Talk Like a Man

“It is a sunny Madrid evening and some 30 young activists have gathered in a dusty meeting room to reflect on how they contributed to International Women’s Day on 8 March.

Millions of Spanish women have protested and gone on strike in recent years over male violence, Spain’s lack of a consent-based rape law and economic inequality.

But all the activists here are men, part of a nationwide association of men for gender equality called AHIGE.

Feminists have become increasingly alarmed by the rise of far-right party Vox, which wants to end abortion and special laws aimed at protecting women from male violence.

And they are attracting support from an increasing number of Spanish men, who want to eradicate what they see as their inner sexist values.

In men-only groups, members openly share their prejudices, their lack of understanding towards women, and the male gender role they are playing out.”

“I love who I am and my soul, and it feels more and more like my outside is meeting that inside feeling,” says Russell, who was 24 and living in Madison, Wisconsin when he was photographed by Soraya Zaman for their new book, American Boys. The quote appears next to photos of his sandy mane blowing in the breeze by the water, then portraits of him posing by a statue of an angel, outside under a tree, and finally standing over the shoreline on a bundle of wood, shirtless and proudly displaying scars from his top surgery.

Russell is just one of nearly 30 people featured in American Boys, a project in which Zaman traveled coast to coast to chronicle a range of presentation of transmasculine identity across the U.S. In small towns and big cities alike, people sat for Zaman’s lens in the comfort of their environments: Elias in the light of his window, Shane crossing a Los Angeles street, Amari resting near train tracks, Aodhàn in a field of sunflowers, Steve climbing high onto rocks, and so many more.”

Read the full piece and see the photos here