T-Fags. by EL HARDWICK + Orion Isaacs
My first impression of this photo book, a meditation on trans masculinity, is how the images appear to cut through the noise of typical queer portrait photography and ignore the trauma porn and tokenistic looks of wanting to be accepted and understood.
The images we are presented with invite us into a different, more intimate world: a look at a subject matter taken from the perspective of itself. Here we see no objectified trans bodies. No desire to fit into a preconceived social norm or gender. Instead, we see a celebratory, often erotic and almost fantasy world of trans masc desires and sexual discovery.
Here we are happily still figuring out our own rules instead of trying to follow someone else's.
Portrait: AishaAs viewers, we see portraits that use raw, unapologetic self-desire as visual fuel, guiding us to feel what it might be like to be T‑fag, a reclaimed insult now embraced by swathes of the trans masc community.
Self-discovery and realising who you want to become or what makes you feel like yourself can be hard in a world that already has a set of rigid rules to play by. Even from within the trans community, acceptance can often still be a gift rather than a privilege, depending on your intersectionality.
"No fats, no femmes, no Asians," the book reminds us, was a standard bio status on Grindr less than a decade ago.
Portrait: SufiyanIf you know you are not 'that', it might not always mean you can immediately understand what you are or who you want to be. We all go through this in our lives, whether gender or sexuality related or not. So understanding the difference between performative gender and actually going through a journey of self-discovery can feel like a thin line.
Can this book help to explain that, or completely show you what that should feel like? Maybe not, because it's deeply personal. But by seeing others navigate it in their own way, maybe it can help it make a lot more sense.
As I finish the book, I think about how these moments seem so real and genuine. But knowing El's previous works, you understand there is a careful choice of setting that helps structure the NARRATIVE. So even though on one hand I know this isn’t just an idealised trans masc world, but instead we are looking at a BEAUTIFUL, perfectly constructed reality.
Portrait: Noah and Kenya“I’m a boy walking around with a pussy AND a dick. Masculinity is taking out your silicon dick and running after someone, shaking it!”NOAH.
Portrait: Jill
Portrait: DziejThe first time I was called a faggot was by a child on the road. I told two different friends: a cis woman who was like:
‘Oh, I’m so sorry’, and a gay cis man, who hi-fived me.”T-fags is AVAILABLE from Public KNOWLEDGE books £45