By Cheryl Zupan
CommonLang Book Cover:
Pictured is "The Gender Frontier," a book of photographs and writing by Mariette Pathy Allen, with essays by Grady Turner, Riki Wilchins, Jamison Green, and Milton Diamond, in English and German. The book is available at Common Language Bookstore in Ann Arbor.
CommonLang:
Mariette Pathy Allen, center, visited Common Language in Ann Arbor March 23 for a reading and signing of "The Gender Frontier." She is shown with storeowners, Martin Contreras, left, and Keith Orr, right. Photo by Cheryl Zupan.
ANN ARBOR – Photojournalist Mariette Pathy Allen is an artist on a mission. Her latest published work, "The Gender Frontier," gives readers a compassionate glimpse into the world of the transgender community.
Allen visited Common Language in Ann Arbor March 23 for a reading and signing of "The Gender Frontier." The LGBT bookstore was packed with those interested in meeting the nationally known advocate of the transgender community.
Allen's compelling photos and text fill 168 pages of this latest effort, along with essays, poems, and stories by Riki Wilchins, Jamison Green and other transgender activists.
"Being a photographer is such an intimate type of work," said Allen. "So often, I've said, 'I must get this kind of picture.' Invariably, that is not what I end up photographing."
The book addresses both female-to-male and male-to-female gender transformations, with attention, as well, to adolescent and college-age members of the movement.
"What I wanted to show was my experience with members of this community living full lives," she said. "This book represents the last decade of the trans community from my perspective. The last decade has shown a coming together of the male-to-female and the female-to-male communities," said Allen.
"The other thing that happened in the 90s is the intersex movement and the trans youth movement. Today, anybody can make his or her own category," she said.
"The Gender Frontier" presents a diverse mix transgender people: activists, students, parents, children, a sheriff, a skydiver, a scientist, and more. Subjects are pictured in their everyday lives, at work, at home, socializing, and as political activists.
Allen's journey into the lives of the transgender community began in 1978 in New Orleans during the Mardi Gras celebration. She explained that she had stayed in the same hotel as a group of cross dressers who invited her to join them for breakfast. Allen said she ended up taking a photo of the group.
"I was moved by the experience of looking into the eyes of one of the people in the group and feeling that I was looking at the essence of a human being rather than a man or a woman," she said. From 1978 through the 1980s, Allen photographed and interviewed male-to-female cross dressers. In 1990, she published "Transformations: Crossdressers and Those Who Love Them."
In the 1990s, Allen's work began to include female-to-males and male-to-females. In 1998, she worked on a film for A&E, "The Transgender Revolution," a landmark documentary that showed trans political issues, along with personal stories.
In the introduction of "The Gender Frontiers," Allen wrote, "When I show my work to people outside the transgender community they want me to define the categories, to explain who is what, and how their bodies work. But what interests me are questions such as: 'How would you react to this image if I told you it is a man or a woman?' 'What does that do to your definition of yourself?' and 'Does your identity change when your partner changes?'"
Allen, a widow with two grown daughters, has lectured on the topic of gender issues at Harvard, Smith, and others. Her photography is in the permanent collections of Corcoran Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.
