For transgender communities in America, the 1970s-80s was a key time for establishing grassroots activism. Many support organisations began to emerge, as well as protest marches across the country like the first National March in Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1979. But even though gender-non conforming identities were putting their lives on the line to fight for equality, among wider patriarchal society their plea for life went unheard. In 1980, for example, trans people were officially classed by the American Psychiatric Association as having ‘gender identity disorder.’

It was during this exact tumultuous era that American photographer Mariette Pathy Allen identified her camera as a powerful weapon for change. In 1978, she attended the New Orleans Mardi Gras where she met a group of male to female crossdressers and photographed them – an experience that would set the tone for her 40-year career creating deeply emotional and personal portraits of gender non conforming communities globally.

There are many markers that make Pathy Allen’s pre-internet era ephemera a powerful historical source for the progression of gender equality. Her close ties to her subjects affirms their authentic representation, while her pledge to photographing them in mundane settings (simply living life) illuminates the humanism at the heart of the battle at a time when these communities were largely stripped of their humanity. Each Pathy Allen photo is a plea for society to remember the lives at stake in the battle for gender-freedom. Her key works include her 1989 photobook, Transformations: Cross Dressers and Those Who Love Them, which is considered a landmark reference for gender-variant awareness, as well as her 1990s Gender Frontier.

“To depict them (my subjects) where they belong, in the daylight of daily life, rich in relationships with spouses, children, parents and friends is my tribute to their courage” – Mariette Pathy Allen

Perfectly describing her craft, Pathy Allen stated in the introduction to Transformations and that: “To depict them (my subjects) where they belong, in the daylight of daily life, rich in relationships with spouses, children, parents, and friends is my tribute to their courage.” She added that “Anatomy, sexual preference, and gender identity and expression are not bound together like some immutable pretzel but are separate issues. Most of us are born male or female, but masculinity and femininity are personal expressions. With the breaking apart of this pretzel, an exhilarating expansion of freedom impossible... a rite of passage out of the tyranny of sexual stereotypes altogether.”

Celebrating the persistent relevance of Pathy Allen’s work is New York’s Museum of Sex whose current show, Mariette Pathy Allen: Rites of Passage, 1978-2006, unites Allen ephemera that shape the history of their time, including photographs, hand-written notes, darkroom prints, and DIY programmes for gender-nonconforming events.

In celebration of the show, below we speak to Rites of Passage curator Lissa Rivera about the eternal importance of Allen’s work.

Why did you decide to run this show now in 2019?

Lissa Rivera: In every show I organise, I make a point to explore gender variance and the variety of gender expression, as I feel that this will help create a greater understanding and acceptance among all of our visitors. Although Mariette Pathy Allen has continued to explore trans issues as the main focus of her practice, this exhibition explores her work before the major shift to digital photography in the early 2000s. Between 2005-2007 YouTube went live, Facebook announced public access, and the first generation iPhone was released. More than ever, a wider range of individuals gained access to creating their own media and images on a global scale. But as these social and technological changes have accelerated, I think it’s more important than ever to look back at how trans and queer individuals created community and carved out space to express themselves in the past, because in many ways they laid the groundwork for the present moment of increasing freedom and acceptance.