Exhibit explores 'taboo' lifestyles

Images of transgender and transsexual identity on display

Transsexuality and transgender identity across different cultures are being recognized on campus through a photo exhibit that displays images and explanations of these taboo lifestyles.

"Crossing Over: Images of Transgender Performance Across Cultures" is on display through Dec. 19, in the Art Lounge of the Michigan Union.

The images are the result of two years of field work done by anthropology Prof. Sarah Caldwell and graduate student Brian Mooney.

"The point is that (transsexuality and transgender identity) are really different in different contexts," Caldwell said. "Before you go in, concepts have to be totally dropped."

The brightly colored photographs focus on themes of transsexuality and transgender identity at the Bhujariya Festival in India, and its parallels to similar themes at Greenwich Village's Halloween Parade.

DANIEL CASTLE/Daily A viewer looks at photographs in the Crossing Over: Images of Transgender Performance Across Cultures display in the Art Lounge of the Michigan Union yesterday.

"It's a third identity. I was trying to show how difference isn't just between East and West," Caldwell said. "Around the idea of gender, there can be differences within culture."

The festive photographs of India's kinnar, people who identify themselves as neither male nor female, show the spirit of togetherness that exists between members of this outcast culture.

"I thought that the display was going to be a display of no meaning and just transexuals," said Eric Ford, an LSA sophomore, who was looking at the exhibit earlier this week. "But it turns out that the display had a cultural significance."

Beautiful men smile brightly to the camera as they are dressed in the shocking greens, yellows and pinks of traditional Indian dress. The faces of the kinnar are decorated with multi-colored eyelids and artificial moles. The Bhujariya festival's atmosphere is one of happiness and pride.

Renoir Gaither, a University librarian, said the exhibit depicts a celebration of culture in the face of opposition.

"In India, it's made a celebration point. The idea of cross dressing is sort of celebrated, and that goes across different cultures," Gaither said, referring to the Greenwich Village celebrations.

In the Greenwich Village display, men mask as cross dressing entertainer RuPaul in big blonde wigs and heavy make-up.

At both the Bhujariya festival and the Halloween Parade, it is common to see individuals cross dress as famous film stars such as Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor.

"Crossing Over: Images of Transgender Performance Across Cultures" is a part of the current LSA theme semester.

"Because of the gender, bodies and borders theme, I thought this would be an appropriate thing to do," Caldwell said.

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