Paula and Daughter Lisa

In 1978, when the photographer Mariette Pathy Allen came upon a group of men dressed in drag at a New Orleans hotel during Mardi Gras, she decided to make gender nonconforming people the focus of her work. Taking a group shot, she met the eyes of one and felt she was “looking at the essence of a human being rather than a man or a woman.” That encounter led to her first book, Transformations: Crossdressers and Those Who Love Them (1989), which includes this portrait of Paula Sinclair, aka Paul Grayson, and daughter Lisa. Since Transformations, Pathy Allen has continued to work with gender nonconforming people—a relatively small, highly varied, and increasingly vulnerable population whom she portrays with admiration and affection.