All images are Courtesy of the Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago
Cover Image: Hank, 76, and Samm, 67, North Little Rock, AR, 2015
Over the past five years photographer Jess T Dugan and social worker & professor Vanessa Fabbre traveled throughout the United States in documentation of the stories and imagery of transgender and gender nonconforming older adults in the country. Traveling from coast to coast , the duo sought out subjects whose experiences of life exist in the intersections of gender identity, age , race , ethnicity , sexuality, socioeconomic background & geographic location. The result of their venture, a moving body of work giving voice & visibility to an underrepresented group of older individuals with a wide variety of narratives spanning throughout the last ninety years, offering a historical record of transgender experiences & activism in the USA in the form of a book and several exhibitions.
“So many trans-related stories in the media are about people being murdered orare about discrimination of some kind. With this project, I wanted to create representations of many different ways of living and aging as a trans person. I also wanted to record the history of people who, in many cases, paved the road for the world we live in now. I worried their stories were at risk of being lost or forgotten, and I wanted to record and preserve them,” explained Jess T. Dungan.
“For me, part of the inspiration for this project also came from thinking about the limits of knowledge dissemination in the social sciences, especially in terms of our ability to engage in broader cultural forces and public discourse. I saw the potential to make an impact beyond academia by creating this project together, ” added professor Fabbre.
Each story, each image captured and included in the photo series, shines a brighter light on stories that have been long overlooked, and in many ways creates blooms of hope and validation for onlooking generations of trans individuals.
Dee Dee Ngozi, 55, Atlanta, GA, 2016
“This coming into my real, real fullness of knowing why I was different is because I was expressing my spirit to this world. And I didn’t know how God felt about it, but I believe in God and I have a deep spiritual background and I talk with the Holy Spirit constantly who’s taken me from the Lower West Side doing sex work to being at the White House.” – Dee Dee Ngozi .
Sky, 64, and Mike, 55, Palm Springs, CA, 2017
“One of the hardest things in terms of transitioning was the difference in personal space. When I was perceived as female, there wasn’t a lot of touching. Women don’t get into each other’s space. When two women are attracted to each other they don’t immediately put their hands on the other woman’s body. It’s not considered appropriate. Whereas the way men cruise, there’s about two seconds of eye contact, and then an approach, and either hands on your chest or hands in your crotch or some other type of immediate physical contact.I started out with a lot of insecurity in terms of my body, insecure about myself, and it has taken time to build confidence.” – Mike
Duchess Milan, 69, Los Angeles, CA, 2017
“I just know I’m me. I don’t think in terms of names and forms and all that. It doesn’t matter.I’m just myself and that’s who I am.I am at peace with myself. It is the most wonderful feeling in the world because you’re never in a hurry to get somewhere, you know, to prove to anyone that you’re who you know you are. I know who I am, and what other people think about me is none of my business. So that’s who I am. I identify as the Duchess.
I knew that I might lose family, that people might reject me. But I weighed that, and I thought,“If I lose everything and everybody, but I keep me, that’s all that matters. That’s all that matters, because I’m not going to live a life that I’m not happy in, for other people.Why?It doesn’t make any sense.”So I put my money down and took my chances. My family accepted me. They came to accept me, and I’ve had kids around me, I’ve gone to all the weddings, all the funerals, and it’s a situation that everybody just thinks of me as who I am. It’s not even an issue anymore. “Oh, you mean her? Oh, that’s just Auntie.” – Duchess Milan
David, 63, Hull, MA, 2015
“When I was five years old,I found my older brother’s first communion suit. It was a very cool looking suit, white and double-breasted, and it fit me perfectly. I wouldn’t take it off.I wore it everyday. Day in and day out, until my parents got so tired of seeing it on me, they turned it into a Halloween costume as a way to get rid of it.When I was older,I played in this little rock band and one time whenI was over at my friend’s house I heard his mother mention a story about a person named Christine Jorgenson who had “changed sex.”I couldn’t keep my mind on practice after that!I wanted to find out more about this person, but you couldn’t Google it, of course, and so it took me months to find it. I was finally able to piece together that this was a person who knew their gender and went somewhere and there were people who could help.” – David
SueZie, 51, and Cheryl, 55, Valrico, FL, 2015
“When we got married, I never imagined that someday my husband would become my wife,” Cheryle said. “Right from the start, SueZie confided that she identified as female on the inside, but transition never appeared to be an option. But, I never had a problem with her wearing lingerie. You know, it’s just clothes. I fell in love with the person inside, and what’s on the outside is more about what they feel comfortable with.”
