We have all grown up with cameras; we have boxes and boxes of old family photos of birthdays and vacations. The only time we bring that out is when we blackmail our siblings or to confuse our children (Why is great-grandma in that funny dress and in a horse and buggy?). For the transgender community old photographs (here and here) are a window into our past. The trans-community has always had a fascination with the camera, however, there was one major drawback… you needed to get the pictures developed! It was a brave soul who took their pictures to be developed at the corner drug store and have copies of their photographs pasted on the wall in the back of the store. The Polaroid camera was a step in the right direction, but it wasn’t until the advent of the digital camera that the revolution took place.
The digital camera has become a must have accessory for a trans-person. When I attend conferences, just about everyone has a camera out and they are taking pictures of themselves and their friends. I have to admit, that I am not immure, I have a whole file on my computer of pictures of me at conferences. I purposely bought a camera with a self-timer so that I could take a picture of me. Vain? Kind of, but you have to consider for many of us, it is an emotional charged occasion when we are going out into public or to a conference the first time and like anybody else we would like to recorded it. And like old family photo albums my photo album is sitting in a dusty corner of my computer and they never are looked at again.
However, like all technology, it does have its downside. I do not like the phones with digital cameras; I have had too many negative experiences with them. There have been many times when I was in restaurants and I see kids taking a photo of me and my friends that are being sent to their friends. I get a little tense when I see a flash from a camera in public and wonder who took a photo of whom. People were afraid of the camera phones being used in locker rooms, I’m afraid of my photos being plastered all over the internet. I am very careful of when and where I post photos of other trans-people on the web, but to many people they it is funny.
I think we (transgender people) are fascinated with cameras because the way we see and are seen are always evolving. To be exact, we are changing from images that are imposed on us to likenesses we find within ourselves.
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