Jovial, rainbow flag waving, scantily clad muscular hunks, drag queens, and plenty of kissing and embracing. Any of these spring to mind when thinking of gay people in news photographs?
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As diverse and wonderfully vibrant as our big, global LGBTI family is, I’m sorry to tell you that most of our lives are more drab than drag. We aren’t in a perpetual state of frolicking around semi-nude, endlessly caressing our partners, all whilst contouring cheekbones. I can even be a bit of a lazy slob sometimes.
This brings me to today’s post - how LGBTI people are depicted in photojournalism, & documentary photography. A topic close to my heart, as a photojournalist who’s gay, and because a vast chunk of my personal work focuses on LGBTI+ people forced to migrate, because of who they are and who they love.
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Not wanting to point the finger of blame, but rather spark some conversation and reflection on the issue. There are many sides to this debate, too long to discuss in a free substack post. I’m just offering some critique from someone working within the industry, and also from this community, (if you can call 10%+ of the population that).
Firstly I’d like to address the point that the issue is partly the fault of the gay community. Our own media subculture focuses heavily on wild hedonism, muscular bodies, partying, and has only in recently veered into more global topics, and the mental health debates importantly raised in books like ‘The Velvet Rage’ by Alan Downs, and ‘Straight Jacket’ by Matthew Todd. We’ve been portrayed as victims in plenty of places too, and self-victimise from time to time, the debate is draped in all shades of grey, with no definitive rights or wrongs.
What’s clear is that when it comes to news photography about the gay and LGBTI communities, it’s not normally about us doing the mundane stuff in life. You’d be forgiven for thinking that we don’t have community specific issues with depression and anxiety, alcohol and substance abuse, or body image, and just do the above mentioned happy activities 24/7.
Aside from the one day in summer when some countries host Pride marches, resulting in photos of joyous people in colourful street scenes dripping all over your media & social media feeds, the other 364 days are rather mundane. Alternatively, for places like here in Istanbul that have banned annual Pride marches since 2015, the photos are of suppression and protest.
Why are we still, more than often depicted as weird, crazy, and overly sexualised others? Aren’t we over all that? My work has always fought against these stereotypes and visual tropes, acknowledging that yes, there are flamboyant days and times in our lives, and that’s one beautiful side of our community, but we are also so much more than who we fuck.
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When it comes to photographing sexuality, it seems to usually be defined by the sex part. Just like how some homophobes view us - overlooking the person, and reducing everything about us into a sexual act. It’s reductive. Surely this isn’t what photo editors, photo consumers, and photographers hunger for? Are photographers feeding the consumers, or what they think editors want? Is it a mix of all these?
Back in 2018, I wrote an article for Re-Picture on being LGBTI and working in the photojournalism industry, speaking to several LGBTI colleagues about the unique issues affecting us. You can read it here: https://medium.com/re-picture/you-have-to-be-a-good-shapeshifter-208bfd9af93e . You’ll see that there are plenty of perspectives, and also the balancing act of not be pigeonholed as a ‘gay photographer’ if you decide to shoot a story about your own community.
As visual storytellers we are responsible to accurately depict people and their lives. Would any other historically discriminated against minority community be depicted in this repetitive way? I hope not.
Being born lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or intersex is inherently political, that unavoidable - our rights are always up for debate, even in national election campaigns of 2024. Sometimes things are getting better, sometimes worse - Ghana, Uganda. Politics defies how much we are allowed to live.
Seemingly ‘shocking’ images showing outlandishly dressed LGBTI people are often captured to provoke shock or entertainment to the viewer, and they sometimes help to convey our shared humanity and struggles. These images can also feel like they’re being reproduced repeatedly, as a kind of caricature about our perceived otherness, a kind of, “look what those crazy gays and trans people are up to now!”
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Perhaps I’ll follow this up with a second post in the future, delving a little deeper, but for now, if you’re a photographer covering LGBTI topics or people, please ask yourself why you’re interested in the story. If it’s just because it’s weird/crazy/quirky LGBTI people then maybe you should reassess. Make it more collaborative with the protagonists, and have a better reason. Don’t let it be about simply victimhood vs celebration or ‘weird’ vs eccentric - delve a bit deeper.
I’ll leave you with my all time favourite TEDx talk by the incredible Panti. From 9 years ago, but every word is still relevant today.-
Notes - I’ve mostly used the acronym LGBTI in this article, but it could be more inclusive and have many more letters, but I settled on this, and it’s not supposed to be exclusive.
All photography used here is by myself - and not permitted to be shared to used elsewhere. ©Bradley Secker