A visually stunning, landmark photography book of transgender New Yorkers, complete with thought-provoking and revealing interviews that honor the transgender community and the courage it takes to find oneself and defy societal norms.
A growing portion of the LGBTQ+ community identifies as transgender; they are fathers and mothers, sons and daughters; actors, writers, singers, and politicians; young, old, black, white, Latinx, and Asian; farmers, suburbanites, and New Yorkers. But trans people today face the same challenges that gay people faced in the 1980s, often forced to the periphery of society by prejudice and fear and subject to a lack of legal representation, workplace harassment, and insufficient healthcare. And while an increasing amount of people report that they personally know a transgender person, trans people still contend with the stigma, violence, and discrimination that accompanies a lack of representation and a lack of visibility.
After traveling the world as a documentary photographer, Peter Bussian returned home to New York City and decided to focus his lens on his transgender neighbors. He met with people who identify as trans, genderqueer, or gender nonbinary, and often their significant others, friends, or family members. His photos capture them on the streets of New York and at their favorite haunts. The result is intimate access to a population all-too-often underrepresented or misrepresented in popular media. In his stunning, expertly shot photos and accompanying interviews of fifty New Yorkers, we see the power of individuality, the raw and complex expressions of identity that New York City welcomes, and joyful, poignant journeys toward self-acceptance.
One of the first books of its kind and a visual tour de force, Trans New York gives rare and remarkable insights into the journey of transition, combats misconceptions and stereotypes, and celebrates the autonomous articulation of sexuality, gender, and self that New York, in all of its beauty, honesty, and compassion, welcomes.
Author Biography:
Peter Bussian is an award-winning documentary photographer, filmmaker, and creative consultant who has spent more than twenty 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 nongovernmental organizations. Since 2001, he has spent the equivalent of nearly five years in Afghanistan, traveling there over a fifteen-year period, and he has worked in other post-conflict countries in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa, often collaborating with local artists and media creators. His photographs have been published by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Cond Nast Traveler,O, The Oprah Magazine, Paris Match, El Palacio, and elsewhere, and exhibited in domestic and international galleries. Bussian has also created documentary films and written narrative screenplays. His photography book Passage to Afghanistan was published in 2016. Bussian spent most of his childhood in Colorado and has lived in New York City for the past twenty-five years.
Abby Stein is an educator, speaker, and trans activist. She was raised male in a Hasidic community in Brooklyn, New York, and her family is a direct descendent of Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidic Judaism. In her Hasidic community, she attended Yeshiva, completing a rabbinical degree in 2011. In 2012, she left the Hasidic world to explore different worldviews, and in 2015 she came out as a woman of trans experience. Since coming out, she's been working to raise awareness and support people going through a similar experience. Her story has been covered by the New York Times, New York Post, New York magazine, Jewish Daily Forward, Daily Mail, NBC, and many other outlets, and she's appeared on media such as Fox News, CNN, HuffPost Live, and ShowTime. She's also the author of Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman. In 2016 Stein was named by the Jewish Week as one of the "36 Under 36" young Jews who are affecting change in the world. She is currently a student at Columbia University, studying women's and gender studies and political science. She lives in New York, NY.
