Who I am

This project is about the daily life and the FtoM/MtoF transition of two twenty-year-olds in Naples.

I have explored the trans world in various countries and different contexts. Since I went to Cuba to meet the trans women protected by Mariela Castro, when her uncle Fidel was still alive and the world was full of prejudices. Even "Femminielli" in Napoli have been kept away from society for so long. Today there is still a long way to go, but the world has changed a lot.

I decided to focus this project on the contemporary Neapolitan reality, with the personal story of two twenty-year-olds who suffered and fought tooth and nail to become what they are today.

Salvatore is 20 years old, raised in the Spanish neighborhoods in Naples, with his mother, grandparents and sister. In adolescence he begins an identity crisis, which no one knew and could explain. The local crime, the underworld and the years in community led him to face the reality and understand who he really was, who he didn't want to be. He met Viviana at 15, he has been with her ever since. In the meantime, he has continued his F to M transition and is fighting for a legal recognition, the hardest part of this process.

Vittoria, just turned 21, is a beautiful girl who has completed the physical transition process M to F. She studies in the design university, she is a model and has many dreams in the drawer. Her suffering began in childhood, when she could not wear or play as she wanted in order to not displease her mother. She lived hidden and denying who she really was. One day, during her adolescence, watching a transsexual woman on television, she began to believe that it was possible to change. Since then she has faced a lot of suffering, prejudice and hardship of all sorts. But today she is a strong young woman, proud of what she is and has achieved.