My Gender States

The images below follow my life course, portraying my gender states, gender confusion, gender embodiments, gender doubt, and reactions to gender stigma. Textual excerpts from the scripts of Marília and Realm of the Dead accompany each photograph. In 1966, when I was 10 months old, my three-year-old sister Marília was killed by a bus outside the housing project where we lived. As a little boy, I came to believe that I was a replacement for my “little” dead sister. After all, like three of my sisters, I was molested by my father. He was a man, so I had to be a girl. I began to embody what I imagined were Marília’s mannerisms, voice, and psychology– the first of myriad gender states of my life.