Mrs Benn

There’s something about t-girls and cameras…Some of us have a narcissistic streak, and some (to my bafflement) display an all-too-masculine determination to compete against their peers to display the most “convincing”, glamorous, etc photo. For many of us, however, I suspect that photos have an allure because they reveal us as “other”. Every day as I stand before the bathroom sink as I shave, and its the same guy who stares back at me. Gradually the hair gets greyer and wrinkles appear, but the visage is masculine. From my earliest years I wondered “what would it be like if I was a girl”? Now, in my middle years, I have acquired sufficient skill to achieve some sort of a transformation, and I’ve been out and walked the streets of many cities in feminine guise. But this is a question of identity and I’m still wondering: what kind of woman would I make? What would I think if I walked past myself in the street? Photos help to answer these questions; they show us how, to some extent at least, we might appear to the outside world as our feminine selves.

Here is a selection of photos. I don’t touch them up, and they’re certainly not professionally taken; many were captured with a very cheap digital camera using a timer. I’m not claiming to be in any way remarkable; these are simply photos of me, and as with any normal photo album, they’re here because they remind me of something. They form a memoir of some of the places I’ve been fortunate to travel to and some of the lovely people I’ve met along the way.