University sparks backlash over $4,000 transsexual photography exhibit paid for with college funds

By Daily Mail Reporter

Published: | Updated:

A university photography exhibit has sparked a backlash from conservative activists for showing portraits of a transsexual's transformation from woman to man, paid for with college funds.

The University of Minnesota-Duluth invited well-known artist Loren Cameron to present a collection entitled 'Transgender Images' providing a $4,000 honorarium to the photographer.

Critics of the exhibition have described the UMD Queer Student Alliance-sponsored event as potentially 'offensive' and have suggested there is a better way to spend the money. 

Controversial: The University of Minnesota-Duluth is under fire from conservative activists for inviting transsexual artist Loren Cameron (pictured) to present a collection of photographs that chronicle his transformation from woman to man

Controversial: The University of Minnesota-Duluth is under fire from conservative activists for inviting transsexual artist Loren Cameron (pictured) to present a collection of photographs

Mr Cameron's work has been shown at universities across the country for years from Cornell to Ohio State to Berkeley, and has even already been mounted at The University of Minnesota once before in 2007.

Yet, student group, Campus Reform told The New York Daily News that the allocation of the $4,000 'may not be the best use of university funds.'

The exhibit documents Mr Cameron's own personal journey as he gradually changed sexes thanks to chest reconstruction surgery, radical bilateral mastectomy, a hysterectomy and other procedures.

Of his startlingly honest images, the artist explains: 'People who are transgender can be quite threatening to other people because they call into question that there are only men and there are only women. I try and demystify the transsexual body as much as possible.

Loren Cameron's book
Loren Cameron's book

Honest: Mr Cameron, who is the author of several books about his personal transformation, was paid a $4,000 honorarium for exhibiting his work, enraging Campus Reform members who see it as potentially 'offensive'

'I feel that that takes the fear element out of it for people.'

Still, Campus Reform spokesman Josiah Ryan suggested: 'I think that there is the possibility that it could offend people," Ryan told the Daily News. "There is also the possibility that it may not be the best use of taxpayers' resources.'

Mr Cameron, an award-winning literary figure and photographer, born in 1959, grew up in Pasadena, California and recalls that as young as five years old, he felt uncomfortable in his body.

'You feel that something's amiss that the skin that you're in isn't quite on right,' he told National Geographic's Taboo. 'I think its one of the scariest things that humans can think about doing, is undermining the very foundation of our existence - of the body - the gender that we are born into.

'That's really frightening for a lot of people. the idea of being able to change something so fundamental to identity.'

Backlash: Members of Campus Reform, a conservative activist group, are angered by the way the college funds have been spent by the UMD Queer Student Alliance

Backlash: Members of Campus Reform, a conservative activist group, are angered by the way the college funds have been spent by the UMD Queer Student Alliance

Beginning his transformation from female to male in 1987, he describes his creative journey on his website as 'initially a crude documentation of my own personal journey [that] quickly evolved into an impassioned mission.'

'I wanted the world to see us, I mean, really see us,' he concludes.

In 1996 he published his first collection of works, Body Alchemy: Transsexual Portraits, and has released many other acclaimed works since.

While CampusReform.org asserts that ''University officials also refused to comment on how the presentation is educational to the student body,' said officials have confirmed that the presentation will go ahead as planned despite the protest.

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