“A therapeutic outlet”: Kat Green documents the transition of her close friend, Tam

The photographer Kat Green first met her friend Tam when their sons were starting school together. About a year after their first interaction, Tam came out as transgender. “I witnessed the challenges they faced in coming out and rebuilding their life at home, with family, friends, and at work,” says Kat. In recent years, she has been drawn to personal projects centring around people “on the brink of major life changes”, and together with Tam – after their first consultation with a surgeon – they discussed documenting the experience. It wasn’t only to mark their transition, but also hopefully a means of providing Tam with a “therapeutic outlet”, as well as shining a light on the process of transitioning outside of government-supported healthcare.

Kat has always preferred photographing people in their personal spaces, but for this project it felt like a necessity. “To sensitively capture Tam’s transition, it was important that our sessions took place in a comfortable, supportive environment,” she says. “During our sessions, Tam was often in a fragile emotional state, feeling conflicted between their certainty about the surgery and the sense that they had let important people in their life down.”

The pair started shooting in December, and Kat recalls struggling with the lighting in Tam’s house, though she soon discovered that the darker tones reflected the mood at the beginning of Tam’s journey; Kat was equally as dedicated to capturing the emotional depth of her friend’s transition as well as the physical. One image from this period – Tam in the bath, head in their hands – encapsulates the emotional burden they’re carrying. While a beautiful image, the strong feelings are so perfectly translated, it becomes hard to look at for too long. Spring ended up coinciding with Tam’s top surgery, and the mood and energy of the shoot is reflected in the lighter, warmer days. In one image, Tam lies on their bed, eyes closed and hands laid softly across their chest, a sense of contentment emanating from them.

Tam grew up on a farm and has a “deep connection” to nature, and so Kat was aware that the series also needed shots of Tam outside. Tam described their childhood outdoors as “free and genderless” to Kat – “for Tam, nature provides a safe refuge from life’s harsher realities”, says Kat. An image from their time spent outside has recently been nominated for the Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize: one of Tam sat topless on a chair, surrounded by trees and wild shrubbery. The image is one that resonates with Kat, because of the location it’s taken on – a patch of land connected to the house Tam and their ex-partner and children live, a place where they plan to build a new house. “The photo captures a quiet moment of reflection, with Tam contemplating their journey, the strength they’ve shown, and the courage needed for the future.” says Kat. “For Tam, this land symbolises hope, opportunity, and new beginnings.”

While Kat was set on including Tam’s children – Evan and Hazel – in the series, she was aware that the approach she was taking with Tam wouldn’t suit them, and so, she joined the family on a half term holiday to the peak district. “It meant I had several days of being around them and making it feel normal and comfortable for me to take portraits of them all,” she says. One day, on a walk, Kat had asked Tam to stand in the landscape with their top off, but, before they knew it, Evan and Hazel had run into the frame, taken their tops off too, and embraced Tam. “It was an incredibly spontaneous and genuine moment that perfectly captured their bond and the warmth of their relationship,” says Tam. “The image turned out to be one of those rare moments that couldn’t have been staged more beautifully.”

Creating this series has strengthened Kat’s bond with Tam, and also deepened her understanding of what it means to be transgender. “The process allowed me to witness the complexities of their experience in a much more intimate way,” says Kat. Now, she hopes that when people view the series, they don’t simply see just another story, “but a human being – someone navigating difficult emotions, striving to do what’s right for themselves and their loved ones too.”