Excluded Middle

In his article The Logic of Sex: Heteronormativity, Gender, and the Law of the Excluded Middle, Joe Weinberg discusses the relation between sexuality and gender, and the traditional ways in which it is made logical to us: “Most of us understand logic as being a binary system (bivalent, as the philosophers say): something is either True or it is False… The Law of Excluded Middle tells us that there’s more than two options, so we have to go beyond bivalence. And what is beyond bivalence? Well, you could have something be neither true nor false; it could be both true AND false. Or it could partially true or partially false”.

         Excluded Middle is a photographic series that serves to empower and give voice to people who identify as non-binary, and shine light on a community that is often misunderstood. The photographer/subject relationship in this body of work touches on a long debatable conversation in the history of the medium: the position of the photographer as either an insider or outsider to the subject they are photographing. In this case, a cisgender photographer documenting a genderqueer community.

Throughout the process of creating this series of environmental portraits, collaboration was a fundamental factor. The participating individuals got to be involved in location decisions, creative direction, as well as choosing the final photograph to be printed and displayed. The agency given to the subjects proved to be an extremely positive part of the work. Subjects were also encouraged to think of a text component to accompany their portrait, and how that will inform the viewers of the work on queer issues. Some of the text pieces include an interview between photographer and subject, as well as subjects interviewing each other about the subject of non-binary gender.