Portrait - NOMINEE: Camila Falcão

In the last couple of years I photographed more 50 trans women and transvestites for my project, Abaixa Que é Tiro. Today when I think that I have produced 50 essays and I have been in 50 different houses, I feel extremely privileged to have gained the confidence of these people to the point of having had access to them in such an intimate way and with that to have achieved my goal that was to show the world the beauty, the diversity and especially the fight of the Brazilian transvestites. I live in the most transphobic society on the planet where these people are basically seen as prostitutes and associated with nightlife, so when I started thinking about making this project viable, I thought it was important to get them out of the context of the streets, put them in a domestic environment and photograph them with natural light. Another conscious choice was to only photograph bodies without surgical intervention, precisely to show their natural beauty and prove that it is not necessary any type of surgery for a trans woman to be a woman; after all, does passing as woman define being one?
Living closely with this population I learned what passability is and I realized how this search for an aesthetic pattern of cisgender feminine beauty imposed by a patriarchal, sexist and misogynistic society can destroy self-esteem and cause severe bouts of dysphoria in trans women and transvestites, I understood the social pressure that this search brings, and especially, the consequences of the lack of passability in the lives of these people. I've heard reports of sisters who can not get out of the house because they are afraid of going to certain places and being bullied, I saw others being fired from work for transphobia, I heard countless stories of transvestites being humiliated because they could not use women's restrooms and by people who refuse to treat them by their social name or use feminine pronouns in schools, universities and even hospitals, situations that can cause deep traumas.
There were 163 in 2018 and as of June 30th there was 63 murders this year (https://antrabrasil.org/mapadosassassinatos/?fbclid=IwAR0Uk0Nl2jBBaviExGh9zyAdgQ-gRNCZP5bs6z7frzXFhYuR4qEm8ks9IWk), Brazil is also the country that consumes most pornography with this population, so as you can figure, we live in a pretty sick society when it comes to gender and sexuality. The life expectancy of a trans woman or transvestite in Brazil is 35 years old, the majority of these people broke up with the family and failed to complete their studies because they had to work and fight for survival, so unfortunately 90% of them work as prostitutes. The degree of social invisibility of trans people in Brazil is so great that there are no oficial studies (data) that can map this segment across the country in order to promote human rights policies, in the fight against violence, and in the creation of State Public Policies to meet the due demands, which are many.
Being a transvestite in Brazil is above all resistance, especially now that we have elected an extremely prejudiced president, but there’s a whole new generation of Brazilian trans women and transvestites fighting for rights, visibility and dignity, and I’m very proud to be an ally. This project has transformed me as a human being and also as a woman, I will always be grateful to them for having made me to understand more clearly my place of white cisgender woman full of privileges in this society, which made me even more aware of my social obligations and duties.
Now that I have a better understanding about this population and I am lucky enough to have transvestite friends, I believe even more that being a trans woman or transvestite is wonderful and they need, should and deserve to be exalted, listened and privileged whenever possible, especially the black ones.
I had the opportunity to witness the transition of some of these women and I have seen the emergence of gorgeous transvestites, a lovelly process which is not given due value because unfortunately our society is still stuck to the binary pattern, which makes it very difficult to accept, appreciate and realize how incredible these people are and, mostly, how their bodies with a boobs and dicks are perfect and deserve to be respected and validated as much as my cisgender woman's body is, after all, we are all females.

About author:

Camila Falcão was born and raised in São Paulo, in 2000 she got her Bachelor Degree in Fine Arts.
She worked as an assistant to the photographers David Armstrong and Vik Muniz, while she lived in NY (2001/2004). When she moved back to Brazil, she started working as a production designer, as well as a freelance photographer, activities she develops until the present day. She has worked at award-winning films at national and international festivals and has photos published in websites such as Refinery29, Advocate, British Journal of Photography, El País, PHmuseum and Vice, and in magazines like i-D, OLD, Switch and ZUM.
In 2018 she was selected for the Tiradentes Photography Festival, for the IX Prêmio Diário Contemporâneo de Fotografia, for the ‘2018 Aperture Summer Open: The Way We Live Now’, for the 15th edition of the Salão Nacional de Fotografia Pérsio Galembeck, for the Valongo International Image Festival and for two portfolio reviews, at San José Foto and Blink’s. She was also invited by the curator Juan Antonio Molina Cuesta to be part of an exhibition in the Monumental Photo Festival. This year she was invited to be part of an exhibition at ARDE - Encuentro de Fotografía, Feminismos y Derechos Humanos and Festival Foto Kariri, she was one of the finalists of the competition Portrait of Humanity, for the Prêmio Nacional de Fotografia Pierre Verger and also to the 16th edition of the the Salão Nacional de Fotografia Pérsio Galembeck. She is a member of Women Photograph, Native Agency and Girlgaze.