The Times' fixation with Transgender people really is like no other. It seems nearly mandatory that they carry at least one article about the topic all the time. Our local school district discussed, vetted and approved a transgender bathroom policy, and I don't believe we as community have brought it up since. Please NYT, why the obsession?
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They could begin by not playing the victim all the time and forcing others to accept them.
Not everyone will accept them and they shouldn’t have to.
Just go on with your life without making your sexuality / gender front and center of your everyday life.
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I know a lot of readers feel the same, but why such a hyper-focus by the Times on such an extremely small segment of the population?There’s a new article every single day. Are we not satisfied with this costing us the 2016 election, we have to try and throw away the 2018 election over fringe issues as well?
I’ve traveled the world, I’ve lived in NYC, DC, New Orleans, New Haven, Berlin, Hamburg, Dublin, been to Africa, South America. I have literally not one time in 42 years heard one mention of the term transgender except in the NYT. It’s something absolutely nobody on earth (relatively speaking) is talking about.
What gives?
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“Most of the images were of women.”
While transwomen (I.e. women) certainly exist and are likely photographed here. How can you tell? The term transgender does not in any way conform to a certain look. Not does transwoman. Those who look like a women, or look like a woman who was not assigned female at birth, are not necessarily women.
Perhaps a nitpick, but given the lens of the article, a bit tone deaf.
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Lets allow everybody to pretend to be whatever they want to be.......but......please NYT....... dont try to mould social approval and acceptance in those who disagree with that point of view.
I may not agree with what you "say" but will defend to the death your right to "say" IT !
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@ak bronisas. This article is as factual and objective as could be. The spin is all in your mind. You are letting your own biases and preconceptions impede your ability to deal with this subject. Maybe some self-examination is in order?
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cliched, trite, conventional femininity portrayed by transwomen is so against the work that women have done for decades to free ourselves from what patriarchy puts on us
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I think the main reason people buy these stock images is because they don't want to offend. The symbol and androgynous human background provides a visual for an article without stirring up anger. But it stirs up anger anyway, so we'll probably be seeing more stories with photographs.
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As a person who has sold stock photography I can tell you that when a person’s shown on a plain background, especially offset to the side, it’s to let the customer put their own type over the blank area. There are plenty of examples of cis folks like that.
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Humanity is more important than appearance. Chaz Bono is an outstanding example; an individual who went from being a beautiful little girl to a frustrated young adult, then emerged as a successful, happy adult man.
Aside from being part of a famous family, he looks like an ordinary guy. Which he is.
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As the writer says, these photos are the “most used,” which means buyers license them the most often. In other words, it’s buyers of the photos and not the photographers who determine which images are popular and appear at the top of search results. Photographers are taking the types of photos the writer recommends, but you can’t force people to license them. People who write articles that make fun of or criticize stock photography need to understand that market forces dictate what sells. Stock photographers are freelancers who shoot images that they feel will sell the most. It’s the only way they can make any profit after their investment in equipment, space and model fees.
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Transgender people need plenty of love, understanding, no discrimination and no harm. But what they especially need is deliverance from that transgender spirit. That would be true love for them.
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@Mike Riley Huh?
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@December well said. nice rebuttal
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@Mike Riley Your use of the terms "deliverance" and "spirit" suggests that you see being transgender as a choice, and that you are coming from a religious, most probably evangelical Christian perspective.
I understand that perspective; I know and interact with many evangelicals. But what I want you to understand at the same time is my reluctance to embrace the notion that being transgender is either a choice or a curse.
Of my and my spouse's four children, three are transgender. This rather strongly suggests to me that there is no choice or spirit involved, but something genetic. To put it in terms that will be familiar: God made them, and God doesn't make junk.
I greatly appreciate your first sentence, and I rather think that is the whole of what all people need.
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If you're specifically searching for transgender stock images, you're often doing that because you want to showcase transgender people. If you want to showcase transgender people, you need them to be readily identifiable as transgender, or you're essentially back to a standard stock photograph.
The selection of photographs highlighted here seem to reflect this premise.
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@Alex H--How is one "readily identifiable as transgender"? Please explain.
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To be clear many of the trans people you are looking for are integrated into society and don't want to be outed or out themselves. They are a woman or man and no one, not even transphobic people know any different. Why would that trans person give that security up? Especially in to days explosive environment.
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For photos of a trans woman being active and interacting with her community, check out the Facebook page of Brianna Titone, candidate for Colorado’s House District 27!
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Let's make a list of all those topics which should receive ongoing coverage in a national newspaper and list them in the order of their importance. Next to that list, let's itemize the topics to which the Times has given space in the same time period.
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@Vincent Amato Agreed. Persons with disabilities are the poorest people in this country and are one of the largest (possibly the largest) minority group at between 17% and 20% of the population. Nonetheless, this esteemed newspaper dedicates a massive amount of attention to a group that is less than 1% of the population. If only people with disabilities had an advocate and a fancy flag like this community does. After all, it isn't like the Bible doesn't instruct us all to treat the disabled with care...
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I’ve heard tell that there are a lot of angry white people in this country. If we’re going by numbers maybe we should only hear about their problems until they feel sufficiently represented and coddled to. Ugh.
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Very well said.
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Lovely photos. However, what is wrong with an objective standard: a mammal with a penis is a male and a mammal with a vagina is a female? If the mammal with a penis self identifies and, perhaps, dresses as a female or if the mammal with a vagina self identifies and, perhaps, dresses as a male, we must respect HIS right and HER right to make the choice.
We are obligated to respect a persons right to make a choice, but we are not obligated to respect the choice they make.
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@David DeFazio Huh?
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@David DeFazio I believe that we need to respect their choice.
