Mariette Pathy Allen

Mariette Pathy Allen has been photographing the transgender community for over 40 years. Through her artistic practice, she has been a pioneering force in gender consciousness, contributing to numerous cultural and academic publications about gender variance and lecturing throughout the globe. Her first book "Transformations: Crossdressers and Those Who Love Them" was groundbreaking in its investigation of a misunderstood community. Her second book "The Gender Frontier" is a collection of photographs, interviews, and essays covering political activism, youth, and the range of people that identify as transgender in mainland USA. It won the 2004 Lambda Literary Award in the Transgender/Genderqueer category. Daylight books has published Mariette’s books, “TransCuba” in 2014, and her new book "Transcendents: Spirit Mediums in Burma and Thailand" in 2017. They are both available on Amazon or Daylight.

Mariette’s life’s work is being archived by Duke University's Rare Book and Manuscripts Library, and the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's Studies. In addition to her work with gender, Mariette’s background as a painter frequently leads her to photographic investigations of color, space, and cultural juxtapositions such as east/west, old/new, handmade/manufactured.

Mariette is represented by ClampArt in New York City. 

© Mariette Pathy Allen

Interview by Kelsey Sucena

Over forty years before Time magazine famously declared 2014 the “Transgender Tipping Point”, Mariette Pathy Allen began photographing the trans* community. Through this practice she has been a pioneering force in helping to shape contemporary notions around gender identity and representation. Both her photographs and her recounting of their production as far back as 1978 offer a rare glimpse into the lives of people we know today as trans*, queer and/or gender nonconforming. A new exhibition of work from her trailblazing project “Transformations” opens on Thursday, February 25th at ClampArt in New York.

Throughout her career Mariette Pathy Allen has worked to help elevate the voices of artists within the trans* community. In 2019, in collaboration with Queer|Art and two transgender artists, she launched the Illuminations Grant for Black Transwomen Visual Artists. As a trans* artist myself, I was incredibly moved by her images when I first encountered them years ago. Their gentle, formally beautiful, and non sensationalized aesthetic felt revelatory to me as I struggled to come out of the closet. Today I feel so incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to chat with her for Float Photo Magazine.

Could you share with us a bit about how you first found yourself photographing Trans* people?

My direct connection with gender identity issues began in New Orleans in 1978, when by a marvelous fluke, my husband and I stayed at the same hotel in the French Quarter as a group of crossdressers. On the last day of Mardi Gras, when I came down for breakfast, I saw some amazing people. It was noon and they were sitting at a table, in ball gowns and heels, wearing wigs and make-up. When they saw that I was alone, (my husband, dressed as a jester, went out earlier), they invited me to join them for breakfast. After breakfast, we walked outside to a swimming pool, where they started parading around. After a while, they lined up on the opposite side of the pool. Someone from the group started taking photographs of them, so I wondered if it would be okay for me to take pictures too.

As I lifted the camera to my eyes, and looked through the lens, I saw someone in the middle of the group looking straight back at me, and I had an epiphany. I felt I wasn’t looking into the eyes of a man or a woman but at the essence of a human being, a soul. I said to myself as I took that picture, “I have to have this person in my life.” It turned out that, in fact, that person lived 20 blocks away from me in New York City, and Vicky West and I became friends.

Vicky invited me to parties, clubs, and other events she enjoyed, including “Fantasia Fair”, the longest running annual transgender gathering in the United States. Shortly thereafter, I became its “official photographer”, and discovered a whole community of people, mostly hidden from mainstream society. In 1989, E.P. Dutton, Inc. published my book, “Transformations: Crossdressers and Those Who Love Them”, which was the first depiction in print of crossdressers as family members, workers, in daylight, as Americans living their daily lives.

It was through that one person that I got to experience the transgender community from 1978 and all the way forward. It was just this one moment that made it all possible. I actually have that picture of the exact moment when my life changed.

© Mariette Pathy Allen, Alison, in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

© Mariette Pathy Allen, Jane, Provincetown, MA

What was your first encounter with the Trans* community like, and how did it affect you or your thinking?

 The sudden dropping away of the binary gave me an intense feeling of liberation and exhilaration; an immediate sense of the naturalness of seeing sex and gender as a continuum.
In my portraits, I was able to hold up a mirror reflecting a crossdresser in a positive light, effectively changing the way my subject felt about his/herself and the way they were perceived by the outside world.

 At the time, I didn’t know anything about gender variance.I didn’t have a word for it at the time, and I hadn’t seen people who looked like them before. I just thought, these are amazing-looking people, and I was full of excitement and curiosity.