In celebration for this year’s Pride festivities Nike launches it’s BeTrue collection in support of the LGBTQ+ community with a smashing campaign. Earlier this week, in partnership with Out Magazine, Nike released the images for the collection that were done in collaboration with the estate of Gilbert Baker — the political activist who claimed the rainbow for LGBTQ+ people by creating the pride flag.
The campaign shot by photographer Marcus Smith features the likes of some of sports’ most important LGBTQ+ names including Caster Semenya, Sue Bird, Chris Mosier, Brittney Griner, Kerron Clement among many others. All decked out in this year’s updated merch which includes collection of shoes, accessories and clothes highly influenced by the pride flag. Such as the Air Max 720 in a rainbow palette with Baker’s signature on the back, The Air Tailwind 79 with a rainbow heel, the Zoom Pegasus Turbo in a full rainbow stripe with glitter and sparkles among other products. In tune with the initiative, the brand will also grant financial support to 20 LGBTQ+ organisations including the GLBT historical Society, the Hetrick-Martin Institute, The National Gay Basketball Association and You Can Play. The Nike BeTrue 2019 collection is now available online and in selected stores worldwide.
This Thursday Italian photographer Stella Asia Consonni is set to open the doors to her solo exhibition entitled Love Me . The showcase, set to take place for one night at Protein Studios in Shoreditch, London, will feature a compilation of intimate images of with diverse couples as subjects.
The photographer first began shooting for the project a year ago, with the intention of creating an online photo series as a means of healing as she overcame her then-recent break-up. One of the images from the original series, featuring two men mid-kiss was uploaded by the photographer via instagram and was soon after deleted by the platform for “not following community guidelines.” Instagram later issued an apology and allowed the image to be re-uploaded but the second time around Consonni was met with homophobic comments and slurs in reaction to the image.
This was when she decided the best way to contest the homophobes and bigots was to create an entire exhibition in celebration of the many colours and forms of love. In addition to the photo series, the photographer will also debut a short film complementing the series by documenting short bits and pieces of these love stories.
Cover Image: Martine Gutierrez, Masking Fish Mask from Indigenous Women (2018)
On June 12th this summer, central London art gallery Hayward Gallery will open it’s doors to a group exhibition titled ‘Kiss My Genders,’ showcasing the work of 30 international artists whose repertoires engage in conversation around gender identity. Curated by Vincent Honoré, the exhibition will feature a compilation of over 100 artworks by several generations of artists from across the world who share interests in articulating with themes of gender fluidity, non-binary, trans and intersex identities communicated throughout their work. The exhibition will include wide range of several types of media including installations, videos, paintings, sculptures, portraitures etc.
Juliana Huxtable Untitled Lil’ Marvel (2015)
The panel of creatives will include names who explore gender expression through the forms of performance, drag and masquerade. Such as names like Ajamu, a London-based visual activist whose work challenges conventional understanding of sexuality, desire, pleasure and cultural production within contemporary Britain and Amrou Al-Kadhi, a British-Iraqi writer, drag performer and filmmaker, who in collaboration with British photographer Holly Falconer, created a photographic portrait Glamrou (2016) using triple exposure to communicate the experience of being in drag as a person of Muslim heritage. The exhibition will also bring forth political undertones with artist artist Hunter Reynolds who is an AIDS activist as well, whouses art as a tool to process trauma as well as transform it. The Kiss My Gender exhibition will also be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue featuring original essays and a roundtable discussion with and from a few of the artists along with the exhibition’s curators and a performance by Berlin based artiste Planningtorock, whose song lyrics were featured as the showcase’s title. The exhibition will run throughout the summer and close its doors on September 2019. For more info visit Hayward Gallery.
Zanele Muholi, Phila I Parktown, (2016)Catherine Opie, Mike and Sky (1993)
British fashion and documentary photographer Bex Day in collaboration with producer curator Sandrine Servent and artist publisher William Esdale have recently joined forces in the conception of a campaign which seeks to raise awareness and visibility of the UK’s older transgender community. The campaign titled ‘Hen’ is an initiative Day has been working on for the past three years, that aims to promote a better understanding of integration in and outside the transgender community through an exhibition, film, talks and workshops.
