The Other Side

The drag queens and transsexuals in Goldin's frank photographs inhabit an ambivalent zone between fixed gender identities. Her deceptively casual, color and black-and-white pictures are about social alienation, vulnerability, reconstructing one's identity and the will to survive. By turns raunchy, matter-of-fact, tawdry and celebratory, these affirmative images explore the ``underground'' world of queens and transsexuals from Boston to Bangkok, with stops in New York City, Berlin and Manila. In her accompanying text, the bisexual New York-based photographer recalls her live-in affair with a drag queen in the 1970s and analyzes the diverse motivations of her subjects. Some shift genders daily, ``from boy to girl and back again.'' Some dress up only for stage performances, while still others pursue the drag life for glamour and fashion. (May)