Artist Statement: They/Them

They/Them is a welded metal sculpture that brings together both male and female anatomical forms, fused into a single body of steel. The piece resists binary categorization: chest and pelvis sharing space, the figure existing between, beyond, and outside of rigid definitions.

This sculpture represents trans and nonbinary people—individuals who live every day in the space between the categories society tries to force upon them. At a time when the Trump administration has worked to erase their existence—through military bans, healthcare discrimination, and the attempted erasure of nonbinary identities in federal policy—They/Them stands as both defiance and survival.

The material choice—steel, square tubing, and rigid lines—mirrors the systems of bureaucracy and law that try to constrain identity. But the form itself bends those lines, reshaping them into a body that is neither one nor the other, but proudly both. In doing so, it resists erasure. It insists on visibility. It makes space where space has been denied.

They/Them is not just a figure. It is a declaration: that trans lives are real, resilient, and unerasable, even when government policy tries to reduce them to categories that don’t fit. It is a reminder that strength is not in conformity, but in authenticity.

MERCH