This trans student's school tried to censor his artwork. Now it's going viral.
Jasper Behrends just graduated from high school, but he's already making a name for himself as an artist. And it's all thanks to a viral tweet about his perseverance against artistic censorship.
On July 12, Behrends tweeted a selection of his work depicting gender, sexuality, and body dysphoria with the words, "My school's administration told me to stop doing my concentration on gender and sexuality because it was 'inappropriate.' But I didn't. And now…"
Alongside images from his portfolio, Behrends tweeted a letter from the College Board. The 18-year-old's art was selected to be featured in the 2017-2018 AP Studio Art Exhibit, a high national honor for AP art students.
The tweet has received more than 13,000 retweets in celebration of Behrends' art and resistance.
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The viral tweet stems from a long battle Behrends had with the administration at his Virginia high school in his senior year. As part of his advanced placement studio art course, Behrends was required to do a deep dive into a specific subject matter, producing twelve pieces on the topic.
He chose to focus on trans identity. That's where trouble with his school began.
After he started to work on raw, unfiltered pieces, his work was censored by his school's administration for being too provocative.
"After starting my concentration, the school vice principal came to me about my 'potentially sensitive' concentration subject," Behrends told Mashable. "Keep in mind, at this point, all I had done was draw some breasts on a body that had a face presenting as male. The vice principal said that although he had no problem with the LGBTQ theme, there is a 'time and a place for these things,' and that it did not belong in public schools."
Behrends said the administration told him his work was expected to follow the school dress code, specifically forbidding him from illustrating shirtless figures in his pieces. But he says he illustrated breasts before, and other students were still allowed to include breasts in their pieces. The administration didn't budge on its ruling.
"Art is just materialized passion, and my passions stand with the queer community."
"After being shot down, I told my art teacher that I would rather just not turn anything in than switch my concentration to 'make it less intense' to suit those who might not be accustomed to being exposed to queer art," Behrends said. "My teacher, knowing that I was serious, told me that I should at least try to dull it down. After a lot of arguing, I just decided to ignore everyone and keep doing it."
But resisting the administration meant keeping his art a secret, unable to show his work in school art shows.
"I wasn't able to even show my parents, but I was proud of what I was doing," he said.
Eventually his work was seen by a panel of College Board critics unaffiliated with Behrends' school. The panel graded the art on a scale of 1 to 5.
Behrends earned a 5, the highest possible score, on the Studio Art AP Exam and his work was selected for the prestigious AP Studio Art Exhibit.
Behrends' work is heavy on emotion, unpacking some of the most harrowing and raw feelings impacting transgender people. While his only goal was to stick to the overall theme of gender dysphoria, it became necessary to include discomfort, too.
"I didn't really set out to make the viewer feel uncomfortable," he said. "I just wanted to visually show what a transgender person can go through on a daily basis. It wasn't until I started getting feedback that I realized that this work made cisgender people feel uncomfortable.
"I started running with that a little bit and wanted to try and see if I could get cisgender and heterosexual people to feel even a fraction of how alienated LGBTQ people feel every day."
The work created for his exam is currently housed in the young artist's online portfolio, where he has opened up about the harrowing meaning behind each image.
Behrends graduated in June and left his critical administration behind. But his passion for art, he said, will never be in the rearview.
"This is not the end of my queer art," he said. "Queer art is literally the only type of art I truly enjoy doing. Art is just materialized passion, and my passions stand with the queer community."
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Topics Activism LGBTQ Social Good Identities
Katie Dupere was a Social Good reporter at Mashable from May 2015 to July 2017, covering activism, identities and social impact. Prior to her work with Mashable, Katie penned pieces about queerness, body positivity, sex and relationships for Gurl. She also previously contributed LGBTQ news coverage to PinkNews.
