Ides of Gender: Part II
- PHOTOGRAPHY
- Jan 13
- 7 min read
Updated: Feb 22
By Zach Oren
Ides of Gender is a photo series celebrating everyone under the trans umbrella – binary and non-binary. Since 2017, I set out to document the rich diversity within the trans community and have had the privilege of photographing over 700 folx in all 49 continental US states, as well as Hawai’i, Puerto Rico, and Washington D.C.
There’s an obsession with trans bodies that society often feels entitled to – objectified and scrutinized to the point of physical harm. Being cisgender, I had a responsibility to photograph each person honestly and with utmost integrity. From the very beginning, the series has been a collaborative exercise in trust – trusting that a complete stranger will show up and share their authentic self. Extracting their own truth and facing my camera intimately, I never had to take anyone’s photograph. It was generously given to me.
Since moving to the US, my pursuit of community and self-expression has been constant. Being on the road working on Ides of Gender for the past eight years, ended up – unexpectedly – validating my own queerness and intersectionality. I see myself in all of these portraits. I hope you see your own journey mirrored back within these lives.
Representation matters. Visibility matters.
My father was gay. I grew up with gay men. It was also the 90s in Montana. It was really rough
here for people who were HIV positive or had AIDS. You couldn't get any funding. That part of
my life as a teenager, was full of gay men who taught me how to iron a shirt and tie a tie. Dudes
who knew me when I was really little, who used to drive me around in my car seat until I fell
asleep. And they're not here anymore. They're gone. In my dreams, I am like these men, I am the
person who has a beard. I am that person who teaches other people how to iron their shirts and
tie their ties.
Acton, 40
Missoula, Montana
The mission for me is to go through the sex reassignment surgeries and go back to Nepal. There
are no such surgeries in Nepal. It's not accessible.
Right now all I see from the world is very dark. I'm targeted, like slut-shaming. It all comes with
transphobic slurs or homophobic slurs. That's not me, that's them. I do roll down my tears a lot of
times. God bless them. If there's anybody who needs help, it's those people who shame me or
discriminate me. People do make a choice to be discriminatory. It's not like discrimination is an
innate nature. Even cats and dogs are friends.
I have an altruistic idea of how society functions. I grew up in a culture where you learn love and
compassion. If anything hurts you, it's a lack of compassion and love.
Sun-Rose, 24
Minneapolis, Minnesota
One of the primary drivers in why I want the vaginoplasty surgery, not to fetishize it or anything,
I simply want to be able to have intercourse with a guy in exactly the same way that any other
woman would. I really want that other piece of the pie essentially.
From the time I was a teenager, anytime I would read about porn, look at porn, I always
gravitated towards the female. What she was feeling, what she was experiencing , and I wanted
that. How I never connected the dots that I was trans, I don’t know. I want to be mounted, I want
to be penetrated and I want to be fucked! I don’t know if that’s classically what describes female
sexual-desire or experience.
What I just described makes me, not self-conscious, but concerns me that this is some kind of
twisted fetish or something. I don’t think that’s the case. I’m not trying to over-emphasize it, I’m
just trying to say, This is a major component of my experience and my desire.
Stephanie, 60
Kittery, Maine
I'm from Puerto Rico. My parents, they Christian and conservative. They adopted me, because
my blood mom, she dies when I three years old from AIDS. I born with HIV. I have pictures of
her, but I don't remember nothing because most of the time I was in the hospital. At the time it
was in the 90s and in the 90s medicine was a little rough. The first time they tell me I have HIV, I
eight years old. I don't take it seriously at the time, because I was so young and I no want to take
the medicine. That affects me, because resistance to my meds. Now I'm undetectable. My father
is the one who give AIDS to my mom. He dead four years, fell from the fourth floor. I never
meet him, I never had that relationship with him.
