PHOTOS: What It Is to Be Transgender In Mexico City

Renowned photographer Kike Arnal's photo book Bordered Lives shows us the everyday lives of seven trans people in and around Mexico City.

The men and women pictured in Bordered Lives: Transgender Portraits From Mexico by Kike Arnal live with intensity and make sacrifices daily to exist as their authentic gender.

In Bordered Lives, Arnal takes us into the lives of seven individuals in and around Mexico City. He shows them going about their day-to-day lives: getting ready in the morning, interacting with family and friends, and devoting their lives to helping others in the transgender community.

Despite some important advances in Mexico recognizing and protecting the rights of its transgender citizens, their persistent problems include employment, loss of family, and financial insecurity. And despite legislation on hate crimes targeting transgender people, discrimination still persists, with the majority of the violent attacks on the LGBT community perpetrated against transgender women.

Copyright © 2014 by Kike Arnal. This excerpt originally appeared in Bordered Lives: Transgendered Portraits from Mexico, published by The New Press, and is used here with permission. Bordered Lives is available through The New Press.

Funding for Bordered Lives has been generously provided by the Arcus Foundation a global foundation dedicated to the idea that people can live in harmony with one another and the natural world. The Foundation works to advance respect for diversity among peoples and in nature, ArcusFoundation.org

The photographs presented in this book were made possible by a commission from Jon Stryker: philanthropist, architect, and photography devotee.

is 34 years old. She was raised in a poor family in Mexico City.

Oyuki Martinez Colin

Oyuki Martinez Colin

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Despite her bachelor's degree in political science, Oyuki has not been able to find a job because she's trans. She earns a living as a sex worker, and as a trans activist working in HIV and AIDS prevention within the high-risk transgender community and among Ixtapalapa’s sex workers.