History
The Transmissions Quilt Project started with the simple impulse to make affirming gift objects for trans friends and lovers. It is now blossoming with the hopes of sharing these objects with broader community. As it grows, the impulses are the same: welcome trans people to themselves, shower them with gifts, and offer the reminder that the web of life holds them fiercely.
(the first person in this narrative refers to artist Cordy Joan)
Prologue
This project came into being three years ago when a lover shared the blanket they had been given to celebrate their birth. With their dead name emblazoned across one corner in purple, they shared the grief that came with relating to an object that didn’t feel like it was actually made for them.
Cordy made them a quilt in the hopes of welcoming them into their current self.
From there, Cordy went on to make a series of these quilts for trans friends. Not baby blankets, per se, but arrival objects. The piece that sees and welcomes them.
Chapter 1
Cordy formalized Transmissions through putting out a call for nominations (for quilt recipients) and a call for collaborators (other trans quilters and artists). With support from a range of grants and direct donations, Transmissions could offer these quilts more widely.
We came up with a standard process that paired trans quilters with recipients. It goes as follows: People are nominated to receive a quilt. As we make their quilt, they get to choose trans and queer loved ones to help. They are also encouraged to invite broader community together to a culminating quilting bee, where we gather to put finishing stitches into the quilt in an evening of food and gossip. Further down the line, these quilts and the various elements made along the way will be exhibited. The steps of this project are crafted to mirror the variety of ways that trans people come to know and locate themselves in the broader social weave. A culminating exhibit is one version of this locating.
Chapter 1 made and delivered 14 gift quilts alongside oral history interviews, additional art-making and quilt-recipient photoshoots. We had a culminating exhibit at the Berkeley Public Library in June 2025 to share this batch of quilts before they were delivered to their homes.
Chapter 2
As of early 2026, we’re in process with an additional 25 quilts. Transmissions has a larger project goal to deliver 50 gift quilts to individually nominated trans people.
