Giving Compass' Take:

• Imogen Calderwood shares how photographer Allie Crewe is illuminating the stories of transgender women in a series of portraits. 

• How can funders support artwork that sheds light on minority experiences? 

• Learn about the global fight for transgender rights. 

Photographer Allie Crewe has always been interested in the construction of femininity, and capturing the images of disenfranchised women.

So when she was introduced to a trans woman who told her to be more daring, and look at more unusual ways of constructing femininity, she was “captured.”

Crewe spent the next 18 months creating the images that now stand on display at Manchester Central Library, in her collection entitled You Brought Your Own Light.

There’s still a lot of violence, discrimination, and abuse against people who are transgender. According to LGBTQ campaign organization Stonewall, almost half (48%) of trans people don’t feel comfortable using public toilets through fear of discrimination or harassment; 44% avoid certain streets because they don’t feel safe there as an LGBTQ person; and 36% of trans students in higher education have experienced negative comments or behavior from staff in the last year.

Tragically, 48% of trans people have attempted suicide.

Read the full article about portraits of transgender women by Imogen Calderwood at Global Citizen.