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@December
Agree with the Huh, not the post.
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If you look to stock photography for realistic depictions of our society you will be disappointed.
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@Slim. Agreed. A while back, there was a very funny hashtag #BadStockPhotosOfMyJob that a lot of people working in the sciences contributed to (e.g., odd photos of people in lab coats looking at chickens, etc). Stock photos may say more about people's stereotypes than anything else.
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The NYT is placing this on the Stock Photo companies. Place this where it lies:
On the Photographers submitting to the Stock companies.
When photographers take better photos, better ones will be used more often.
But you still won't see a wider range of trans people being "popular," in stock photos. The purpose of stock photos will still be the same: generic, attractive representation. The problem will still be between the keyboard and the screen.
Who wants to look at the "ugly, unfortunate" guy who Transitioned and doesn't "pass" well. No one! We want to see a photo of the "attractive, pretty" made up--possibly with plastic surgery--transwoman. It's not only Transphobic, it's misogynistic, but it IS what it IS. This is US. Who chooses a picture of the short, soft, effeminate transman? Heck no. They choose the muscular, bearded one. What's "popular?" What we choose is popular.
The problem isn't with Stock photo companies. The problem isn't with photographers. The problem is with the people choosing which photos to use. The problem is with the people consuming the photos.
The problem is *with us.*
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To be honest I understand and somewhat like the stock photos. Being transgender is something one knows in themselves. Being transgender means being born and living in a body that is typically seen as the wrong sex. (for example., a person everyone would all agree is male totally feels transgender themself, but that person is not born with any physical characteristics of the other sex, or may have the desire or money to try to conform to what "the other sex" is supposed to look like). I think in many ways it is more misleading to show a normal transgender person as being someone who has tried to take on the characteristics of the binary sex that is opposite of their birth assigned gender. It would be much more misleading to present a typical transgender person (of which I'd posit does not exist) as being someone that most people would assume was the opposite of the binary sex they were assigned at birth.
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I don't get what makes these pictures inherently "trans". After all, there are plenty of straight cis men who look feminine, and plenty of straight cis women who look masculine.
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@Johnny Maybe we have the wrong concept as to male and female looks.
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Your piece implies that there are very few images of transgender people at the stock photo agencies. I took a look. Getty shows 1,454 when searched for "transgender;" Stocksy shows 400; Shutterstock shows 500; Adobe Stock shows a whopping 15,282. I am a marketing/branding/design professional and can attest to the fact that this category has boomed in recent years. The market for images of diversity is pretty hot as most companies want to look like they have a diverse workforce. Not always true -- but the intention is there.
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@big orange ... maybe you missed one of the points of the article. The issue isn’t that there are too few pictures, it’s that the most-licensed ones show people in generic settings, without context. They’re portrayed only in terms of their gender, not as full human beings.
Why those are the most-used isn’t explained, of course ... that would be interesting to analyze. How are they being used? By whom? Who finds those generic images more useful? I’d like to see the end product, be it an advertisement or some other medium.
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I'm a transgender man/trans masc person, and I agree there is a lack of representation. I do not feel like people really give our community any attention and yes we absolutely do need more (because there is hardly any) representation. We also need our allies to step up, ask US to write articles about trans lives, and talk about problems like trans healthcare and the serious consequences that come with a society ignoring our needs.
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The amount of discrimination against trans people in stock photos isn't really that bad. Not compared to the discrimination in stock photos against my people: the hackers.
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The photos are also all of transgender women, most with a lot of makeup on--taking on a very conventionally "feminine" role as defined by the beauty industry and the gender binary. But transgender also includes men (I think there was one pictured in this article) and a variety of appearances. It's no accident that after the most-used photos of a symbol rather than a face, the faces used are of transgender women whose appearances accord with and affirm the gender binary, rather than any transgender people who actually question or upset binary notions of gender identity.
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@daphne the gender binary isn’t going away anytime soon, if at all. It’s a better option for many trans people to at least partially conform to society rather than spend life ostracized.
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@Shh. Thanks for this! I completely agree with you on this! I was just talking about the images people choose to use when discussing or representing the word, idea, or community--it was not meant as a judgment on transgender people, but rather a comment on how media outlets or other users of stock images choose the most conventional and in some sense "safest" (least nonbinary or genderqueer) IMAGES. This limits people's understanding of teh variety of transgender people and modes of self-presentation; thus we need to expand our bank of images, just as we need to depict transgender people working, playing, etc. (as this article argued).Thanks for your comment. Hope I cleared up my topic.
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@daphne I think you might be confusing "transgender" with "non binary". Transgender people (especially transgender women) usually do "affirm the gender binary." They wish (passionately yearn) to be on the other side of a binary they believe exists. Transgender women are deeply invested in "the beauty industry and the gender binary." Transgender men are more likely to be critical of the beauty industry, and non-binary people explicitly reject the "binary notions" on which it is built. The blanket term "transgender" lumps together some very different identities and interests.
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Context and relationships are everything. Some trans folks feel the weight of being role models, or of being the token trans person in cis communities.
A young person who is close to me is the first trans person in my church. He is confident, attractive and beloved. But it is clear that he feels the need to be perfect in order to convince cis folks that trans people aren't inherently weird, and that being trans isn't the beginning and the end of who he is. It helps that these people knew him and his talents before his transition.
I find that the ignorant and occasionally hateful comments toward trans folks found in NYT comments are often rooted in abstraction. For example, he people who don't want Democrats to "take the bait" of Trump's immoral pronouncements don't know any trans people - trangenderism is seen as an inconvenient distraction.
As the great Bryan Stevenson reminds us, we should all work to become "proximate" to people different from ourselves.
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