Photovoice
Photovoice is a participatory research and critical thinking method that allows community members to share their experiences and collaborate for social change. It was first used to understand the experiences of the Yunnan Chinese women (Wang, Burris, & Ping, 1996), and has since been used to investigate marginalized communities such as Latina mothers (Mejia et al., 2013), indigenous peoples (Castleden & Garvin, 2008) and African American breast cancer survivors (López, Eng, Randall-David & Robinson, 2005). Photovoice has three goals: 1) to allow people to record and reflect their community’s strengths and concerns, 2) to promote active listening and dialogue, and 3) to move policy-makers towards action (Wang & Burris, 1997).

The initial stages of a photovoice project usually entails a focus group with community members to identify, discuss and explore common community concerns. Participants are taught how to use disposable cameras in order to capture the strengths, weaknesses and needs of the community in a visual medium (Mejia et al., 2013). These photographs are used to provoke deeper reflection and discussion on the community problems which are finally brought to policy makers.

This methodology is located within the critical paradigm drawing from Paulo Freire’s education for critical consciousness and feminist theory. Freire (1970) posits that visual mediums are useful to engage people in critical reflection on their community. Feminist theory argues that women and other marginalized communities have special insight and expertise on their communities that outsiders often lack. (Wang & Burris, 1997) Since photovoice is best used to incorporate the voices of those often left out of academic and policy dialogues, we have decided to utilize this methodology in our research with the Transgender community in Singapore.
 

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Transgender Community
The most inclusive definition of the term ‘transgender’ encompasses “pre-operative, postoperative, and nonoperative transsexual people; cross-dressers; feminine men and masculine women; intersexed persons; and more generally, anyone whose gender identity or expression differs from conventional expectations of masculinity or femininity” (Currah & Minter, 2005, p. 47).

Transgenders often face severe discrimination in several aspects of life such as employment, credit, housing, law enforcement, education and marriage. However, this discrimination goes largely unnoticed, much like transgenders themselves (Currah & Minter, 2005; Namaste, 2000). The marginalisation and invisibility transgenders face in everyday life can be attributed to both institutional biases and bottom-up exclusionary practices. Excluding transgenders to reinforce heteronormativity (Namaste, 2000) results in disenfranchisement among transgenders, leaving them susceptible to addiction, depression and suicide (Rudacille, 2005).

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In the local context, Singapore’s transgender community has existed since the 1970s. However, the anti-queer stance of the state has made it difficult for the Singaporean government to make public concessions to the transgender community. Today, the transgender community is largely associated with prostitution at Orchard Towers and the Changi Village carpark (Lo, 2013). The topic of trans-people remains highly contentious and is treated with a high level of social stigma, resulting in a lack of understanding of the trans community.

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One of the many problems the trans-community faces in Singapore is the lack of housing. Many individuals are rejected by their families and chased out of their familial homes - often leaving them homeless due to high costs and strict criteria of obtaining government subsidized housing (Lo, 2013). Homeless Singaporean transgender individuals face a conundrum as they are unable to seek shelter at those for men or women, for some have fully transitioned, others partially, or not at all.
The T-Project is Singapore’s temporary answer for this issue - it was set up in 2014 by two trans-women, June Chua and her late elder sister, Alicia Chua (Hoe, 2016). The T-project houses up to eight residents at a time and connects them to relevant social services during their stay. Social workers are pegged to each resident, offering information about HDB rentals, BTO applications, financial planning, career opportunities, and medical help.

 

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Transgenders and Photovoice

Few photovoice projects have been implemented by and with the transgender community, and those conducted have largely focused on healthcare. A study done by Boyce and Hajra (2011) studied the representation of homosexual males and transexuals in HIV prevention work in West Bengal, India. Another study used photovoice to examine transexuals’ experiences of health care access in California (Hussey, 2006).

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One photovoice study conducted in Ontario, Canada, studied the dilemma of representation of transexual youth (Holtby et al., 2015). Themes of invisibility and hypervisibility emerged, as participants felt chagrined at the lack of recognition of their true self, while they simultaneously felt heavily scrutinised and policed by the public.

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However, photovoice projects with the Transgender community remain scarce. Our project is the first photovoice research project with the transgender community to be conducted in Singapore. Thus, we suggest to grant as much power to the participants as possible by allowing them to design and direct the photovoice project.

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Appendix

Boyce, P. and Hajra, A. (2011). Do you feel somewhere in light that your body has no existence? Photographic research with transgendered people and men who have sex with men in West Bengal, India. Visual Communication, 10(1), pp.3-24.

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Castleden, H. and Garvin, T. (2008). Modifying Photovoice for community-based participatory Indigenous research. Social Science & Medicine, 66(6), pp.1393-1405.

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Currah, P., & Minter, S. (2005). Unprincipled exclusions: The struggle to achieve judicial and legislative equality for transgender people. In E. Bernstein, & Schaffner, L. (Eds.), Regulating sex: The politics of intimacy and identity (pp. 35-48). New York and Oxon, UK: Routledge.

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Freire, P. (1971). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder.

Hoe, Pei Shan. “Old shophouse attic transformed into shelter for homeless transgender people.” The Straits Times, 19 Jan. 2016, www.straitstimes.com/singapore/housing/old-shophouse-attic-transformed-into-shelter-for-homeless-transgender-people.

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Holtby, A., Klein, K., Cook, K. and Travers, R. (2015). To be seen or not to be seen: Photovoice, queer and trans youth, and the dilemma of representation. Action Research, 13(4), pp.317-335.

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Hussey, W. (2006). Slivers of the Journey. Journal of Homosexuality, 51(1), pp.129-158.

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Lo, L. (2013). I am not an activist: Reflections from a transgender woman. In Y. Leow (Ed.), I Will Survive (pp. 63-68). Singapore: Math Paper Press by Booksactually.

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López, E., Eng, E., Randall-David, E. and Robinson, N. (2005). Quality-of-Life Concerns of African American Breast Cancer Survivors Within Rural North Carolina: Blending the Techniques of Photovoice and Grounded Theory. Qualitative Health Research, 15(1), pp.99-115.

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Mejia, A., Quiroz, O., Morales, Y., Ponce, R., Chavez, G. and Torre, E. (2013). From madres to mujeristas: Latinas making change with Photovoice. Action Research, 11(4), pp.301-321.

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Namaste, V. K. (2000). Invisible lives: The erasure of transsexual and transgendered people. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

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Rudacille, D. (2005). The riddle of gender: Science, activism, and transgender rights. New York: Pantheon Books.

Wang, C. and Burris, M. (1997). Photovoice: Concept, Methodology, and Use for Participatory Needs Assessment. Health Education & Behavior, 24(3), pp.369-387.

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Wang, C., Burris, M. and Ping, X. (1996). Chinese village women as visual anthropologists: A participatory approach to reaching policymakers. Social Science & Medicine, 42(10), pp.1391-1400.

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