‘Trans New York’ Features Authentic Transgender Stories and Diversity
If you’re looking for an interesting coffee table book, you may want to consider picking up award-winning photographer and filmmaker Peter Bussian’s book, Trans New York: Photos and Stories of Transgender New Yorkers. The photography book celebrates the Transgender community, featuring 50 locals who identify as trans, genderqueer, or gender nonbinary.
Bussian’s book – receiving an honorable mention from the International Photography Awards (IPA) – includes visually stunning portraits alongside thought-provoking interviews that reveal who the Trans individuals are, provide details about their transitions, and offer insight on how each person combats common misconceptions and stereotypes.
When asked what he hoped readers would gain from Trans New York, Bussian said, “Trans people need to be respected even if [who they are is] not understood and that they are just like everyone else. Also that most of them have overcome great challenges to actualize who they are, and we all can learn from that.”
Bussian has spent more than 20 years working in developing countries for organizations such as the United Nations, the United States Agency for International Development, the Department for International Development (UK), and non-governmental agencies. His photographs have been published by the New York Times, Condé Nast Traveler, O, The Oprah Magazine, Paris Match, El Palacio, and elsewhere, and exhibited in domestic and international galleries.
One of the featured contributors, Grace Detrevarah, is the LGBT liaison and reentry/health educator at the Osborne Association, an organization that provides services for individuals, families, and communities affected by the criminal justice system. As a Black transgender woman, she believes readers’ actions should go further than acknowledging that it is an excellent book.
“As one goes forth in their lives, they should make time to administer empathy, kindness, and understanding, after reading Trans New York,” said Detrevarah. “We aren’t a tragic story, and we are employable, family orientated, humorous – human. Readers should recognize the humaneness in the stories and photos.”
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In addition to Detrevarah, other featured Trans New Yorkers include Jordan Rubenstein, a digital marketer; Pooya Mohseni, an actor, writer, filmmaker, and healer; Preston Allen, a musical theater writer; Renata Ramos, an actor; Sebastian Flowers, a business owner and entrepreneur; and Simon Chartrand, a former Ph.D. student in French medieval literature and current LGBT activist.
The book also includes inspiring longer essays and trans activist Abby Chava Stein provides the foreword. The vibrant, honest photographs were taken on the streets of New York or in iconic places like Grand Central Station, and together the photos and interviews provoke questions on gender identity, the gender spectrum, and gender expectations. It’s the articulation of the expressions of sexuality, gender, and self that New York, in all of its beauty, honesty, and compassion, welcomes, as well as a celebration of the power of finding oneself and a compelling call for respect and acceptance.
Click here for more information and to purchase your hardcover copy of Trans New York.
