Chloe Dzubilo

by JP Borum

Chloe was a friend. I loved Chloe because she was a beautiful spirit, a transfeminista whose strong feminine presence nurtured my emo transmasculinity. She “got” people’s gender deal immediately—what a relief that can be after a day in the trenches. Through the hugs she generously gave me and all her friends, she silently told us: “I feel you, gurl” “I love you, boy,” “I know how hard it is sometimes,” and “be strong.” Chloe was in so much pain toward the end of her life, but she rarely complained.

When I first met Chloe about 12 years ago, I was in awe of her. She was already a downtown legend. I had a little crush on her, that’s for sure. She was so damn hot (all legs)  in Katrina del Mar’s cult classic film Gang Girls 2000, as a member of the girl gang The Blades. Chloe and I used to sit upstairs in that health food store on 6^th Avenue, eating organic almond butter together. I listened for hours as she told me about her life as an equestrienne, and how she was involved in a nonprofit organization that helped children with AIDS get to ride horses. I remember thinking Wow. Her voice was hypnotic and sweet and healing. Lately, I’ve been conjuring it to get through the rougher days. Not everyone can turn her pain into healing, but that’s what Chloe did.

I saw in her drawings a powerful street sensibility, a punk zine DIY mode of autoethnography in which she literally shapeshifted, transforming pain into triumph, abuse into survival. Her work reveals her to be a trickster shamaness who parodied and ultimately outsmarted her oppressors on the street and in the transphobic healthcare system. It’s impossible to separate her visual art from her 1980s conceptual performance at the Pyramid Club with the Blacklips Peformance Cult, from her contribution to the punk movement as the frontgurl of Transisters, or from her transactivism within the NYC healthcare system. Her visual art—especially her graphic ouevre—is the overarching thread that captures the arc her beautiful life as a recovering transwoman with AIDS.

I began to talk to Chloe about her artwork. Much of our conversation was conducted daily on SMS with XOXOs, and GURLs and is lost forever. I was lucky enough to bear witness, through mutually supportive texts, to her work as co-curator of the exhibition Transeuphoria, a group show of transgender artists, which included work by her friends Antony and Justin Vivian Bond. It’s not easy to make a successful art show happen in New York these days, but she did it.

A month before she passed away, I had the urge to capture some of what we were sharing, even though it went against my instinct to try and force our dialogue in any way. I sent her open-ended questions about her life and the inspiration for her artwork. I also asked her to tell me about specific works of art, and she did. She responded with a series of emails, and expressed her desire to have it presented as a cohesive statement: “I hope it can be edited the way I wove it all in. Maybe it’s too much like a qualification.” 

No, Chloe, it’s not too much like a qualification! And even if it was, it would still help people.

What follows is her statement, the way she wove it all in, and some thoughts about works she picked out. Her decades-long challenge to transphobia could not be more timely. In the weeks following Chloe’s memorial at the Judson Church, we saw a wave of attacks against transpeople in NYC. Is it wrong to imagine Chloe the Blade as an avenging angel? I will try instead to think of her spirit of love and forgiveness. Her passing shouldn’t be seen as the end of anything, but rather as a start of a new phase of Trans-awareness and trans-activism. Bodies Of Work is a promising step in that direction. I wish Chloe could see this blog. I think maybe she can.                                                                                             —JP Borum 

Chloe Dzubilo:

I am an art school drop out, but did get a scholarship to an experimental arts HS in Madison, Connecticut. It taught me self-motivation and the teachers were awesome. I came to NYC and became distracted while starting classes at the New School, was decorating my shoes back then with glue gun and newspaper articles and little drawings.  Writing poetry and dance became my thing—just wanted to dance all the time. I used to wear the shoes when I worked at Studio 54.

 I became the ad director at the East Village Eye magazine back then, so was around a lot of artists. I worked on an East Village map and guide then, so I was selling ad space for indie films and designers. My dad worked at a newspaper for the entire time I was growing up. My dad encouraged me to write, and my mom was always doing creative fun stuff with us. I loved drawing flowers—and poetry. I was exposed to NYC art life in HS, as we would come into NYC and see bands and go to art shows. And my brother was an artist—he really encouraged me.

 In NYC I knew many artists who passed from AIDS—people think it was such a glam time. It was a really intense time, and my partner at the time was managing the Pyramid Club, so I was exposed to all kinds of gender expressions and performance art. But people were dying and using a lot of drugs as well.

