Stories of transformation fascinate me. It is not just the physical changes that draw me, but how our internal, emotional lives change too. Your Own Light is a reference to the light within us that appears when we find a way out of the shadows.
(Selection of images from 50)
The stories of the participants are included because their voices are a collaboration.
Text with images by Olivia Fisher.
The book is available here.
Wren
Milo
Abby
'Trans'. Did I disarm you with that word? You smile, nodding at the right moments, but I can feel your growing distance. I've been here before and would ask you not to travel with me. We each have our journeys and experiences that neither could fully appreciate; isn't empathy enough to connect us?
Dorian
Darcy
The desire to be desired. Together-ness. Romance. Sex. Our needs are not so different and I do not judge your fear. Perhaps you find me dangerous or taboo; too much or too little for you. For now a wall stands between us. Its bricks are ignorance, prejudice and preconception. What we cannot surmount with feelings, we must break down with honesty.
Olivia
Ashley
It was easier to imagine than to become.
I was a child hiding within my dreams, unaware that the fire that burned would one day forge me.
Jaimie
Hendrix
Transition is not a conversation, a course of pills or a surgical incision. Transition occurs in the moment of truth which says, 'I am not binary.' That moment when you reclaim yourself from the perception of others. Choosing to be who you want to be, the shape you wish to take and the reconciling with who you have always been. Saying, 'I am this way and I am myself.'
Mermaid
Tony
