Cole argues. “I pass really well, and I don’t like being completely invisible. It’s a small thing, that little F, and I want to keep it. Nobody ever notices it, anyway, but I always hope they will. I don’t want to disappear into maleness. It’s surprisingly easy to do. Sometimes I even forget myself, and that’s scary.”
 “Femme doesn’t have to mean feminine or womanly,” Cole explains. “My way of being femme is my version of a man’s way of being femme, but it’s still femme.”
A graduate of James Madison University’s School of Theatre and Dance, Cole is currently pursuing a Masters degree in History and Culture from Union Institute and University. He’s appeared as an XX Boy model in Paris’ Tetu magazine, a guest on Chicago's Feast of Fools podcast and Sirius Out Q radio's Diana Cage Show and has been featured in Out, The Village Voice and London's Metro magazine.
Currently writing a musical called Transitions, the actor/playwright says he’s disappointed with existing portrayals of trans characters in musical theatre, and hopes to right the score, representing the many facets of the transgender community and creating characters written specifically for trans actors.
After several high profile attacks on trans people, Cole originally imagined doing “a sort of Hate Crimes! The Musical,” but says the subject matter turned out to be “way too heavy for me. My work has [already] been criticized before as being ‘hyper-focused on the experience of victimization,’ and honestly, I’d rather focus on presenting my world positively and, well, normally.”
The concept then morphed into a “singing trans Vagina Monologues/Laramie Project/Angels in America” dubbed Trans Junk Project, which Cole hoped would address the body dysmorphia so many trans people face, and encourage them to “really own their bodies.”
Unfortunately, Cole didn’t get the submissions he’d hoped for.
“The lack of interest was disappointing,” he admits, “But not altogether unexpected. I was asking trans people to talk about exactly what they don’t want to talk about.” The title, Trans Junk, maybe have been part of the problem. “[It] was also clunky and…some trans women found it a little abrasive and kind of tacky.”
Now, the show has been completely revamped into Transitions, a “very conversational rock music musical,” illustrating that everyone, not just trans people, undergo transitions in their lives.
A sample of the musical’s rock will be featured on Trans-Genre.net’s compilation CD Trans-Fusions, due out next January.
As an actor, Cole says he considers his performances trans activism. “I’ve always performed as an out FTM. I’ve only ever done trans material. And I think visibility is activism.”
After roles in the films Gay Motherf*ckers and Maggots and Men, Cole can be seen this fall in Joie Rey Cohen’s short film Gender? and Jules Rosskam’s experimental documentary Against a Trans Narrative, about the ways in which we construct personal and historical narratives. There will be a sneak preview screening of the film (againstatransnarrative.com) later this month in Chicago.
“What struck me the most,” Cole says of Against a Trans Narrative, “was how traditionally theatrical it was for a film. Jules was using set and light changes as if for a stage play. That’s very unusual for a film.”
While Cole lauds Rosskam’s filmmaking, it’s his work with another production company that’s garnering Cole the greatest attention. And he’s got mixed feelings about that.
“I’m very much a face of Trannywood Pictures,” Cole acknowledges about his roles in the safe-sex, educational, porn films Cubby Holes: Trans Men in Action and its follow-up Couch Surfers. “So far, I’m in all of the Trannywood releases.”
Thinking it would be “good visibility” for his acting, Cole got involved through a friend he’d met online.
“There you go, boom: porn star! I do get recognized for it, which isn’t so much of a problem for just any every-day porn star, but for an actor, I feel like I’m beginning to be typecast. If I ever even mention a movie I may be up for, people ask if it’s porn. As if that’s the default, as if that’s what I do.”
Of course, Cole admits, “The Trannywood movies are porn. I won’t deny that, but I always saw them serving a higher purpose because of the ideals of the company itself and its aims to promote equality to a market of gay men who so often love to judge and classify body types and consider trans men not men at all.”
The films have been shown at conferences and film festivals around the world and Cubby Holes was nominated for a gay adult entertainment GayVN Award, but Cole says he’s still “fairly detached.”
“When I saw…Couch Surfers,” he reveals, “I didn’t even remember doing some of the scenes; and I have a very good memory. I can’t even really watch them. I could barely get through even the first viewings...it doesn’t really seem like me, and what I do in those films isn’t what I’d do with a partner in real life. It’s kind of surreal.”
Cole believes his recent casting in a Felix Endara film was because of the Trannywood movies, but says even though he’s concerned about being typecast, Cole says he took the part, “because it wasn’t just a porn, but actually had a very developed storyline.” Still he admits, “I found myself frustrated and uncomfortable. I’m a lot more interested in story-telling than…performing a sex act on film.”
The next episode of Gender Blender, the radio show co-hosted by trans author Jacob Anderson-Minshall, is November 18th 6-7pm PST, on Portland, Oregon's KBOO 90.7 (streaming live at kbooo.fm). Contact him at
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Jacob Anderson-Minshall co-hosts Gender Blender on Portland, Oregon's KBOO 90.7 (streaming live at kbooo.fm). The next episode is November 18th. Jacob also writes the syndicated column TransNation, co-hosts Portland's QLiterati!, freelances with Just Out & KBOO radio news and co-authors the Blind Eye Mystery series. Blind Curves and Blind Leap are available through boldstrokesbooks.com and bookstores nationwide. Discover more at anderson-minshall.com or myspace.com/blindeyemysteries.
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