Arizona Equals Tate

On this week’s episode of the Arizona Equals Conversation, Jeanne interviews her best friend Tate, a graphic designer and photographer working in Phoenix, Arizona. They talk about some of Tate’s fine art photography work, including their project The Labor of Being Transgender, and spend some time discussing the nuances and challenges of medical transition for non-binary people. Tate also shares their experience being arrested during a political protest and the way the system treated them for being a trans person. Links for Context * 1992 Ashes Action * Tate Peak’s website * WPAWS (White People Against White Supremacy) * Mutual Aid Phoenix * Doctor Who // Buffy the Vampire Slayer // Psych * Lumen Prints * Cyanotype * Alt Process Photography * Joshua Gutierrez * The Labor of Being Transgender Rough Transcript Fully edited version to come. 00;00;00;16 - 00;00;32;26 Jeanne From Equality Arizona. You're listening to The Arizona Equals Conversation. I'm Jeanne Woodbury. I'm the interim executive director of Equality Arizona and the host of this podcast. And today, I want to wish you all a very happy holiday season. Tonight, December 14th we’ll be hosting our holiday bash and celebrating 30 years advocating for LGBTQ+ rights in Arizona. This is my last chance to invite anyone to the party, and I'd really love to see as many of you there as possible. 00;00;33;12 - 00;01;06;21 Jeanne For all of the specifics, you can find more information on our events calendar online equalityarizona.org/events. When this episode airs, I'll be on a plane flying home from Washington, D.C., where I was invited to attend the signing of the Respect for Marriage Act in a ceremony at the White House. It's a tremendous moment for civil rights, and it's taken a fight longer than I have been alive to get us here, going to the White House as a queer person, a place I'd only ever seen before through a fence. 00;01;07;14 - 00;01;34;09 Jeanne I chose to keep in my mind the image of the Ashes action of 1992, the year our organization was founded. It's important to me to remember that debt that we owe to the past and the debt we owe to the community around us. I have like, so much love for the queer community, and it's difficult to imagine who or where I would be without that context. 00;01;35;07 - 00;02;11;21 Jeanne And I think that's the perfect introduction for today's guest on the podcast, my dear friend Tate Peak. I know I've mentioned this before, but Tate and I met on the day I started hormones, and it's this magical moment of serendipity that almost fades away to meaninglessness, when you look at the whole history of our friendship. But I just can't really imagine what anything about my life would be if Tate hadn't been there for it. 00;02;11;29 - 00;02;44;26 Jeanne Right. So you can imagine how complicated it was trying to figure out how to record a normal interview with them. And so we did, two. I talked to them and forgot to ask them questions. And then we did a second interview and I asked them more normal questions. And then I edited all that together into this. And I let us break the fourth wall a few times to show those edits. 00;02;44;26 - 00;03;18;12 Jeanne But overall, I think it comes together pretty nicely and I don't think Tate will ever listen to it. But if they do, I hope they agree. All that being said, it's still a pretty long one. So let's roll the tape, I think. 00;03;18;18 - 00;03;41;19 Tate What am I going to say? My name is Tate Peak. I use they/them pronouns, if that's important. I'm a graphic designer and photographer and I'm trans and I'm pretty cool. So should I redo that? [Jeanne 00:03:33:14] Yeah. [Tate 00:03:34:02] Okay. Should I say I'm pretty cool, though? [Jeanne 00:03:36:12] Yeah. [Tate 00:03:36:26] Okay, So my name is Tate Peak. I'm a trans graphic designer and photographer. 00;03;41;22 - 00;03;46;09 Tate I use they them pronouns and I'm pretty cool. 00;03;47;02 - 00;03;48;02 Jeanne Okay. Yeah. 00;03;48;23 - 00;03;49;06 Jeanne Thank you. 00;03;49;12 - 00;03;51;26 Tate Yeah. 00;03;51;26 - 00;04;09;10 Jeanne So just actually, pretty recently, you've been able to set up a career as a freelance graphic designer and photographer. Mm hmm. Tell me a little bit about the kind of work you do. And tell me a little bit about how you got into the work that you're doing. 