Transgender In Egypt
Dublin Core
Title
Transgender In Egypt
Subject
Motivation: As a photojournalist, I used to check many different stories and projects from different communities around the world including the transgender stories, but I had never been interested to do a story about the Trangenders in Egypt. Many topics look more important and urgent. In 2017, I received a new challenging assignment from the Norwegian newspaper 'Klassekampen' to discuss the transgender issues in Egypt. It was not easy at all to fulfill what the editor asked for, especially the research phase, but the good point was that the reporter could help me to find cases.
Usually, I did search before taking photos as I believe that my work to find data about any topic and then visualize it. The search for this story was really interesting and offered me new information about the situation of the Transgender community in Egypt. Surprisingly, I found that changing your gender was not criminalised in Egypt and there were official ways to do it, but I found also that way was a very bureaucratic process which could take years. After meeting and talking with cases even those who don't want to be photographed, I have understood more and more about this sensitive vulnerable community. In short words, they spent years of struggling inside their families and society to convince relatives that they have the right to change their gender, and then they have to go through a very long process. Their second choice is to change the gender unofficially with doctors who exploit them and then frauding official IDs to change the name and gender.
All of these encouraged me to keep going with this story trying to find more cases even after I delivered my assignment to the newspaper, but the sensitive situation for the cases and my limited time prevented me from taking more photos.
Usually, I did search before taking photos as I believe that my work to find data about any topic and then visualize it. The search for this story was really interesting and offered me new information about the situation of the Transgender community in Egypt. Surprisingly, I found that changing your gender was not criminalised in Egypt and there were official ways to do it, but I found also that way was a very bureaucratic process which could take years. After meeting and talking with cases even those who don't want to be photographed, I have understood more and more about this sensitive vulnerable community. In short words, they spent years of struggling inside their families and society to convince relatives that they have the right to change their gender, and then they have to go through a very long process. Their second choice is to change the gender unofficially with doctors who exploit them and then frauding official IDs to change the name and gender.
All of these encouraged me to keep going with this story trying to find more cases even after I delivered my assignment to the newspaper, but the sensitive situation for the cases and my limited time prevented me from taking more photos.
Description
Unfortunately, after as I remember two weeks of searching we found only two cases who accepted to be photographed. The first case was in Cairo for trans man and the second was in Alexandria for a trans woman. We did the first shoot in Cairo with a case called Mohamed Allam who was already a famous transgender in Egypt. The second shoot was more sensitive as our case accepted to be photographed but without showing her face. We did the shooting and I showed the case all photos to decided which ones kept her anonymous. We have also agreed not to publish these photos at any Egyptian publication.
Creator
Mohamed Ali Eddin
Source
https://www.alieddin.com/albums/transgender-in-egypt/
Publisher
– Klassekampen (Norwegian newspaper), 2017
Date
2017
Rights
Approved to publish
Relation
Commissioned by Klassekampen
Language
Norwegian
Type
Portrait photography
Coverage
Location: Cairo, Alexandria
