loading image
“I always knew I was trans, and I always knew that I was femme. On the gender spectrum, I am much closer to female. I didn't start taking estrogen, or as I call them, “lady vitamins,” until I was in my late forties. Part of the reason I did that was so I would have a physical and medical record of being trans. So many older LGBT people, when they become ill or if they start to deteriorate mentally and aren't able to articulate things as well, end up involuntarily, just by the assumptions of the people who care for them, being relegated back into the closet. My fear was that I would become incapacitated in some way and then be stuck in a room full of old men and I never, ever want to be an old man. That is not my jam.“ Justin Vivian, 54, New York, NY, 2017 Representations of older transgender people are nearly absent from our culture and those that do exist are often one-dimensional. For over five years (2013–2018), photographer Jess T. Dugan and social worker Vanessa Fabbre traveled throughout the United States creating “To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults.” Each portrait in “To Survive on this Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults” by Jess T. Dugan and Vanessa Fabbre includes a powerful interview with each of the featured individuals. See “To Survive on this Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults” on display in the Ruth Kadish Gallery located in the post-security connector between Terminal 2 and Terminal 3 and online at: http://bit.ly/436W6tV
This image was posted on April 11, 2023.