“JAC Stringer is a charming hurricane of glitter and big ideas, so cute you can’t help listen to the smart things he says (and so smart that you can’t help think about them). A brilliantly accessorized example of how flexible the ways of gender can be, and how tender.” – S. Bear Bergman

Who is:

Midwest GenderQueer, commonly known as JAC Stringer, is a transgenderqueer femme radical activist and performance artist. A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, JAC strives to create visibility, community, and resources for trans*, genderqueer, and queer communities in the Midwestern United States. His work focuses on trans* and queer communities, education, social justice, sexuality, gender identity disorder removal, (dis)ability, trans*/queer artistry, and identity empowerment. JAC has lectured across the country at organizations, schools, conferences, and symposia as well as having performed genderfuck performance art, dance, drag, music, and spoken word across the USA and Canada. JAC uses hot pants, poofy skirts, and gender theory to create an intriguing space centered on bodies, ability, androgyny, and beyond.

JAC has founded and lead several activist movements, education projects, and artist initiatives including The GenderQueer Coalition, GenderBloc, The Queer Peer Education Program, and The Queer Canon Zine. He currently serves as founding director of The Midwest Trans* and Queer Wellness Initiative. JAC is a leading activist in Gender Identity Disorder removal and is a very invested in health care reform and comprehensive sex education. He is a strong advocate for sexual assault awareness and prevention with a focus on queer identities and is a trained survivor advocate. JAC is an Advocates for Youth Alum, is a Youth Advocacy & Education Committee leader in his local GLSEN (Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network) chapter, an Equality Ohio regional Lobby Team Leader, and is an organizer on several local and national organizing boards committees including TransOhio, The Philadelphia Transgender Health Conference, The Femme Conference, and The International Drag King Community Extravaganza.

JAC is a life-long dancer, poet, pianist, and lyrical vocalist. Primarily self-taught, he uses the speckled arts education he received in childhood via his parents’ living room, formal lessons, and old movies to shape his personal artistic repertoire. Selections from his one-human shows Glamboyant and Bar Stories have been performed around the country, including with Gender Queeries - a genderqueer performance trio co-founded/managed by JAC. JAC is also co-manager and performer in the internationally recognized professional drag troupe The Black Mondays of Cincinnati, Ohio as well as being the founding director and producer of Philadelphia’s Blender trans* performance show, and Fabulously Fluid!, Ohio’s premiere annual genderfuck drag showcase.

JAC can’t remember a time in his life when we wasn’t writing, dancing, creating art, and radically rocking the boat. He considers his work’s purpose to be to promote unity, action, and empowerment within trans, genderqueer, and queer communities and to achieve rights and recognition for these communities through education, art, and various other forms of revolution.

Artist Statement:

In life there is no normal, there are only expectations. Normalcy is forced upon us our entire lives, significantly through what our body is, and what it is not. Body normalization conceptualizes social inclusion, legitimacy, and worth externally and self esteem, pride, and acceptance internally. My body’s lack of normalcy, due to ability, sex, size, gender identity, or gender expression has influenced my navigation of society and culture. From childhood I found it was impossible for me to uphold or own a socially accepted existence. I came to realize that my life is fundamentally freakish and genderfucked from a series of unconscious and conscious radical, deconstructionist actions where cultural norms and gender expectations are challenged within or by my own existence. My performance is rooted in wanting to create visibility and recognition for my communities being a genderqueer transguy, a femme, disabled, Midwestern, a survivor, and an activist. My goal is to challenge conceptual normalcy of gender, sex, ability, and humanity to provide a venue for the empowerment of others.

My body is my most essential instrument. Growing up I sporadically grabbed tastes of different art forms through childhood games, small time recitals, and old movies. Over time this cultural peppering helped me shape my own artistic sphere of performance, writing, and music.  By combining my adaptations of more “traditional” dance, voice, and performance elements with genderfucking styles I present a contrast of historical and post-modern bodily exhibition that challenge normative concepts of the body as well as gender and sex. Many of my performances use comedy and jovial clowning because, to me, laughter is the most organic venue for conversation. Many of my pieces promote a trans experiences and activist issues in hopes that my voluntary vulnerability on stage will educate against the oppressions of my community off stage. My experiences are not wholly unique and through sharing them I hope to help raise my people’s communal voice and achieve a better global understanding. I frequently use language, costuming, colors, dance, and music to abstractly represent elements of a storyline. Costuming, which I design and sew myself, may represent a response to environment, sense of time, gendered experiences, or personal emotion. Colors and costume materials are also a common performative element because they indirectly set a tone to a performance and create further commentary. I use recognizable elements often hidden within trans practices, such as ace wrap, duct tape, or packing to speak to the realities of gender non-conforming people, promote body empowerment, and raise a veil from trans experience for non-trans people. The music and media I use is either composed myself or is deliberately chosen because of its lyrics, its intonation, or its source. Nearly all music, art, and media I use in my work are by trans and queer artists (including heterosexual allies). By utilizing the talent from within the trans and queer communities I hope to aid in creating a sustainable trans-queer artistic culture. All the dimensions of a piece may not be fully translated to every audience, but I feel all are able form their own interpretations of each piece making the performance belong just as much to the audience as it does to me.

In my life I have experienced love, loss, anger, forgiveness, pain, pleasure, sadness, and joy. This is not because I of any of my identities in particular; it is because I am human. When I was young my difference caused a lack of acceptance, both from myself and others, resulting in my own loneliness, confusion, and self hatred. Through my work I hope to combat these forms of isolation in ways that were not available to me back then. I strive to create a visible example of how life is not encompassed by one of two genders, one of two sexes, one type of body, or one way of life. In doing this I hope to send a message to others who feel different, and let them know that they are not alone.