Transgender artist and photographer Leon Mostovoy began documenting his community long before he transitioned from female to male ten years ago. It was only then that he began looking for a collaborative enterprise that would not only accurately represent what it’s like to be transgender, but also encourage positive body image in the process. Inspired by classic mix-and-match books for kids, Mostovoy developed the Transfigure Project as both a physical book and interactive website to help transgender individuals not only feel at ease, but empowered by their own bodies as well.
“I have always photographed my community and seen myself as a lens for the outside world to learn and explore people and communities other than themselves,” Mostovoy tells Creators. “I’m attached to the grittiness in life.”
Transfigure features the heads, torsos, and legs of 50 different transgender people. Subjects represent a variety of ethnicities, as well as a range of body sizes and age groups. Collectively, they highlight the diversity of the trans community itself, representing everyone from those waiting to have sex reassignment surgery, to those who have completed it. There are also individuals who are not having SRS but are on hormones, as well as those who aren’t on hormones at all.
“The imagery portrays the complexity of gender and bodies and the ways in which these combinations may be surprising,” Leon explains on the Transfigure Project website. “In representing gender variant people/bodies, my intent is to illustrate that gender, sex, sexuality, presentation, and attraction are separate and, though they may intermingle at times, society/people should not assume that we are constrained by predictable versions of these variables.” Read More.
