Photography Project Gives Voice to Transgender Community

March 24, 2013— -- When Temmie Nora Thames had her picture taken on Saturday afternoon, it was the first time she was photographed as a woman.

Thames, 53, has never had one picture taken of herself, though she has lived most of her life as a transgender woman. So when she saw the flyers about the photo call at New York City's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, she was one of the first people to show up at the small rented space with an expansive Keith Haring mural from mid-wall to ceiling.

Her pictures will become part of the "Transformational Project," the brainchild of Jen Rosenstein. A photographer whose usual subjects are celebrities -- she shadowed Grammy Award winner Jason Mraz for months -- Rosenstein is now working on her second book of portraits of transgender individuals from around the United States.

"This is a platform for the trans community to express themselves any way they want, and my chance to help a community that doesn't really have a voice," Rosenstein said.

PHOTOS: Documenting the Life of Transgendered People

As the gay community identifies as a minority within society, people within the transgender community see themselves as a minority even within that minority.

For Thames, who was born intersex, finding her voice only happened fairly recently. There were job losses, six years in prison where she was routinely raped and years of heavy drug use, she said.

"I was in a prison within a prison within a prison. I was imprisoned as a woman in my man's body, in my addiction and in a physical prison," she said.

Now sober for 18 months, Thames posed for various portraits in her sleeveless dress. It wasn't the lack of a camera that explained why these were her first photos as a woman.

"I feel I can finally look in the mirror and love who I am," she said.

And that, Rosenstein explained, is what she heard over and over again while photographing the transgender community in Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2007 for her first book of portraits. Her interest in the community began when she was introduced to a friend of a friend who was transgender.

"I asked him whether his driver's license said male or female and he was incredibly offended," Rosenstein recalled. "It was very difficult at first. And then I started to understand how meaningful their new names and the correct pronouns are."

The experience even made her question and examine her own identity.

"Being a lesbian, being butch, I asked myself, 'Am I supposed to be a man?' What society says you are doesn't mean that's who you are," said Rosenstein. "This project allowed me to know I'm a woman and love that because I saw that the people I photographed love who they are."

Embracing her identity is a new experience for Riya Morrison, 21, who started life as "Omar" in Jamaica.

"Even at 3 years old, I knew I was a girl," Morrison said. "Growing up I did everything a girl did: play with dolls, wear make-up and dress-up clothes at home."

Even though she dressed as a boy outside her home, classmates in grade school called her "sissy" and "girl-boy" with more derogatory terms in high school.

"I became introverted and put up a wall because I realized that if I stayed quiet, people didn't make fun of me," Morrison said. "I'm breaking down that wall now."

That was really only possible since she moved to New York City a year ago. Morrison remembered her heart racing the first time she carried a handbag on the subway. But she got only stares. Now she wears a long wig as well.