Hello everybody, thank you for your patience.
Hello, can I have your attention?
Woo!
Hello.
Welcome good people to the,
welcome good people of the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.
It is my great pleasure to welcome you tonight to the ribbon cutting ceremony
of the inaugural celebration for the first, only and best institution of its kind,
the Museum of Transgender History and Art.
Woo!
I stand before you as the humble executive director, Chris Vargas.
Woo!
For a long time now, I have been working hard to make this happen.
And I am thrilled to finally be moving this project into this next public phase.
This is a momentous occasion.
Until today, there has never existed a museum of this kind in the whole world.
An arts and history museum dedicated solely to trans and gender non-conforming individuals,
communities and cultures.
A museum that defines transgender expansively and that honors the diversity of expressions within that identity.
A museum that understands the art of trans communities as a sign of their cultural vitality and importance.
A museum dedicated to a hear-story, not a history, not a hear-story,
but a gender neutral hear-story in the making,
that is in fact now being written by all of us here today.
Woo!
The San Francisco Bay Area is an important site for MAFA
because this area helped ignite the fires of the trans and queer liberation movement.
I speak of the Compton's Cafeteria Uprising in the Tenderloin in 1966,
of which our hardy guest that may or may not still be here, Felicia Flames, was a participant.
There we are.
That fateful night began when one trans woman frustrated by yet another incident of harassment
threw her coffee in the face of a San Francisco police officer.
And you may clap for that.
Woo!
I speak as well of legendary San Francisco people like performer at the Black Cat Bar Jose Serrilla,
activist and prison abolitionist Miss Major,
and of course star of stage and screen, Gina Latavina, who will be performing here later this evening.
Woo!
But Motha's presence is not confined to the Bay Area.
It seeks to archive, showcase, and present the art and hear-story
of trans and gender nonconforming people across the nation and around the globe,
from Chao Prea River Delta in Thailand to the rainforest of Peru.
Imagine these walls and so many walls like them dazzling in transgender representation.
The museum will feature a robust schedule of exhibitions, programs, and public events.
You'll see an example of this programming tonight
in the amazing performances of Gina Latavina, Honey Mahogany, and Love Wars.
Then on Sunday we invite you back here for a free panel discussion
when a number of artists and scholars will present their thoughts on the temporary transvestite film genre.
Speakers include Irene Gustafson, Morty Diamond, Annie Danger, and Ralo T. Ampou
with moderating Matt Sussman.
That panel and reception will be held upstairs in the screening room between 4 and 7 Sunday afternoon.
Again, it's free.
Thanks to an ambitious and successful multi-million dollar capital campaign,
which is still going on, so feel free to keep giving.
There's a plexi box in the entryway.
The museum's opening is imminent.
However, while it is under construction, Motha will function as a series of off-site exhibitions
and programs of which tonight's event is the very first.
Good people of San Francisco, between our present and our future, stands this ribbon above us.
On one side are the trans individuals and communities who have been for too long
denied institutional support for their historical memory and cultural production.
And on the other side awaits our destiny, a museum all our own.
Happy birthday, everyone. It's time to unwrap our present.
And this is where we are. Revolving with our scissors, please.
Thank you.
