Crossing The Line - Sara Davidmann

This is another of those books which celebrates one of the great diversities of trans, in this case of MTF transformations. Even in 2003, when the momentum for trans visibility was growing by the year, it was possible to review many differences in one space of understanding, and in this book Sara Davidmann gets to that space by concentrating on her medium, photography and the creation of images. Everybody here works with presentation and looks and appearances and signs and the making of identity, whether they are a drag queen or a social transvestite or, mainly here, a hybrid gender-soul. The diversity extends to the different relationships with the camera and the photographer, who writes in her introduction of the intensity of the friendships which she developed with some of the subjects of her shoots. Some are named, some not, some tell their story, some don’t, some only present as female, some offer up the process of their transformations, some stand frankly naked, some model themselves and their clothes with provocative posing. And the images have a cheerful and colourful inconsistency to match that diversity. It’s all about “the line” and what you feel about it. Trans, of course, can be about other things, like rights and the law and cultural difference, but this is a straightforward celebration, a finely-produced book which allows us to think about all the choices we make, choices which determine who we are and how others see us.