Joanna Toro’s series “The Dressing Room” documents the lives of New York’s queer Latinx community. Her shots capture intimate moments backstage at drag shows and on the streets working for social change.
As an ally, Joanna feels the need to highlight this spirited group to the greater Latinx community.
“I began to teach myself about their challenges,” she tells the New York Times.
At first, some of her subjects perceived her as a threat but as they grew closer, stereotypes about each other quickly melted.
“I felt I was in a kind of temple … in that place, everyone was the same. Everybody was just enjoying being who they are,” she tells the New York Times.
Her images show the dressing room as a place of transformation. In these moments, the drag queens leave behind the hardships surrounding immigration, religion, and orientation, and turn themselves into the prettiest and most sparkly butterflies around. Their performance is a way to lighten the load – a poignant embrace of the danger of being, of finding beauty in the edge.
This is another much-needed reminder that stereotypes depend on ignorance. Get to know somebody and down the biases fall.
