WHEN PHOTOGRAPHY IS THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS TRANSITIONING

By Amy McNeilage

When Parker Blain began photographing young transgender men a year ago, the project was as much about his story as theirs.

Parker, who was then known as Prudence, had long been uncomfortable in his body.

Yet, the prospect of transitioning, of taking hormones and changing his name, seemed like a distant fantasy, a journey, he assumed, for those far more courageous.

“Physically, I knew exactly what I wanted to look like,” the 24-year-old says. “But I never thought I could actually do it.”

That was before he started the Self Made Project, which became his first baby step into the transgender community.

As well as giving him a good reason to have coffee with other trans guys, Parker says the photography project was a subtle way to introduce “the idea of what trans meant” to his friends and family.

“My mum told me later that a light bulb went off in her head when I started shooting Self Made.”

While meeting other trans guys his age opened his eyes to the possibilities of physical transformation, it also made him envious, and intensified his own discomfort. He felt alienated from both his friends, who were mostly women, and the trans men, who assumed he was a gay woman with whom they had very little in common.

“I felt really left out around them and like ‘I’m one of you but you don’t know that, and I don’t look like you’.”

Ironically, Parker has now put the transgender project on hiatus to work on something more pressing – his own transition. He received his fifth testosterone injection last week.

It is a decision Parker inevitably would have made despite Self Made, but one he thinks he would otherwise have come to many years later.

“I’m so glad I get to go through my 20s as Parker rather than being f–king miserable,” he says. “I can’t even think about if it was any later than now. I’d be suicidal for sure.”

It was June 4 when Parker told his friends he was transgender. Just two days earlier, Caitlyn Jenner made her spectacular debut on the cover of Vanity Fair. It is hard to overestimate the significance of headline-making moments like that on the lives of young trans people.

Just five years ago, Parker admits, transitioning would have been unthinkable. Most people, outside of LGBTI circles, were not even familiar with the term ‘transgender’.

But the past year has been tremendously memorable, not just for Parker, but for transgender people across the world. The critically acclaimed Transparent TV series brought the character of Maura Pfefferman into the homes of families in America and the world over; after winning her historic Emmy for her role in Orange is the New Black, Laverne Cox has continued to bust down walls all over Hollywood; And, of course, there was Caitlyn Jenner, who by virtue of her immense fame, has probably done more for trans visibility than anyone in history.

Of course, these are small steps and these are the stories of the privileged. But these stories matter.

 

“This issue is reaching so many people now. Since Caitlyn [Jenner] came out, the average American now knows what transgender means,” Parker says. “There is so much content online and so many videos on YouTube. Sure, it’s slow progress, but the past year or two have been huge.”

Transgender men and women have significantly poorer mental health and higher rates of suicide than other Australians. Trans people often face terrible discrimination, exclusion and, far too often, violence.

It is this harsh reality, Parker says, that compels him to continue telling his story, as well as the stories of others.

“Sometimes, I think ‘there are so many trans coming out stories, why does anyone care about mine?’ but then I have to remember that if I didn’t meet the guys and hear their stories it would have taken me a lot longer to come out. Who knows where I’d be?”

Amy McNeilage is the Deputy Editor of Daily Life. She was recently named the 2015 Walkley Young Journalist of the Year.