Mick Hartley

To the Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize 2025 at the National Portrait Gallery. Always worth a visit, this annual show, but often….well….problematic, shall we say, for us gender criticals. Yes, it’s the art world, folks.

First up, Allana, by Steve Reeves.

Lovely dress – and he knows the language:

“Allana appears strong and reflective standing in an ordinary suburban street. Her portrait forms part of Steve Reeves’s moving tribute to older members of the LGBTQ+ community who were living before the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the UK in 1967. Allana transitioned ten years ago, after suffering much of her adult life from depression and gender dysphoria, and only finding inner peace when under water as a Navy diver. “Becoming who I am has been, in short, nothing but hard, hard work”, she says.“

No reason to believe he’s gay, and if he is he certainly took a long time to come out. But to be a cross-dressing man now is to be a hero, even if the photo is nothing special – so here we are. A man in a dress in a suburban street.

More seriously – Freedom, by Pip Jay King.

“Pip Jay King has been photographing Danni over the past four years, following their personal journey as a transgender and non-binary person. Danni’s experience, undergoing top surgery and masculinising hormone therapy, is visualised in this moment of joy and serenity. Through this documentation Danni is able to see themselves as King does: “at home in their body, radiating gender euphoria on a spring day.” The bodily details we can see indicate a personal passage which is captured in this moment of liberation.“

This is a troubled young woman who’s been medically mutilated with a double mastectomy, and is taking masculinising hormones, in the deluded belief that she can become a man – never mind the confusion of being supposedly non-binary and changing sex. This is obscene. Did the photographer encourage the poor girl in all this? It certainly sounds like it.

And showing this here, in a public gallery. There was a party of young schoolgirls when I was there. Encouraged to be inspired by this “gender euphoria” – by the belief that this is a positive and wonderfully brave step towards a fabulous new world, when it’s just the beginning of this poor girl’s suffering. For shame.

Anything else I want to get off my chest? Well yes – the NPG toilets. They’re “inclusive”. Which means no Ladies and Gents, just a row of cubicles. Which means the toilet seats and floor are covered in piss because men – some men – can’t be bothered to raise the seat, already covered in piss, and are never as accurate as they hope. Lucky ladies once again.

There, I’m done.