ABSTRACT

Lucas Silveira began posting covers in response to fan requests; comment sections of his YouTube videos, where a thriving international fan community amassed, quickly became a space in which fans pleaded for Silveira to cover specific songs, artists, or genres. While cover songs are ubiquitous on YouTube, Silveira's are extraordinary, chronicling his gender transition and the effects of the hormone testosterone on his voice and body. Silveira draws attention to the aural and visual construction of gender in musical culture, and the way this work is often done through music performance. Silveira's videos exist within a broader DIY phenomenon on YouTube in which trans individuals chronicle and analyse their experiences of transitioning. The transition video genre, however, remains controversial among trans media makers and trans cultural theorists. Transition videos facilitate the development of an online trans commons in which the agency of narrativization is taken away from medical and state institutions – long the arbiters of trans experience.