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At trans fashion show, focus is on models

Asher is just Asher -- not he, or she, or they. At age 12, that’s the way Asher likes it.

But strutting down the catwalk in a light peach dress with flowing tulle, evoking nothing less than a princess, Asher glows.

Asher’s mother sits in the audience, applauding her child. She and others are here to cheer loved ones in what is described as a “celebration of gender identity and expression” -- a celebration of who they are, not just what they wear or how they present.

This is the First Event Conference, held for four decades by the Trans Club of New England. Many years ago, the conference added a fashion show, featuring about a dozen male-to-female crossdressers. But over time, the focus became less and less the clothes, and more and more the people in them.

Julie Gregory, 57, left, slips into her heels as she and Jaclyn Norton, 20, wait to walk on the runway at the TransFORMED fashion show on Friday, Jan. 31, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

On a winter’s night, 40 people -- transmen, transwomen and others who do not fit easily into any category, models ranging in age from 8 to 78 -- walk the runway.

The older ones can easily recall a time when people like them were universally regarded as freaks, when a public occasion like this one, and all the love of family and friends that surrounds it, was unimaginable.

Not that it’s all been easy; Julie Gregory is 57, and says her sister “actually called me ugly in a picture I sent her and said that she has a brother, not a sister.” But her wife (they’ve been together 14 years) is supportive. Hormones have made Julie a more confident woman, and she looks forward to surgery.

“I have always had beauty inside,” she says. “I am now showing that to the world on the outside by my transition and I am so blessed to get to live as a woman who has so much love to give.”

Leon Dell'era, 15, draws on eyeliner backstage during a fashion show where he will present three different outfits on Friday, Jan. 31, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Lisa Smith gets to live as a man and as a woman. “I have a male identity and a female one that I display at different times,” she says. Lisa is 70, and happily married for 44 years. Her wife prefers not to meet Lisa or see her in photos; she knows her husband as a male, the way Lisa spends most of her life.

But when she puts on the dress, when she is Lisa, “I do the best I can to appear as the woman I would have been, had I been born a woman.”

Some young ones like Asher have never had to conform to stereotypes. They just are.

Asher’s mother recalls the milestones: how Asher brought a prized tube of blue lipstick to kindergarten, and began wearing her sundresses in the summer before third grade, and “started getting really amazing at makeup and hair in the fourth grade.”

The teachers, staff and students at Asher’s school, she says, have come to understand: Asher is not a boy, not a girl. Asher is non-binary. Asher is Asher.

And it is Asher who strides the runway, triumphant.

Leon Dell'era, 15, left, waits backstage for his turn to walk the runway while Lisa Smith, 70, emerges from the dressing rooms on Jan. 31, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Transmasculine, transfeminine, and non-binary models rehearse for a performance ahead of a fashion show during the First Event Conference on Jan. 31, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Samantha Ambrose smiles for a photograph dressed in a wedding gown which she modeled as one of three outfits she wore at the TransFORMED fashion show on Jan. 31, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Sarah Langer, 25, prepares a wig for her next outfit in the TransFORMED fashion show on Jan. 31, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Lancelin Si'l-Vous-Plait, 16, left, helps to braid the hair of their sister, Valerie Suero, 9, in preparation for a fashion show on Jan. 31, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Lancelin Si'l-Vous-Plait, 16, left, helps to braid the hair of their sister, Valerie Suero, 9, in preparation for a fashion show on Jan. 31, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

From right, Deborah Smith, Lisa Smith and Bobbi Waite watch attentively as a volunteer demonstrates the catwalk for these models for the TransFORMED fashion show on Jan. 31, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Jaclyn Norton, 20, from Ohio, waves to volunteers as she rehearses for the TransFORMED fashion show on Jan. 31, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Deborah Smith, from left; Anthony Bovenzi, aka Nikita Le Femme; Lisa Smith; Samantha Ambrose; Juliana Wall; Phoebe Winter; and Sarah Langer wait to walk down the runway during the TransFORMED fashion show on Jan. 31, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Lisa Smith, 70, left, and Emily Tressa, 18, pose for a photograph as they wait to walk down the runway during a fashion show on Jan. 31, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Ruffa Fuertes practices walking on the runway while others watch, Jan. 31, 2020, in Boston ahead of the TransFORMED fashion show. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

A makeup artist attaches false eyelashes on Asher, 12, during preparations for a fashion show Jan. 31, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Emily Tressa, 18, poses at the end of the catwalk during a fashion show with transfeminine, transmasculine and non-binary models on Jan. 31, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Emily Tressa, 18, center, looks down while her best friend AJ adjusts her gown ahead of a fashion show on Jan. 31, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Julie Gregory, 57, walks down the runway at the TransFORMED fashion show on Friday, Jan. 31, 2020, in Boston. Julie says that she is blessed to get to live as a woman who has so much love to give. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Asher, 12, walks down the catwalk in her peach-colored gown during a fashion show on Friday, Jan. 31, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Emily Tressa, 18, examines her makeup ahead of a fashion show with transfeminine, transmasculine and non-binary models on Jan. 31, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)


Text from the AP news story, AP PHOTOS: At trans fashion show, focus is on models.

Photos by Wong Maye-E

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