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NOT Straight
These glorious people of all ages and colors from all over the US have only one thing in common: They do not identify as straight.
Thes photos are among more than 9 000 documenting the variety, beauty and truth of queer people: Photographer iO Tillett Wright has travelled to every one of the 50 states as part of the project Self Evident Truths.
Jamie and Carla: A Transgender Family
Jaime (left photo) is a salon owner, stylist from Elizabethton, TN. Carla is a software developer and small business owner. They both identify as male to female transsexual.
Growing up Carla was trying to be the all American boy, enlisting in the Air Force being discharged 18 months later when they found she had "gender issues”. Before her transition, she was in what she describes as “a nine year loveless marriage”. A suicide attempt turned her life completely upside down.
“I met Jaime at a support group meeting in 1999. We both fell in love with each other instantly, but kept it to ourselves for years,” Carla tells.
Jamie married her boyfriend, and Carla was heartbroken. But soon they expressed their feelings for one another:
“The term "soulmate" is an inadequate description of our bond with one another,” Carla says.
In 2004 they bought a home together, and soon Carla’s daughter and son came to live with them. The children are now grown and on their own, and Jamie and Carla have one granddaughter and a grandson on the way.
The story of Jamie and Carla is part of the project Self Evident Truths, where photographer iO Tillett Wright has set out to photograph 10 000 people who identify as some kind of not straight. The project has published over 9 000 photos to date, from all 50 American states.
And then it occurred to me, perhaps if they could look into the eyes of the people that they were casting into second-class citizenship it might make it harder for them to do. It might give them pause. Obviously I couldn't get 20 million people to the same dinner party, so I figured out a way where I could introduce them to each other photographically without any artifice, without any lighting, or without any manipulation of any kind on my part. Because in a photograph you can examine a lion's whiskers without the fear of him ripping your face off.
iO Tillet Wright
Lesbies: Videos
Self Evident Truths
I grew up in a very sheltered environment. I was raised in downtown Manhattan in the early 1980s, two blocks from the epicenter of punk music. I was shielded from the pains of bigotry and the social restrictions of a religiously-based upbringing.
Io Tillet Wright
iO Tillett Wright
Artist / Photographer / Activist
Interview November 9, 2015
What is Self Evident Truths? How has the LGBTQ landscape changed/evolved since you began the project?
Self Evident Truths is a photographic document of 10,000 people who are anywhere on the LGBTQ+ spectrum, in all 50 US states. When I have 10,000 portraits, I’m going to take those 10,000 portraits to the Washington Monument on the National Mall and lay them all out and stage a march in Washington. The goal of the project is to humanize the community that is actively discriminated against legally and socially. When I first started the project, I didn’t know what it was going to be. It went from a concept to ‘I should shoot 3 or 4 thousand people,’ and then it became ‘I should shoot 10K people and I’m going to do it in all 50 states, otherwise it’s not going to be inclusive enough.’ I started it because of Prop 8. I was so outraged and uncomfortable with the reality, that we could discriminate against someone so wholly in this country. Prop 8 meant that we didn’t have marriage at all, period. Anywhere. Now we have federal marriage and federal job protection for LGBT employees. We have trans* people on the cover of the Times and on 60 Minutes. We have Bruce Jenner on the cover of tabloids, and just this past weekend we had a Sunday New York Times piece about gender-neutral bathrooms.
My whole perspective on activism: I am not a lawyer, so I don’t come at things from the angle of change through the legal system. I try to change things within public perception because I’m aware of the power of judgement on other human beings. If the first obstacle is coming out, how do we foster the safest environment for kids to be themselves, so they don’t get bullied or ostracized from their families—or in worse cases—tortured?
On a broader social level, I think that the best thing that has happened to the LGBT visibility fight is Ellen. Now, when kids come out to their mom, their mom goes ‘Oh, well I do love Ellen’. If you have a touchstone and a point of reference for someone that is familiar to you and is not freakish, is not dangerous, and is not a pedophile, then you have a point of reference for what it means when a child or friend comes out. My side of activism is trying to increase visibility to create familiarity, which then creates empathy and kindness.
With 9,563 Self Evident Truth portraits shot through 47 states, did you notice any differences in the communities across regions?
The stereotypes exist for a reason. The first time we shot in LA, people were like: ‘I don’t wanna participate because I didn’t do my makeup today.’ And MTV and all that bullshit. All the stereotypes are real, but at the same time there is a universal family based around a common experience. It’s safer to come out as gay—though being trans* has a completely different set of risks. But as more people come out, they’re revealing the diversity of the LGBT community.
My goal with Self Evident Truths was to show that we come in every shape, size, color, social strata, income level and profession. That’s the point—that we don’t all look like any one thing. Between the ages of 6 to 14, you decided you wanted to be a boy. How do you think that experience changed your perspective of the world? How would you define the feminine and masculine perspective? I’ve written a book about my relationship with my mom, growing up in New York and living as a boy for 8 years. I talk about how my parents, for everything that they got wrong—I was living in starvation several times, we were broke and without electricity—accepted me for who I said that I was. That afforded me the spine and backbone to survive anything.The thing that I think a lot of parents get wrong is focusing on practical things, but overlooking the importance of who a child says that they are. People assume a child doesn’t know, but gender is such a deeply personal and real thing. My parents got that right, and that allows me to now have the wherewithal to have something to say to people.
My experience defining the feminine and masculine perspective continues. I would say I’m somewhere on the trans* spectrum. I don’t know where and I don’t know how that will progress for me in the years to come. I don’t know what my gender reality is. I think if you asked me on a gender spectrum I’m probably 70% man and 30% woman. At the same time the thing that I identify as feminine within me is emotional. I would say that I have a feminine mental sensitivity or mental perspective. My emotionality is very much what I associate with being feminine.
My gender expression has been influenced by the fact that I was never raised being told what a woman or a man is supposed to look like. I was always told to do whatever felt truest to myself. I’m very happy with this hybrid of things and the fact I get to wear men’s clothes because that’s what feels right to me. I feel so much sympathy and pain for people who are forced into something that doesn’t feel right for them. I do think that there are people who are very binary in their gender expression and the way that they live their gender—macho men and effeminate women. I don’t think that women need to look like men or need to dress masculine to be strong. I think that the expectation of what a woman is cannot yet be formed because women are still not yet free. It’s such a complicated thing. I think that any suspect—is this aspect?—of humanity that has been demeaned or denied the way that women (or anyone other than straight white men) have deserves to be given a chance for free expression.
What’s your advice to young people?
The great tragedies in your lives are going to be the things that define you.
Fifty Shades of Gay TED Talk
https://www.ted.com/talks/io_tillett_wright_fifty_shades_of_gay?language=en
Artist iO Tillett Wright has photographed 2,000 people who consider themselves somewhere on the LGBTQ spectrum and asked many of them: Can you assign a percentage to how gay or straight you are? Most people, it turns out, consider themselves to exist in the gray areas of sexuality, not 100% gay or straight. Which presents a real problem when it comes to discrimination: Where do you draw the line?
I highly recommend this TED Talk for everyone.
