Sligh, Clarissa T

Description

Wrongly Bodied relates the stories of Jake, a contemporary white male imprisoned in a woman's body, as he transitions from female to male, and Ellen Craft, a 19th century black slave woman who escapes to Philadelphia from Georgia by passing as a white male slave owner. Working as staff support at a small woman's college in Denton, Texas, and in the US Army reserves, Jake had been a female soldier in Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Sligh and Jake worked together over four years to document his journey. What results is a book of photographs and texts that take us inside what became a highly transformative journey for the photographed and the photographer. Premise: When Debra approached me about documenting her transition from female to male, from Debra to Jake, I felt confronted by several personal dilemmas. It was a world that was new to me. In my long career as an artist/photographer, I was always interested in social identity and the general human condition but did not want to be an advocate for any particular person or 'speak' for someone else. In addition to the world of transitioning from one gender to another being new to me, Debra, herself had many questions: As a woman she had to dissolve, disintegrate, disappear – what would the journey be like? What if she failed to complete her transition? What if she didn't like the person she was to become? Who would want to have such a person in their life? A...

Record Contributed By

College of Saint Benedict & Saint John's University