The photos came first.
With Julia it was clear from the beginning that I had to photograph her.
Vice versa, it was also clear that she wanted to be photographed.
It confirmed her beauty – for all eternity!
Later the photos were a reassurance for her that she was still there; the photos were the
evidence: that she had lived and was still alive.
And in the end, they often enough seemed to be a reason or an excuse for someone to
come by and check on her: „When are we going to take photos again?“ was one of her
recurring questions.
Or was it the other way around?
Was I the one who needed reassurance we were still there?
It is a long story. – I’ll try to cut it short:
We’ve been around for quite a while.
At least since the sixties of the twentieth century, transsexuality has become
one of the most public secrets of Western societies. – Andy Warhol, for example,
writes in POPism, The Warhol 60‘s (Harvest, 1980):
„In the sixties, average types started having sex-identity problems, and some
people saw a lot of their own questions about themselves being acted out
by the drag queens. So then, naturally, people seemed to sort of want them
around – almost as if it made them feel better because then they could say to
themselves, ‚I may not know exactly what I am, but at least I know I‘m not a
drag queen.‘“ (aaO, p. 224)
Obviously, there is a strong need to look „behind the curtain“ and to catch a
glimpse of the ‚strange and mysterious world‘ of transsexuals. – Idiosyncrasy
and idealisation, lack of understanding and pity balance each other out.
But what unites the discourse on transsexuality in the past decades is the
fact that transsexuals have no voice in it.
It is likely that we can’t really change much about that.
But we have been here, and we want you to take note of that.
Johanna Jackie Baier
(September 2025)