Becoming Visible - portraits of homeless trans teens

New York’s fastest growing homeless youth population consists of a surprising subset – trans-gendered teenagers. Many of them have fled their homes due to hostility, rejection and/or violence. Drawn to New York City through the lure and lore of the Internet, these trans-kids arrive, expecting to find acceptance and support. Often, things do not work out that way. Left with little choice, these cast-offs find themselves turning tricks, taking drugs and engaging in high risk sexual behavior while their dreams of connection, advancement and assimilation are quickly dashed.

Knowing that the human condition encompasses the experience of being human in social, cultural and personal contexts, these trans kids are left with a genuine inability to fully know themselves as they are literally erased from the larger social and cultural landscape.

With this lack of cultural presence in mind, I set out to make a series of large cyanotypes. I ultimately made 40 unique portraits that I captured over the course of eighteen months in a temporary studio that I set up on the fourth floor of a shelter for kicked out LGBT youth in midtown Manhattan called Sylvia’s place. The images were captured on medium format black and white film and enlarged in the darkroom to 16 x 20’ negatives that I contact printed onto 20 x 24” water color paper hand coated with cyanotype emulsion. Trying to capture their lives in all its complexity - despair, perseverance, survival and yes, joy and triumph.

The series was given a show at Robert Miller Gallery in April and May of this year. And to see the faces of many of my subjects as they saw themselves loving depicted on the walls of such a prestigious gallery was the highlight of my nascent photographic career. And to be able to donate a portion of the sales made it feel useful and especially pertinent. And inspired me to continue this work.