Sloan Leo, they/he, New York City, 2021.Credit...Photographs by Lola Flash for The New York Times
A few years ago, I went to see a performance at a jazz bar in Greenwich Village. I remember feeling happy, buoyed by the sounds of the instruments blending. But then I got up to go to the bathroom, and there a woman chastised me for using the ladies’ room. I never expected something like this to happen in New York City.
When you’re a butch dyke like me, people often assume you’re a man. When you present outside the norm, it can sometimes make you feel you’re unworthy somehow. Too often it feels as though society doesn’t see our humanity. The way people sometimes speak to us can be so dehumanizing.
This photography project was born out of my frustration with being misgendered. I set out to photograph people whose look doesn’t fit a gender stereotype. I wanted to show my subjects in the light of joy and beauty, with images that say: This is who we are and what we look like — can you give us some space?
It was important for me to create images that others could see themselves in, because I never had that growing up. When I was a child, there just weren’t portraits of heroic Black people I could look to, beyond Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. As I got older, more women were held up during Black History Month, but queer women were missing from the narrative.
I usually work in my small living room. But for this series, I worked in a studio to create a space to collaborate with my subjects. I had a desk for us to sit at and look at the pictures together.
With the white background, the models are creating their own space; there is nothing to distract your eye from them. In each photo, I want you to see the person.
