How do people become who they are? When looking at another do you ask yourself, “What does the otherness of this person say about me?”

Do you believe that you are born with your gender and it cannot be changed, accept the social construction that man is male and the woman is female and that there are big differences between the two, know about gender dysphoria, understand the motivation for wanting to change your gender with hormones and surgery?

Do you know anyone who is transitioning from female-to-male or male-to-female? Do you believe that photographs can document what occurs during such a transition?

In the United States, the history of “passing” usually associated with blacks, its assumption of fraudulently trespassing historically defined social boundaries, and its questions of authenticity now seems to apply to transgender identities. But does it? To help me understand the desire for a transgender change of identity, I reached back into my own background in slavery where I found the 19th century narrative of Ellen and William Craft. It chronicled Ellen Craft’s temporary change of identity from black female slave to white male master and her crossing of the boundaries of race, class and gender in order to escape from slavery. Does it make sense to place the narrative of an escape from slavery alongside the narrative of a transition from female to male?

These questions and more are explored as the photographer, a black woman, takes pictures and interviews Jake, a white man, as he transitions from female-to-male over a four-year period in a small conservative North Texas town.

I’m Clarissa Sligh Working on this project  I learned to understand tolerance and respect from a perspective I had never considered. Through open engagement with someone who experienced the world in a way very different than me I had a change of heart.