Arts

Video: Trans duo Zachs & Krieg to release new song for Transgender Day of Remembrance

Oct 23 2013
Written by Aaron Day

Zachs & Krieg, a musical duo made up of two transgender activists and artists, are due to release a new song and music video, “Keeping You Alive,” to mark the International Transgender Day of Remembrance.

TDoR first started in 1998, following the murder of Rita Hester, a transgender African American woman in Massachusetts.

It takes place every 20th November in more than 185 cities throughout the world to memorialise those trans people who have been killed as a result of hatred and transphobia.

This year, Maxwell Zachs and Josephine Krieg will release a single written and recorded speciﬁcally for TDoR.

Maxwell Zachs is well known for his television role on Channel 4’s series ‘My Transsexual Summer,’ and has become one of the UK’s most recognisable transgender people.

In an interview on the song’s release, he said: “Music transcends borders and cultural barriers. It travels on the air, it can be hummed and passed between people, it can be played quietly on headphones or blasted from the roof.

“One of the things you will notice when you attend a TDoR event is that when the victim’s names are read aloud they represent every language, every continent. We want our message of survival and hope to be shared by every Trans* person wherever they may be and a good song can go anywhere!”

Josephine Krieg has been performing and producing stage shows internationally for over a decade, and has regularly lectured on trans and gender/sexualities, and been published both as a creative writer and an academic scholar.

In an interview, she said she was inspired to sing and play with Maxwell because the song’s story “rings so true” to her.

She added: “It is a sadly all too common experience that is given form here. Event though this is Max’s personal story, it could just as easily be mine.

“And I think it could be many trans people’s stories. Something I share with Max’s story is also a sense of hope, and care, and a desperate wish to help ourselves and other people understand and survive. If this song does anything, I hope it speaks to that.”

The song is available to download on iTunes and Amazon Mp3, and can be pre-ordered from 1 November.

In June, Maxwell Zachs spoke to PinkNews.co.uk on the release of his novel, “The People’s Republic of Nowhere”.

He explained: “My book is about a young person who lives in a world that he doesn’t quite understand, a world that certainly doesn’t understand him, in which he struggles to find a place for himself. I guess in many ways it’s a story about what it often feels like to be me, I realise that now its finished!”