The Funambulist

On Trans Community Care A CONVERSATION BETWEEN DEAN SPADE AND OHAN BREIDING In this epistolary conversation, Ohan Breiding and Dean Spade explore various forms of trans embodiment, community care, and resistance in the face…

"It is so difficult to live under systems that tell us things are normal, orderly, that the constant violence of enforcement is appropriate, that its targets are the aberration in need of correction."

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"How do we continue to love in this fucked up world? Can we talk about what it means to have a body, protective of our big hearts in these unbearable times of political and environmental collapse? How do we protect ourselves and one another?"

creativity, and underground networks of care.

"Has the glacier been trans all along? People have always been afraid of glaciers. They are mysterious and beautiful, and when healthy, in constant flux. They are silent and also very loud, sending sound waves from deep time to the present."

Ohan Breiding and Dean Spade explore various forms of trans embodiment, community care, and resistance in the face of political, ecological, and emotional collapse. Interweaving personal memories, reflections on community, grief and global crises, their letters affirm the urgent need for solidarity,

A copy of The Funambulist magazine No162, Building Trans Communities. The cover image is a black and white photograph titled Ava, Anita, and friends (1957). It was found in George Town, Malaysia by Hoo Fan Chon, whose film inspired by the ten women in the photograph is the subject of an article in the issue. The editor describes the ten women, five standing and five seated on the sea wall, as: joyfully posing in elegant feminine attire in front of the Straits of Malacca.

Look what arrived from @thefunambulist.bsky.social just in time to come to Outburst Queer Arts Festival, where contributor Nat Raha @fullnommunism.bsky.social will be one of the panellists for the closing Big Talk on Sat 21 Nov, on Trans Formations. Join us!

"For a long time, drag remained an avenue where they could perform being women. Drag held an appeal that cut across many lines, “racial” and socioeconomic alike. Europeans based there did it too, as did some aristocrats and the scions of rich families."

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The following text is written by William Tham and was originally published in Portside Review in 2023. It describes the ways through which Fan Chon revived this memory through both Ava’s photos and Anita’s words and how their gender identity escapes definitions and demarcations.

The photograph on this issue’s cover and the ones featured in these pages, were found by artist Hoo Fan Chon in an antique shop in George Town, in Malaysia. In doing research, he traced back the photos’ owner, Ava, and got to know about her through multiple meetings with her lifetime friend, Anita.

activist/militant shares with us something they learn from a past mistake or failure. We are honored to begin with a text by Fusako Shigenobu.

The cover features a photograph found by artist Hoo Fan Chon in an antique shop in George Town, Malaysia.

Order now: thefunambulist.net/shop/62-buil...

and militarism (Giuseppe Procida), and the misappropriation of Indigenous symbols, in particular the whipala, by the Bolivian state (Magali Vienca Copa Pabón). We also inaugurate a new section in the magazine of intergenerational transmission entitled “Learning With Our Elders,” in which an

and the US (Dean Spade and Ohan Breiding). In the News from the Fronts section, you can read three texts about the history of Brazilian formerly enslaved people who returned to Benin and Nigeria (Titilola L. N. Marinho and Gabriel Weber), the long Sicilian resistance against capitalism

Contributions include reflections about/from Colombia (La Liga de Salud Trans), colonized Casablanca and Cairo (Beshouy Botros), Britain (Mijke van der Drift and Nat Raha), India (Shripad Sinnakaar), newly independent Malaysia (Hoo Fan Chon and William Tham), Mexico (Mikaelah Drullard),

This issue is an invitation to approach trans identities and political struggles around the world through two angles: their collective dimension and their forever escape from clear-cut definitions, in particular those emerging from the West.

My copy came in the mail last Friday and I’m eager to read it

"We also inaugurate a new section in the magazine of intergenerational transmission entitled “Learning With Our Elders,” in which an activist/militant shares with us something they learn from a past mistake or failure. We are honored to begin with a text by Fusako Shigenobu."

activist/militant shares with us something they learn from a past mistake or failure. We are honored to begin with a text by Fusako Shigenobu.