According to Day, “Hen is an anthropological study on gender fluidity and an exploration into the lasting impact societal restrictions concerning sexual identity and gender roles upon us. It examines how gender stereotypes have affected the older transgender community and questions how we define gender and if as a society we should, as well as exploring the inherent social and cultural problems within these alienating classifications.” The exhibition is set to display a series of 30 photographic portraits in various sizes and a newly commissioned film featuring subjects over the age of 40 which with successful funding, will take place in London at the Herrick Gallery during the first week of April following Trans Day of Visibility day on March 31st.
Unfortunately , the campaign is sans funding and is in attempt of seeking financial sponsors to cover the expenses of the panel discussion, transport and installation of the artwork, equipment for the three workshops among other costs. The workshops will be hosted by the charity Stonewall Housing with whom the exhibition has partnered with to ensure that 50% of prints sales goes to the organization as one of the UK’s LGBTQ+ and trans only supported accommodations. Twenty percent will also be contributed to partners Press For Change as one of the UK’s leading campaign groups in focus of the rights and treatment of transgender people. To donate, visit Hen The Exhibition, to learn how.
In 2013, the anomalous Italian fashion house Gucci launched their global initiative Chime For Change in aid of convening, uniting and strengthening the voices in defence of women and girls around the world. Co-founded by Beyoncé and Salma Hayek Pinault, the organization has since then leaped forward in the world of humanitarianism through partnerships with organisations such as Global Citizen, Kering, UNICEF and Catapult with several projects in aim of broadening the conversation around the world.
On their first venture for the new year, the Chime For Change organization has released their project titled “To Gather Together,” which represents a global call to unite in support of gender equality.
“With this next chapter of CHIME FOR CHANGE, Gucci is proud to reaffirm our commitment to a more just and equitable world. Achieving gender equality is critical to securing our collective future, and we are dedicated to leveraging our creative power, global employee engagement, and support for non-profit projects to ignite conversation and help empower the next generation of leaders,” said Gucci President and CEO Marco Bizzarri.
For the project, the brand has teamed up with Italian visual artist MP5 who has created the new Chime For Change campaign imagery which has been revealed on Gucci’s ArtWalls in London, Milan, New York, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The imagery, which the organization describes as its new identity, features the silhouettes of unidentifiable human figures standing together in unison.
“Every person is created equal. We all have the power to use our voices to stand up for what we believe in. When we gather together across generations and communities, we have the opportunity to create real change. The fearlessness of this generation to express themselves gives me hope that a future of freedom and equality is possible,” said Gucci Creative Director Alessandro Michele. In addition to the murals, Chime For Change has this week published the first issue of their CHIME [maga] Zine edited by activist and writer Adam Eli , including contributions from activists, artists and writers across the world. A digital version of the Zine will also be available on the organization’s new website at chime.gucci.com .
In celebration of LGBT Pride Month, Opening Ceremony has got together with with manga-inspired brand MASSIVE as well as the iconic manga artist Jiraiya, to launch a capsule collection, MASSIVE for Opening Ceremony. The line features Jiraiya’s original male pin-up art sublimation printed on tees, muscle shirts, rugby shorts and a beach towel.
The capsule collection is available now from OC stores and online at openingceremony.us.
To find out about Pride in London or to get involved, head to prideinlondon.org
In 1982, Levi Strauss & Co became one of the first brands to support the battle against the AIDS crisis and they were the first Fortune 500 company to grant domestic partnership health benefits — a practice now followed by many corporations and public agencies. In 2013, they also joined the broad coalition of marriage equality supporters urging the U.S. Supreme Court to recognize the fundamental right of all Americans to marry.
Having been a supporter of equality for people of all sexual orientations for many decades, this year they are taking that support in store, creating a line of Pride-themed T-shirts, tanks and baseball caps. “Equality is not something we just wear; it’s woven into the fabrics of our principles,” the company says. Rolling out into select stores in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Washington, D.C., the profits will be going to Pride organizations in those areas.
To find out about Pride in London or to get involved, head to prideinlondon.org
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