My piece for this project is a digital illustration based off a still from the documentary Southern Comfort (2001). In it, Robert Eads- the subject of the film- is talking, laughing with his girlfriend Lola and close friend Maxwell. Eads is a bit hoarse, a bit thin, but in that moment, you wouldn’t guess that this is a man who will inevitably die in only 3-4 short months. The almost tonal whiplash of the intimacy and tenderness displayed here, in tandem with the tragic underpinnings of the very premise of this film, is a continuous element. The term ‘bittersweet’ comes to mind, for lack of anything more fitting, and I tried to capture at least some of that feeling in my piece. For context, Robert Eads is a man with ovarian cancer. He is transgender, referred to as a ‘transsexual’ man and ‘FTM’ within the film- language that seems dated, almost offensive, as I hear these words now, 20 years after they were used. He began transitioning in his forties, after dissolving a marriage that had brought him two biological children. After a period of questioning and exploration, Eads began to transition socially and medically as a man. In 1996, he had been experiencing unusual bleeding and abdominal pain, and sought out medical treatment. It took almost a year to find a doctor willing to treat him. He was rejected by at least twenty doctors, concerned that treating a transgender patient could damage their reputations. By the time he had found someone willing and able to see him, in 1997, the cancer had metastasized and was almost certainly terminal. He addresses the irony of his diagnosis with a surprisingly casual remark: “The last, only part of me that was female was killing me.” He died at age 53, a little less than a month after his birthday on December 18, 1998. This film strikes a particular chord with me as another transgender man[1]brotherhood, nostalgia, despair, frustration. A connection to this group of people I will never know, some of whom lived and died before I was even born. The idea for this piece popped into my head almost as soon as the parameters for the project were laid out. My own story of transitioning is radically different to Robert’s but his story touches me all the same. To promote and preserve trans history is an ever-ongoing struggle, one that can’t be resolved by a single person or a single story, but I can at least contribute one small piece to the pile.