TransCuba: Photographer Mariette Pathy Allen Explores a Hidden Havana Subculture

For more than 30 years, New York based photographer and painter Mariette Pathy Allen has been documenting transgender culture worldwide; in 2004 she won the Lambda Literary Award for her monograph The Gender Frontier. In her new publication, TransCuba, Allen focuses on the transgender community of Cuba, especially its growing visibility and acceptance in a country whose government is transitioning into a more relaxed model of communism under Raul Castro's presidency.

A selection of Allen's photographs from TransCuba will be the subject of a solo exhibition at the Rayko Photo Center in San Francisco from June 25-July 31.