Roula Seikaly speaks with iO Tillet Wright about Self Evident Truths, his ten-year project (and now photography book) of 10,000+ humanizing portraits documenting people in the USA that identify as ANYTHING OTHER than 100% straight.

I was champagne-drunk while listening to United States President-elect Joseph R. Biden formally address the nation on November 7th. It was also my birthday, and there was much to celebrate. When I heard him include trans and queer Americans in a long list of people to whom he owes this victory, as though he was naming family members, I cried. I thought of my transgender wife and all of our friends in queer and other marginalized communities for whom the previous four years particularly have been terrifyingly fraught, and how it may be slightly easier to breathe now.

With that in mind, it’s a pleasure to introduce this interview with photographer iO Tillet-Wright. In 2010, Tillet-Wright embarked on a nationwide project to photograph people who are generally lumped into the category “LGBTQIA++,” which the photographer/activist rightly calls out for how it generalizes the otherwise glorious variations within queer communities.

10 years and 10,000 portraits later, the project Self Evident Truths: 10,000 Portraits of Queer America celebrates individuality that is barely contained within the photographic frame and holds immeasurable possibilities beyond a clumsy acronym. Published by Prestel this October, the 544-page book is monumental for its size, scope, and content - “10,000 faces of survival, charisma, and charm” - alike.

Roula Seikaly in conversation with iO Tillet-Wright