How did you decide to approach the subject, and were there any conceptual or technical considerations which you brought with you when you did?

I figured out how to make crossdressers comfortable, how to make them take up space in more interesting ways, how to help them connect with the femininity they felt inside. I was always trying to make it playful and fun, but often it was a very moving experience for me and for them. Most had never been photographed before by someone who accepted, appreciated, and encouraged them in being their femme selves.

I have always been fascinated by how people live their lives, so I try to create an environment where people are comfortable enough to reveal their essence. I look for details, for beauty. What is the light doing on this face? What is the shape they’re sitting in? What emotion comes through, based on these details? What environment feels right, or how does the environment relate to this person?

© Mariette Pathy Allen, Carrie, getting ready for the “Drag Ball”, Harlem, NYC

© Mariette Pathy Allen, A participant at “ Wigstock,” an annual festival in NYC

Did you feel any reservation or hesitation before you began this work?

As I discovered that I had a place in this hidden world, I became convinced that I had to do what I was doing, that I could make a difference both for the people I photographed, and for those who knew nothing about gender variant people beyond the usual prejudices. I was determined then and now.

People thought I was making sacrifices photographing a subject that was of little interest to most of the world. Gallery owners and publishers felt that this subject matter wouldn’t sell. I heard all of that, and it saddened me but I continued to be convinced that what I was doing was really important. I am happy that what I've done has made a difference in people's lives.

Your photographs always feel incredibly gentle, compassionate, and intimate in ways which run in contrast to the more sensationalized vision of Trans* people which has been prevalent in popular media, and especially within media that was produced around the same time as when you began this project. You seem to take great care of your subjects, working with them to produce images which are surprising,  complex and full of humanity.

What were the most common (though potentially inaccurate) perceptions of Trans* people at the time when you began this work?

When I first started, I learned that crossdressers grew up feeling very bad about themselves. Many thought they were the only ones in the world who felt the way they did. Some thought they were insane. Many were ashamed of themselves or terrified of being discovered. They kept their secret from their spouses, children, and other family members. In the media, gender variant people were depicted as freaks, evil, dangerous, or crazy people. They were usually photographed alone, mostly at night, always depicted as the “other”, never as acceptable, loveable people. A lot of media coverage focused on shock value and they enjoyed outing gender non-conformists.

I discovered, pretty early on, that I could make a difference in the lives of crossdressers and their families through photography. It could actually help a lot of people. This realization gave me a new sense of purpose, and a lot of joy. I always wanted to show them in the daylight of everyday life, to make them feel relatable.

© Mariette Pathy Allen, Laura at Home, Havana

© Mariette Pathy Allen, Nomi, with her boyfriend, Jordy. Havana, Cuba, 2018

When you began this work, did you set out to actively challenge the prevalent norms in how culture depicts Trans* people, or do you feel that your visual language emerged more organically from your own subjective view of the people you collaborated with?

When I started doing portraits of transgender people, no one was doing it the way I did. I had to figure out how to do it, so that I could make photographs that amazed and reassured my subjects and satisfied me. While I initially began documenting people who identified as crossdressers, my work expanded to include the enormous range of people who identify as gender non-conformists. Now people express themselves as gender queer, gender fluid, intersex, non-binary, and other terms under the umbrella of “transgender”—it’s a long alphabet.

How did audiences react to the images you were making, and has that reaction changed at all over time?

In 1989, when my first book was released, it was received with joy and relief by the trans community. This was the book that they had been looking for when they were growing up. “Transformations” was the book that many people used to tell their family and friends who they were. I’ve been told that it saved marriages, and saved lives.

My art got very little respect for this work for a long time. Galleries thought the subject too limited, and I think they didn’t find the pictures very exciting because my images de-sensationalized the subject matter. I have never thought that gender variance was a narrow subject. I think it refers to all of us, at any time. The questions about identity may seem to be simpler for those of us who are cisgender, but as time goes on and rigid gender roles continue to loosen, we might all be dealing pretty equally with those little internal voices that say to us “who are you, anyway?”

Have you ever thought about your photography as activism?

 I see myself as an artist first but am so happy that I found a place where I could make a difference in the lives of many people. I am lucky to be able to collaborate and give a voice to people who have been hidden for so long, and have been bullied by the society in which they live. I appreciate having been part of a movement that will lead the way out of strict and limiting binary roles to the joy of being able to express oneself in the way that feels right.

