Photographer and videographer Hans Diernberger went to Salvador, Brazil, on an artist’s residency to work with the local trans+ community last year. There, he found a resilient, beautiful, thriving community, banding together in the face of a building movement to eventually elect its far-right leader, Jair Bolsonaro. Diernberger, working with sound artist Will Saunders, took portraits of several members of the local community and asked them about how they will stay strong under an outwardly transphobic regime.
"I hope to be the first trans woman with a PhD in history and sociology."
"Everybody of colour who came before me, who fought for me to be here now, inspired me."
"Many trans women are considered marginal, but they are not."
"I hope to build a world that is more livable for everybody, where being trans isn’t synonymous for something bad or sick."
"To have that capacity to see myself from diferent perspetives is my strength."
"What Bolsonaro can’t take away from me is my freedom to be who I am, to love whom I want to love and to go out of my house whenever I want to."
"My strength is to live fully in the face of the difficulties"
"The only thing I need is to be me, to be treated like everybody else."
"The LGBT community is a big family and no one can take that away from us."
"I am hoping for things to get better in the areas of health and selfworth."
"In the future I want less casualties among us trans, because we live with such amounts of violence and demagogy in this hypocrite society. I want the trans to be freer. And stop killing us!"
"My strength: my family. I have a wonderful family that has always supported me in everything."
"My major challenge is to get away from the clichés. I am a trans man, but I don’t need so-called masculine clothes in order to be a trans man and I hope that that is what the future is going to be like."
"I want a future that has respect, where we look at each other with love, with affection, with respect."
"It was a trans man who inspired me to be who I am today. He showed me everything that is possible for me to be, and who I am today, without being afraid of anyone."
"My strength is my willingness to win in life."
"He [Bolsonaro] can’t take away my authenticity, my joy."
"I want to show other trans men the diverse forms of masculinity that there are."
"Sometimes we need the old ones, because they have more experience."
"My strength lies in god and the love for my family."
"My strength is poetry."
