In a new book and exhibition, Jess T Dugan has taken portraits of trans and gender nonconforming people across the US, recording their stories

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon when Detroit-based Bobbi turned to her boyfriend Frank and said: “Oh, I got something to tell you.”

Bobbi told Frank that she was transgender.

“He said: ‘You’re better than any woman I’ve ever met,” recalled Bobbi. “He said: ‘Now, come on Bobbi, we can drop that.’ He didn’t care a damn.”

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It’s the story behind just one of 86 transgender portraits taken by St Louis-based photographer Jess T Dugan, released in a new photo book entitled To Survive on This Shore.

The book coincides with an exhibition opening at projects+gallery in St Louis on 13 September, featuring 22 selected portraits of trans people between the ages of 50 and 90, which were taken over the past five years.

It all began in 2012, when Dugan took a cross-country road trip with her partner Vanessa Fabbre, a social worker, who carried out interviews with every person photographed. “We started with 25 portraits, people we knew,” said Dugan. “We built a website and over 100 people reached out.”

The first portrait in the series is a photo of Grace Sterling Stowell, the executive director of the Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth, who sits in an armchair wearing pearls, specs and a purple cardigan.

As Sterling Stowell says in the book, she has seen huge change in the trans community over the past five decades. “In the 1960s, they called me a sissy; in the 1970s, they called me a faggot; in the 1980s, I was a queen; in the 1990s, I was transgender and in the 2000s, I was a woman,” she said. “Now, I’m just Grace.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Louis, 54, Springfield, MA, 2014 from To Survive on This Shore. Photograph: Image courtesy of projects+gallery and Jess T. Dugan.

There is also a portrait of a Williamsburg-based woman named Michelle-Marie, 62, who shares a story about talking to her therapist, who asked: “What kind of a woman do you want to be after you transition?”

Michelle-Marie replied: “I don’t have to think about that, I’ve always been that woman.”

Another portrait shows Charley, 53, from Charlottesville, who had a tough time being accepted by his family. “The hardest part was, and still is, trying to get my family to accept,” said Charley. “They still use the female pronouns and I don’t think I’ll ever get them to that point. But I’ve got to realize that they’re on their own path, whatever path they’re on, and I’m on mine.”

The goal for Dugan and Fabbre is to shed light on an overlooked and underrepresented group of people. “People don’t usually see images of transgender people, or they don’t imagine what they look like later in life,” said Fabbre. “There are few gender representations of older people in the trans and gender nonconforming community, so that was one motivation; we wanted to create that for younger trans people.”

The duo went off the beaten path, traveling from coast to coast, from Boston to Birmingham, Los Angeles to Arkansas, documenting the lives of trans people living across America. It was partly to reveal how underrepresented this group really was.

“We also wanted to record the history, many people we photographed and interviewed had done significant activism and had helped us for where we are today,” said Dugan. “Many of these people came out prior to the internet, but their stories have not been told.”

The duo wanted to go beyond the more mainstream representations of trans, like Caitlin Jenner or the Emmy-winning show Transparent. “They have their benefits, but we wanted to focus on a trans experience outside of a celebrity culture or a Hollywood representation,” said Dugan. “We wanted to look at everyday people and how they’re living their lives.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Justin Vivian, 54, New York, NY, 2017 from To Survive on This Shore. Photograph: Image courtesy of projects+gallery and Jess T. Dugan.

The book features a compelling portrait of Justin Vivian Bond, an award-winning New York actor photographed at the age of 54, and Los Angeles-based personality Duchess Milan, photographed at 69, which Dugan defines as “self-possessed and strong”.

Fabbre has done extensive research on the LGBT community and ageing, and recognizes the current moment we’re in. “Right now, we’re in a ‘trans moment’, but people have been doing this for decades,” she said. “I wanted to break stereotypes of older people as being rigid or too binary, and it’s not only about individuals, but the world we live in and how this world responds to gender, for better or for worse.”

The book cover features a portrait of 70-year-old woman named Gloria wearing a fur coat in Chicago, a central figure to the LGBT community for running a Charm School.

“Gloria has mentored and taught primarily trans women of color how to be a lady,” said Dugan. “She is much beloved by everyone there and is a legend, in some ways.”

In another photo, Dugan recalls an “aha moment” while in rural Arkansas doing a shoot with a man named John, who received support from his family “as a small-town person”, said Dugan. “It was such a profoundly moving story.”

Some of the interviews tap into how complicated ageing is with the healthcare system in America. “If you’re talking about healthcare for people as they age, you’re also talking about financial stability and employment, and discrimination, that’s still a struggle,” said Fabbre. “We’ve made some advances thanks to trans advocacy and some policies have changed.”

The struggle continues, though, and the book’s title is a line from an Ani DiFranco song called Talk to Me Now from 1990. “A lot of trans communities are focusing on survival, trying to find housing and employment, it could be read in that way,” said Dugan. “But it’s also arriving at your authentic self after a journey.”