Transhackfeminism (THF) is a political artistic movement that aims to experiment with the deconstruction of bodies in order to empower queer and trans people towards topics of biohacking, technological sovereignity and peer-to-peer learning. It has it's roots in anarchism, queer theory, transfeminism, open source and postporn. The spaces created by transhackfeminists have an explicit focus on anticapitalism, decoloniality and care.

In the first decade of the 21st century, Barcelona provided fertile theoretical and sociopolitical ground for postporn-artistic experimentation, technofeminist hacking and transfeminist networks beyond Catalunya. Postporn regards gender and the body as a technology – a constructed ground which can be altered in sovereign, mechanic and artistic ways. ^[1]

Since the end of the 90ies the Spanish Art context started embracing queer theories and feminist thought in institutions like Arteleku, Montehermoso, Koldo Mitexelena, EACC, MACBA, MNCARS, Unia arteypensiamento ^[2]. Multitudes of transfeminist collectives in Barcelona were increasinly coexisting with a postporn Art Scene in museums, cultural institutions and festivals such as "Muestra Marrana" (since 2008), TransMarikaBollo Video Festival and " Queeruption" ^[3].

Simultanously, autonomous D.I.Y. aesthetics such as sexual guerilla performances by the Post-Op collective or by Diana Pornoterrorista were involved in politicising the fight against pathologisation of trans people ^[4]. The squat scene with it’s "pornopunkfeminism" additionally created space for the cross-fertilisation and provision of technical infrastructure by the hacker and open source movement, which enabled transfeminist practices of technological sovereignity, antisurveillance and peer-to-peer learning. ^[5]

During the Granada Feminist Conference in 2009, this emerging transfeminist alliance released the „Manifesto for the Transfeminist Insurrection“ and gathered again shortly after for the „Transfeminist Conference: Under Construction“ in the squatted social centre Can Vies in Barcelona, April 2010. Their debates were criticsing the instutionalisation of state feminism and the LGBT movement, as well as questions of migrant resistance and economic precarity. ^[6]

The first THF community gathering was held in 2014 in Calafou a industrial housing co-op project ^[7] in Catalunya (Spain), followed by a second one in 2015 in Puebla (Mexico), and a third in 2016 in Tio’tia:ke (Canada). ^[8]. These gatherings were organized with the intention of creating spaces of engagement with technology and especially hacking within the queer and trans community, as well as to collectively invent counternarratives to the hegemonic ideas on technology and who participates in its creation and use.

Transhackfeminists respond to a need of minorities to participate into creating and using technology, and more specifically participate in hacker spaces. Traditional hacker spaces have been criticised by queer-feminists, who claim ^[9] that these spaces reproduce patriarchal norms by:

1. hackers ignoring or marginalizing newcomers
3. cis-male hackers displaying patronizing attitudes towards women
5. cis-male hackers typically assuming teaching roles
7. sexist language (and other sexist attitudes)
9. non-transparent rules about the use of spaces and processes (e.g. how to join a hacker space)
11. lack of kitchen facilities and kids-friendly spaces ^[10]

The feminist proposal to counteract these norms in hacker spaces is to implement feminist pedagogy to hacker spaces, meaning introductory workshops which take great care of beginners, food-sharing practices in the spaces, provision of childcare, and challenging the individualist approach by prioritizing the "Do-It-Together" principle instead of D.I.Y. (Do-It-Yourself). ^[11]

Transhackfeminism holds a transhumanist stance on the body, on the boundaries between nature and technology and those between human and non-human life, and strives to overcome patriarchal, colonial and antropocentric visions of the body. ^[12] Transhackfeminism views biology as one of the roots and justifications of patriarchal oppression. To counter this, they claim the body is fluid, something that people can modify and reprogram to their liking, to liberate it from cisnormative and patriarchal norms.

Transhackfeminists are theoretically inspired by "cyborg feminism", a strand of posthumanist feminism first theorized by Donna Haraway, and which sees the feminized body as a hybrid of human and technology, wishing for feminism to abandon essentialist notions of what is natural and what constitutes a woman. It is a form of futurism as it contemplates the possibilities that technology opens up for liberating people from patriarchal oppression. ^[13]

One of the political goals of the transhackfeminist movements is to fight exclusion from technology. For this reason, transhackfeminism also seeks to create safer spaces of engagement with technology and bioengineering, through experimental and bottom-up approaches to learning and teaching skills. Part of this involves creating online platforms and servers who are self-organised by trans people, lesbians and other women. One example of this is the server "Anarchaserver" ^[14], generated by transhackfeminists which hosts content from the movement. Other forms of digital empowerment are created by the THF community in hackathons, conferences and other gatherings ^[15] centered around the creation of digital transhackfeminist spaces and artefacts or the sharing of skills related to digital self-management. ^[16]

One of the focuses of the 2016 edition of the Transhackfeminist gathering (THF!) in Montreal was to reflect on coloniality in technology and introduce principles and practices of decoloniality in transhackfeminism. The name Anarchaserver was chosen to remember a tortured black slave woman named Anarcha, who decolonial feminists claim to be the true mother of gynecology, as she was subjected to experimentation on her body which was foundational to this discipline. ^[17]. Acknowledging the colonial roots of gynecology, transhackfeminists strive to reappropriate this discipline trough D.I.Y. gynaecology, also referred to as GynePUNK. ^{[18] [19]}

One of the tools used by transhackfeminists to express their philosophy and political work is that of art, cultural production and performances, usually centered around the body as the subject of exploration and the artistic medium. In transhackfeminist art, the body is seen as the locus of resistance, and non-normative bodies (disabled, trans, intersex, fat) are put on the forefront, in an effort to give visibility to identities which are often marginalized by patriarchal and heteronormative systems of oppression. These works often include a focus on sex and sexuality, most notably in the practice of "postporn" and Cryptodance, defined as "a performative event to collectively embody issues of security, privacy, safety and surveillance". ^[20]

Another widespread practice in transhackfeminism is biohacking and gynepunk. These terms refer to the D.I.Y. approach and experimentation on one's own body in gynaecology and biology, often performed in autonomous laboratories. These practices, especially when it comes to biohacking, constitute a mixture of scientific and artistic methodology, and embrace exprimentation and error as opposed to goal-oriented intentions. Gynepunk is a critique of traditional medical practices in gynaecology, which are defined as "prohibitive", "patriarchal", "paternalistic". ^[21]

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