This Trans Day of Visibility, DIVA is catching up with the brains behind the Trans Is Human project
BY YASMIN VINCE, IMAGES BY PAUL GRACE
Today is not only Trans Day of Visibility, it’s the perfect day to view the Trans Is Human exhibition at Westfield London. The groundbreaking exhibition, on until 2 April, showcases the lives of several trans people, beyond their gender identity, and is brought to us by the incredible Jake and Hannah Graf.
DIVA caught up with Jake and Hannah to talk about the project.
How did the Trans Is Human project come about?
Jake: Trans Is Human is an idea that I’ve been thinking about for a few years because for the last decade in the mainstream media, there’s been so much negativity about trans people and we have now been reduced to this amorphous group without identity. We are just “the trans people” and I don’t think many people think of us as people, unfortunately. For me, it was really important that we tried to bring back the humanity to trans people.
For a lot of us our trans identity is the least interesting thing about us and what makes us interesting is the fact that we are parents, teachers, actors, models, writers and army soldiers. We are in every walk of life, we’re nothing new, we’re not a trend, we’re not a fad and I think it’s very easy to lose sight of our shared humanity if you’re not hearing about our stories that make us human. Trans Is Human was a chance to leave the trans identity in the background and elevate the humanity of all our contributors.
Why did you choose photography as the medium to do all that?
Jake: I think there is really something to a still image. Our photographer, Mariano Vivanco, feels that you can really see inside someone’s soul when you are taking a photo and so we went to him because we wanted these static images and these portraits that we would then accompany with the subject stories. People would be walking by an exhibition and see the image and think, “That looks like my brother or my sister or my mother or my friend or my neighbour,” and then read the story alongside and see that they like the same things as you, like marathons or dad dancing in the kitchen. And then only at the end, once they’ve hopefully related to this person, would they see that the person is trans. For that, the static portraiture made sense.
And when the exhibition launched in Westfield, we saw little old ladies, we saw guys, and they all stopped and had a look and another look and started reading the stories. They did a double take because the media has represented trans people in such a negative way and the photos that we’ve got are so positive and so relatable that it’s very hard not to be drawn in by them.
What is the best way for allies to support trans people in 2025?
Hannah: There’s a real risk that some of the stuff that’s happening in the United States will draw people away from supporting diversity and inclusion in general, but particularly away from supporting the trans community, who we know are a particular target of the United States administration right now. There’s a real risk that allies will start to pull away, not because they don’t want to be allies but they just don’t want to be caught up in something. So, really, what we’re asking our allies to do is to be brave and to realise that, actually, the trans community, the wider LGBTQIA community and minorities at large are all facing more challenges now than we have done for a long time. Now, we need you more than ever, not when it was easy but when it’s hard.
I would hope that allies would stick by us and they would continue championing our stories, supporting us financially, emotionally, physically and help us weather the storm and find the energy to keep pushing on.
This project is a great way to bridge the gap between cis and trans people. Why is that so important?
Hannah: We are a relatively small amount of the population and so we can’t survive in this world without people supporting us. My experience as a trans person is that I get loads of awful stuff online but in person it rarely happens. When you meet someone face to face, you’re confronted with their humanity. You can’t avoid all the things that make them human and that makes it harder to dehumanize someone. Online, where you’re not being confronted with that humanity, it becomes so much easier to say and do things that are hateful, to do things that are discriminatory and so what we have to do is show that humanity in a way they don’t usually see it. By connecting people with who we are as humans it becomes harder for them to accept the hate and the discrimination that we face.
What’s been the best part of the project?
Hannah: Seeing Jake’s vision come to life. I’ve seen all the hard work and I remember when Jake was first having the idea of connecting people to human stories. Seeing the journey from that idea through to the launch, when we saw all these amazing images and videos across Westfield and watching people interact with them, it was really cool.
Jake: One of our contributors, Milo, is 16 and so brave. When his picture went up, he was there with his mum and dad, who are incredibly supportive and his mum, Amelie, started crying. To see a parent who is so unwaveringly supportive of their young person, it gives you hope for the future. We know we’re seeing a lot more parents of trans kids who are just absolute warriors for their kids. That’s been so encouraging.
Do you have plans for further exhibitions of the Trans Is Human portraits?
Jake: We absolutely do! We’re hoping that this will be something that travels. Hannah and I are hoping that we will be able to tour these and go into corporate spaces and take them into different exhibitions and keep this project going.
But we’re also hoping that we will keep building it and get different contributors, maybe once a year so that this project gets bigger. We want to build a community of trans people so that we can be globally united.
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