“We take it by storm together,” says Kyym Savage of her work as co-founder of United Trans Creatives, an activist collective helping to shift gender narratives in Jamaica and beyond. Earlier this year, you may have seen Savage and the group’s co-founder, Emani Edwards, lighting up billboards in Manchester as part of Trans Vegas, the UK’s largest trans art festival. In Jamaica, a pair of groups spanning two generations are at the centre of this particular pivot: J-FLAG, Jamaica’s first LGBTQ+ human rights organisation, founded in 1998, and TransWave Jamaica, an NGO founded in 2015 fighting for the trans community throughout the Caribbean. (Savage and Edwards are also part of the group.)
Individually, both groups represent the parting of the generational tides of trans activism in the region – and together, they provide insight on what it means to demand space for yourself, your community and your loved ones, especially in the face of normalised transphobia. At United Trans Creatives, Savage and Edwards pool the stylists and photographers at the core of their personal spheres,
