BitterSweet reviews... People Like Us
A new photobook by Holly Revell, reviewed by Santi S.
I hover over a brand new book with a bubblegum pink and gold mesh printed cover. I am giddy with excitement. The title is in bold white lettering: People Like Us. I open the book and immediately I am met with black and white images of chest hair and words from hotpencil press, mapping their history over the decades. After that, I get lost in a sea of colourful images.
I flip further and I am met with Holly Revell’s words:
“This is me. The only direction I give you initially.”
“I’m looking at you — you’re looking at me — our gaze is equal. I encourage you to take control.”
And I am brought right back to the studio on the day of our photoshoot.
Back in 2023, I packed my bag full of DIY statement pieces to style myself for the photos. Hats with teddy bear ears, safety pins, a pair of jeans that said ‘Good Boy’; Holly gave me the space to be unapologetically myself and we moved together in a way that gave me the agency to curate myself authentically.
A queer archive centres the agency and autonomy of queer people; we hold power when we get to document our existence, on our own terms.
In Holly’s new work, entitled People Like Us, photography and writing emerge in the spirit of queer (archival) power. A vibrant, euphoric and joyous resource that centres individuality, and adds colour to the diversity of trans peoples lived experiences across, and outside of, the gender spectrum.
People Like Us is a powerful photo book and a visual testament to the documentation of trans, non-binary and gender nonconforming (GNC) people who are assigned female at birth (AFAB). The book houses a collection of stories forming over 18,000 words and a series of 370 photographs of trans people. The focus on AFAB individuals was a considered decision. One that Revell decided was an important detail to include not only because it was integral to many of the participants’ journeys, but also because it pushed back against society’s binary understandings of sex and gender. This photobook asserts that we can be anything we want to be, and that our sex assignment at birth is irrelevant to the expansive social and cultural contexts trans people inhabit.
"It’s fun to see what other people see.”
People Like Us gives us a plethora of images that are up close and personal: pubic hair, T-dicks, pregnant people, top surgery scars, nipples, fat bodies, disabled bodies, coarse chin hairs, ass cracks, stretch marks, calloused feet, dildos, oil covered tits and electric blue leather chaps — to name but a few. It’s a harkening of gender confusion, mess, expansiveness, softness and personal style which prioritises nuance, vulnerability and creativity shaped by trans people themselves.
What a relief to be immersed in an archive of joyful experiences, and entirely positive representations of trans people: a radical response to the mainstream melancholic depictions of trans lives that prioritise suffering. People Like Us is a celebratory nod to both the complexity and creativity of trans self-expression.
“I too am lost in the moment, the camera becomes fluid as we move together.”
Staying true to the queer archive, People Like Us is non-linear: words and text exist separately from each other yet coexist; there are no page numbers in sight. The journal entries at the back are dated and credited; you could try to match them with the faces earlier in the book — but is that necessary? Standalone photographs appear on some pages; on others, ten smiling faces look out at the reader. What resonates most is seeing trans people taking up space: in nature, in the frame of the photograph itself, in domestic settings, walking on paths, and in cruising areas.
The work affirms an inevitable truth: trans people are everywhere.
And there’s more. Providing a multi sensorial and accessible experience, the book comes with a bookmark (bearing the image of a hairy chest and designer nipples), and provides a QR code to gain access to audio versions of the journal entries in the book.
Now the assemblages of trans imagery: flexing muscles, tattoos, folding skin, medical tape, bare chests with no nipples, holding bouquets of flowers, laying in period products on the floor can be heard, and which purposefully provides a well rounded and unique readership experience not found elsewhere.
Gender excess, gender variability, gender fuckery, gender liberation — these are all themes held close to our hearts in this incredible volume. This is at once a vibrant and necessary compendium of AFAB trans lives, and a warming and essential reminder that that there are People Like Us thriving out there in this world.
Santi S (They/He) is a multidisciplinary creative and the Founder of G(end)er Swap, the UK's first LGBTQ+ style outreach organisation. Their work — workshops, writing, performance and content creation — focuses on DIY style, craft, and aesthetics as mediums for exploring (gender) identity. Santi is currently an ACE funded artist working on a publication focussed on gender f*ckery.
Website: www.santisorrenti.com
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