I was living with my sister in Elsmere in Delaware. After a month I start getting sick, everything
I eat I throw up, throwing up blood. I can't even move, it hurt tight. After that, my legs not
working and I can't walk. I don't know what's wrong. I was hospitalized, they told me I have
lymphoma cancer. I was in shock. I was hospitalized for three months, tubes in my throat,
because I can't breathe by myself. They tell me, 'You need chemo or you're not going to be
alive'. That paralyzed all my nerves. It's the worst, you lose your hair, everything you eat tastes
nasty. Burning pain in your body. Everything you eat, you throw up. It was rough, I was 90
pounds. I take chemo for three years.
For me it was impossible to transition when I got the chemo, I'm in a wheelchair, why I'm going
to be transitioning now? I was going to wait, but I said No, just do it. I was so excited when my
first hormones given to me. It was a special day. I went to the doctor, they was checking the
hormones not interfere with my other conditions. They told me they can give it to me. I change
my gender. I go to court to change the name. I was so nervous, because I never been to court. It
was good, they tell me I was approved. People no care, they just be nice with me. I don't have
discrimination, nobody give me trouble. Most of the time people help me, they ask me if I'm okay.
I'm a strong person, I don't give up that easy. I can be depressed, I can be down, but I don't give
up. I fight cancer, I fight HIV, I fight for everything.
Kendall, 30
Wilmington, Delaware
When I envision myself, I don't look like what I see in the mirror. I want to be more toned. More
weight. Bigger. I want to be strong. I may not know exactly who I am, but I'm comfortable not
knowing. So now my focus is just on figuring out.
When people will just assume that I'm transitioning to become a man, they're like, 'If you want
everyone to know you as a guy, why do you still paint your nails? Are you just going to abandon
the whole makeup thing?' I'm not abandoning anything. All of this is still a part of me.
Ziggy, 20
Jackson, Mississippi
My mom's not really in the picture. I didn't hear from her on my birthday, which just passed. I
don't know where she is. My father, I didn't have a pleasant experience with him when I came
out. He was very angry. He started telling me I wasn't suppose to be born this way. He called me
on the phone and started talking in a really deep voice, 'You wanna talk like this?' I was like,
'Sure, I'd love to.' I said, 'Don't talk to me again. If you want to come back and apologize in the
future, maybe we can have a conversation.'
We're totally good now. Now I can totally go home and smoke a joint with 'em and he calls me
his son. He even corrects my grandmother when she messes up, and she was the first one to call
me her grandson and call me Bradin.
I'm not there so I understand they're slower to catch up to pronouns, even though I'm seven years
on testosterone.
Bradin, 29
Austin, Texas
When Eric went to Las Vegas, I got my certification, then the next year I bought an airplane. It's
expensive to own a plane, that plane is still my baby. I think mostly that was an attempt, as he
was pulling back finding things to do by himself, I was trying to find things that we could do
together. As he kept pulling apart, I kept associating him with flying and aviation. My friends,
they're like, 'How do you have an airplane and not go fly it today? It’s a beautiful day!' I'm
trying to find my new reason to fly. My reason to fly was him. I'm steadily, slowly disassociating
him from that plane.
Amber, 46
McAlester, Oklahoma
I spent two years trying to find out what it was that I felt. Queer identifying as either, both or
neither, and the ability to move between those felt more right. One thing I had to learn is, I don't
owe anybody a performative femininity or masculinity. It just really is how I feel. My family is
Salvadorian and Ecuadorian. My siblings and family have all called me by male and female
pronouns since birth. Spanish is very gendered. I've always responded to both genders.
This place is a really dichotomous. Even though it's a very religious, closed-off place. The people
here rebel in their freedom. Hardcore. There's some very liberal people here, even though there's
some very conservative people here. As white as this place can be, there's so many intersectional
queer people of color. And we live proudly.
Utah is fucking interesting.
Adam, 30
West Jordan, Utah
Bio: Zach Oren is an immigrant, queer photographer based in LA. He is a self-taught artist and loves taking portraits in natural light, where documentary meets editorial. Using his own intersectionality – queer, poz, feminist, Middle Eastern – his intent and (literal) focus is to highlight the immense and diverse beauty in underrepresented voices that are too often overlooked. Zach’s portraits have been exhibited all over the US and shown in several publications. Follow Zach at www.zachoren.com or Instagram: @idesofgender