The first time I dressed as a woman I was working at the Pyramid and dressed as Karen Silkwood. My brother had influenced me regarding anti-nukes rallies, so I really identified with her, and with Annie Hall, being a wasp and all. I didn’t even say the F word till I was 32. Hard to believe maybe, but true. I was already into dressing like Annie Hall back then. So I guess that was how I could express myself—through clothes, dancing, make up, the shoes. I loved using words always, and trashing classic clothes as part of my rebelliousness. Everybody was so gifted back then—it was like living in a life museum. Again AIDS was such a huge part of that time. I found out I was poz back then. So I’m a long-term survivor.

Years later, when I transitioned, clothes were a major part of expression, but it had the ability to attract some pretty wild people, and that used to really freak me out. I started to write poems again, and met incredible musicians, and we all created this band called Transisters. I would write on my body for gigs, wrote poems about what was happening during transition, and they became the songs. I found I could be this strong female-identified person with a voice, finally. And I used to draw pictures of things that were happening that I would get really upset by. Like dealing with being trans in the healthcare machine. Even in the hospital there would be creative stuff going on. There was no policy to protect queer people accessing healthcare. I was also working on the front lines in the trans movement in the 90’s. So I would listen to transwomen and these horrible experiences. Many didn’t want to even go to doctors or had been treated like freaks. You know, transsexualism is still considered a mental illness, where gay and lesbian was taken out [of the DSM] over 25 yrs ago. So there was a group of us working on the front lines, fighting against all the pathologizing of us as transpeople and genderqueer people. This is when transgender really became knwn more. I always had an issue with the term transsexual, ‘cause at its root is the word sex, and it’s not about sex, its about gender expression. Many people make it about sex. I found out in transition. I mean transpeople are incredible to look at, I feel—amazing—and I pray that one day there are policies to protect us all.

 I have always felt that we need another pronoun at this time in herstory/history. It’s so clear that there has always been something other than just two genders, and at the root of our speaking I think all people get this—they just don’t know how to really incorporate it into our mainstream language. Lingo is what we do have in community, and maybe with the way texting is creating new lingo—our youth are creating this lingo every day—now we just have to advocate for this third gender. I know some people think there are more genders. I’ve seen the worst in all people around this, and the most incredible humanity coming from people not in the community. We are all more alike than we’d like to admit. I’m over seeing how transpeople are abused in systems.

I used to show horses, the only sport where men and woman compete equally. My family didn’t have money, so I had to work for it. I was working as a kid basically. Being a long term survivor is high maintenance. What people don’t get is that there are side effects from HIV meds. I have had my share of that crap—if young people knew what they were in for when they are having unsafe sex. I know for me, I saved myself by not taking HIV meds for over 10 yrs. That’s my story. I use a low dose of HIV meds today, thank God.

I want to make my work larger. The work I’ve done was mostly created from being in bed. I have terrible neuropathy and live with a lot of chronic bone pain. The works are mostly small, ‘cause I work where I live, in a studio apartment.

I think its my life’s mission to educate. Transwomen are still treated as women were in the early days, where  woman weren’t allowed to be angry if something wasn’t right for them. I’ve been oppressed by so many different types of people that eventually it just becomes absurd and comical almost. It’s so ridiculous how much gender is still the final frontier!!!! 

I like that last line ‘cause it’s oh so true.  

 About the artwork: 

 “He’ll Risk Anything”  - this is a statement on men who will risk anything just to have sex with a transwoman. This attraction is like no other.”

“Behind Closed Doors” - This refers to what is politically correct regarding how to address a transperson, vs what people really say and/or think about transpeople.

“Emergency Care” - This is about a real experience at a time when people were offering me seats on the subway and busses as I was being perceived as a pregnant woman.

 “She Makes Things Bigger Than They Really Are” – A self-portrait inspired by times when I know someone has a level of transphobia, and they have a position of power over me such as someone who is tryng to rent me an apartment, or a medical provider, any person in authority. I know what time it really is—the transperson knows what time it really is regarding transphobia.

  “Leave Her Alone”—This shows the protective, maternal nature I have with transgirls that came in for help where I used to work.

“Back Off Papi” (formerly titled “White Girl Ass.”) This is when I had more weight on, and was very curvy. I experienced the world as a white woman of substance, and men from other cultures would follow me sometimes, saying shit about my butt being big. One man said what it says here. At that point I was so over being objectified. I didn’t know if they knew I was trans either. You know, if they figured it out they could potentially become violent—they would get so pumped up like that on the street. It’s messed up and not cool. That’s what this one is about. I was assaulted by one of those guys one day near my street in the East Village.