“Atlanta and Dallas… alchemized the fear we’ve all been feeling…They gave us a spectacular theatrical container to experience the triumph, the despair, the feeling of fighting for your life only to get the shit kicked out of you.”
“Every act of bravado is also an act of care…”
PHOTO BY NAT NGUYEN
PHOTO BY Niamh Sprout
PHOTO BY CLARKE STONE
PHOTO BY Niamh Sprout
“…Underneath the spectacle are two trans people with undeniable trust between them working through wild feats of momentum and impact to put on a great fucking show.”
-Noa Rui-Piin Weiss, Show Response: TBoy Wrestling Day 2 - In their review of Diamonds Are Forever, a performance by Ashton Askew and Dallas Havoc
“It’s eerie to have another trans person play the heel…By taking on the role of the villain, they’re saying “The fear you feel is real. I can reflect the danger back to you because I face it too.’”
PHOTO BY CLARKE STONE
PHOTO BY CLARKE STONE
PHOTO BY Niamh Sprout
“[Wrestling] offers excessive gestures, exploited to the limit of their meaning…in wrestling, a man who is down is exaggeratedly so, and completely fills the eyes of the spectators with the intolerable spectacle of his powerlessness.”
ROLAND BARTHES, MYTHOLOGIES