I’ve been privileged to be in a position in which I could watch and participate, make art and create change. All this and have an ever-expanding and changing family of friends.

© Mariette Pathy Allen, Gwen and her mother, Wisconsin

© Mariette Pathy Allen, Maxine, Ariadne Kane and Virginia Prince, at church, Provincetown, MA

In the time since you began photographing, have you noticed any changing perceptions around gender identity? And have changing perceptions affected the way you approach your own work?

From 1978 to the publication of “Transformations," in 1989, my main focus was on male-to-female crossdressers and their relationships. These were the first people I got to know, their events were the ones I attended. I felt this was the least understood and most maligned part of the community.

In the early ’90s, the transgender community started to become more politically active and

my focus was on  the evolution of the movement. As transgender people started to believe in their value and dignity, they are less willing to remain at the mercy of medical, legal, and political authorities. Along with the desire to take charge of their lives, they have become more self-accepting, more open to collaborating with other variations of the LGBT community.

Since the ‘90s, I’ve expanded my work to include people who live full-time in the gender in which they identify: male-to-female or female-to-male transgender people, transgender or genderqueer youth, intersex people, people undergoing facial and/or anatomical surgery, political and social activists, and people in family and relationship variations and innovations.

Eventually my work evolved to show a range of emotion and over time, as trans people have become more visible. I have found the need for my work has decreased. People are more out in the world, less afraid, more politicized and less focused on am I an acceptable human being in the world? In the process of feeling more self-assured, the issue of appearance remains, and people still wonder; “Do I look good? How does this dress, or suit  look? Is my makeup or my tie right?” Many  of those who can afford it, take charge of their appearance and have surgeries.

I continue to be fascinated by the evolution of the movement. I think people are at the stage where we can really ask ourselves, what does it mean to identify as a man or a woman, or as both, or neither? I believe that gender nonconforming people have a lot to teach us.

© Mariette Pathy Allen, Spirit Medium in Burma

© Mariette Pathy Allen, Spirit Mediums at a festival honoring the Spirits, Near Mandalay, Burma, 2016

As a cisgender woman, has your work with Trans* women, Trans* men or other gender-non-conforming folk informed the way you construct your own gendered identity? Have your subjects had an impact on you and your thinking?

I’ve always been puzzled by society’s rules. How, when, and why did our culture decide that women are supposed to be one way, and men another? It always struck me as odd. I had the great good luck to study anthropology in high school and college I was so relieved when I realized: “Wait a minute, those are just our culture’s interpretations! There are many other ways of living, and many other interpretations of what it means to be human.” When I met those people in New Orleans, I came into direct contact with a different way of experiencing gender. I was excited by the flexibility and playfulness around gender, by seeing typical gender roles dissolve in front of my eyes! It felt like escaping the prison of rules.

Do you feel like your work is a collaborative process? How do you work with your subjects to make a photograph?

Many crossdressers  had  typically masculine jobs such as police officers, truck drivers, engineers,  in the military, even CEOs. When somebody would pose, it would be like standing for a passport picture, totally symmetrical. So, one of the things that I worked on was movement. I would try to help them figure out what kind of woman they wanted to be, and encourage them to act as that person. I was trying to reach the essence of a person. In my photographs not everyone looks at peace, but I think they do look true to themselves.

At one of the early Fantasia Fairs I met a lovely crossdresser named Valerie. One cool, sunny afternoon we went out into the dunes near Provincetown, Massachusetts, so that I could do a “fashion shoot” with her. She brought sexy, glamor clothes, dangling earrings, lingerie, high heels, a slinky black dress, and a fur jacket. We played out there for a long time creating all kinds of runway fantasies. Time passed and it got colder. Standing in the warm glow of the sunset, trembling with cold, Valerie grabbed her fur jacket. She seemed to be hugging it, leaning her face into it as if she were a little girl holding on to her teddy bear. In that moment she let go of the grown-up, glamorous facade she was trying to create, and accepted her vulnerability. This photograph captured a part of her that she had never been able to reveal. I felt blessed to have been part of some sort of re-birth: that image marks one of my happiest days as a photographer.

Thank you so much Mariette. I just wanted to express once again my thanks for your continued work around Trans* representation, both in the sense that you have spent decades photographing Trans* people in a meaningful and compassionate light, and in your efforts to uplift the voices of Trans* artists through programs like the Illumination Grant. Thank you so much for your time. We here at Float are immensely grateful to you for it.

© Mariette Pathy Allen, Valerie, on the dunes, Provincetown, MA