The cover features a photograph found by artist Hoo Fan Chon in an antique shop in George Town, Malaysia.

Order now: thefunambulist.net/shop/62-buil...

and militarism (Giuseppe Procida), and the misappropriation of Indigenous symbols, in particular the whipala, by the Bolivian state (Magali Vienca Copa Pabón). We also inaugurate a new section in the magazine of intergenerational transmission entitled “Learning With Our Elders,” in which an

and the US (Dean Spade and Ohan Breiding). In the News from the Fronts section, you can read three texts about the history of Brazilian formerly enslaved people who returned to Benin and Nigeria (Titilola L. N. Marinho and Gabriel Weber), the long Sicilian resistance against capitalism

Contributions include reflections about/from Colombia (La Liga de Salud Trans), colonized Casablanca and Cairo (Beshouy Botros), Britain (Mijke van der Drift and Nat Raha), India (Shripad Sinnakaar), newly independent Malaysia (Hoo Fan Chon and William Tham), Mexico (Mikaelah Drullard),

This issue is an invitation to approach trans identities and political struggles around the world through two angles: their collective dimension and their forever escape from clear-cut definitions, in particular those emerging from the West.

Cover of The Funambulist 62 with a sepia-toned photograph of ten people somewhere in Malaysia.

We are happy to share with you our new issue "Building Trans Communities" (November–December 2025), where we mobilize collective embodiments and solidarities against transphobia around the world.

Order your copy here: thefunambulist.net/shop/62-buil...

Issue: Building Trans Communities Collective embodiments and solidarities against transphobia around the world…

This looks really good (due to be published Oct. 31st) and is truly #Transnational:

The Funambulist (@thefunambulist.bsky.social ) no. 62: Building Trans Communities

thefunambulist.net/magazine/bui...

Couverture du dernier numéro de la revue The Funambulist. On y voit une vieille photo noir et blanc d'archives représentant un groupe de dix femmes en Malaysie en 1957, avec en fond le détroit de Malacca. Le numéro titre "Building Trans Communities".

Le nouveau numéro de @thefunambulist.bsky.social arrivé ajd dans la boite aux lettres 🖤🔥🏳️‍⚧️

cover

new @thefunambulist.bsky.social arrived

Allez hop encore un réveil par ma tête à 4h30 alors que je suis en repos car je suis matrixée par mes horaires de taf 😐

(Bon bah on va lire @thefunambulist.bsky.social en attendant le lever du soleil 🤓)

Of Mutual Dreams and Non-habitable Worlds BERHANE AND MEBREK COMMISSIONED AND EDITED BY MICHAËLA DANJÉ TRANSLATED FROM FRENCH BY NESSA KALFOU Michaëla Danjé: Since the first contribution of my collective, Cases Rebelles, to The Funambulist in...

that sounds the knell of all potentialities. Time to share something other than a heap of absences."

"I was convinced that I was living several lives simultaneously, hoping that one day I will be entering the right house."

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enduring effects.

"Since I can’t fight what has been irreparably undone, I would simply like to have time in Ethiopia, time spent at doing ordinary things, playing soccer, washing cups, to have the luxury to get angry at measly things, without thinking about the ticking of the imperial clock

it is missing from our transnational activist analyses. In this powerful text, built on back-and-forth jumps between France and Ethiopia, they narrate their stories, while analyzing the systemic dynamics at play in displacements justified by a disastrous humanitarian grammar of assistance and their

anniversary issue, I immediately thought of asking Berhane and Mebrek to write on international adoption. Issue 26 had already featured an article on being Black and adopted, but the specific topic of international adoption has never been broached and the positionalities of people who experienced

Michaëla Danjé: "Since the first contribution of my collective, Cases Rebelles, to The Funambulist in 2019, I have been an attentive and regular reader of the magazine. In 2025, I even started a reading group of The Funambulist’s texts. When Léopold asked me to be one of the editors for the