I’m thrilled and proud that today Aunt Nell has published The Sound of Trans Freedom on Soundcloud and YouTube. This innovative sound art documentary — a first for Aunt Nell! — features new work by sound artists Jesse Lawson, Kamari Romeo, naafi and Tom Sayers, as well as engineer Arlie Adlington, and it’s hosted by me.

Listen on Soundcloud.

The letters held in the Press For Change archive demonstrate a unique community that formed among trans people in the 1990s, and arguably, they still are a community today. The Sound of Trans Freedom is the “sound” of that community, of a community that is possible, across time, between those trans folks in the letters and those reading the letters today.

Access to these letters is carefully restricted because of the need to protect the data around the subjects’ identities. Being able to work with the letters in this way allows them to be brought to people’s ears and eyes through the sound piece and the accompanying transcripts. I worked with Stephen Whittle, co-founder of Press For Change, to gain access to the letters and make sure we could take care of them, and their writers, while sharing their important stories.

These letters, that would otherwise go unheard, are not only being given a platform but they are also being refocused through the lens of trans rights today. We are living in a new age of transphobia; it is imperative that we collectively remember the journey for trans rights, in the voices of the people who fought for them.

I believe in us all as living archives, and bringing the letters from the Press For Change archive back to life felt like a very important thing to do in 2025. Bringing these letters back to life through the lens of this complex world today, connects us. It binds us as a community to the past, to the present but also to a future we want to walk towards. A future we are adding to through the power of listening.