00;04;10;04 - 00;04;16;26 Tate All right. So the kind of work I do right now, mostly work for Equality Arizona. 00;04;18;01 - 00;04;19;02 Jeanne That's right. Yeah. Yeah. 00;04;19;05 - 00;04;19;21 Tate I mean, you do. 00;04;19;21 - 00;04;22;00 Jeanne All the photos for the show are on this. 00;04;22;01 - 00;04;35;14 Tate For the show art on this, I take event photos. I help with lots of other things. It's a big list, and there's no point in me like listing every single thing. Right. But if anyone wants to see that work, it's in my portfolio. 00;04;35;23 - 00;04;39;12 Jeanne Yeah. Oh, so your portfolio is you have a website. 00;04;39;13 - 00;04;53;26 Tate I do, thisistatepeak.com. It exists. And it's also my handle on everything without the dot com. Obviously that wouldn’t -- actually it would be quite funny but Twitter doesn't allow periods. 00;04;53;26 - 00;04;57;26 Jeanne You'd have to spell out the word dot. Yeah. And that would get confusing. 00;04;57;26 - 00;05;06;21 Tate Yeah. And there's no point in doing that. So “thisistatepeak” or thisistatepeak.com or [email protected] for email. 00;05;07;10 - 00;05;17;25 Jeanne We also did some comms related creative work together before Equality Arizona. Yes, with White PAWS. White People Against White Supremacy. 00;05;18;05 - 00;05;43;13 Tate I made them a style guide that I have learned isn't as good. I've learned a lot of things since then, since doing the work I did there on and off. And then at Mutual Aid Phoenix and just generally throughout college and in high school, I started doing graphic design in high school as a small child. Around the same time I got into Doctor Who and started being a vegetarian. 00;05;43;18 - 00;06;01;01 Tate There were a lot of things that happened all at once, and graphic design was one of them. I took a graphic design class. My teacher was, you know, at every high school there's like a weird teacher. There's like the weird guy, you know, they like - well you don't know but - 00;06;01;02 - 00;06;02;15 Jeanne I mean, I don't know. 00;06;02;15 - 00;06;03;11 Tate You can speculate. 00;06;03;14 - 00;06;11;04 Jeanne But I've watched, like, movies and TV shows that include high schools. Yes. So like Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 00;06;11;24 - 00;06;21;06 Tate Yes. So kind of like that. Except more like if if Shawn or Gus from Psych. 00;06;21;06 - 00;06;21;18 Jeanne Like. 00;06;22;02 - 00;06;41;17 Tate Was a teacher at a high school and pretty much everything else about them was the same, either of them. So, like Mr. Narducci was my my high school graphic design teacher and he wore - he would do something fun for his, like yearbook photo every year. So he wore like four polo shirts at the same time, all with 00;06;41;26 - 00;07;03;28 Tate with the collars popped. Yeah. And these, like, ridiculous glasses. I think he takes his own photo and then sends it to the company that did the yearbooks and like, had them put it in. It was um - anyway, he was really fun and made graphic design class fun, though really different parts of graphic design than anything I do now, which is interesting. 00;07;03;28 - 00;07;09;28 Tate So we made like I mean, he talked to us about movie posters and stuff, which is. 00;07;10;08 - 00;07;10;28 Jeanne Oh yeah. 00;07;10;28 - 00;07;30;22 Tate I don't do that level of like photo editing and retouching and stuff. It's not - it's a lot and it's not really where I am interested in design. Yeah, but then graduated high school. Didn't do any more art after that really, for a long time. And I went to ASU and. 00;07;30;22 - 00;07;30;29 Tate I had like 00;07;31;10 - 00;07;32;22 Tate 12 majors. 00;07;32;23 - 00;07;36;21 Jeanne Yeah. When you started at ASU, it wasn't graphic design, it wasn't photography. No, it. 00;07;36;21 - 00;07;57;… This is a public episode. 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