10,000 Portraits Across the Spectrum: The Self Evident Truths Project

To see more portraits of LGBTQ people across America, follow @selfevidentproject on Instagram.

A native New Yorker, 30-year-old iO Tillett Wright was aware at a young age that he was “a little trans kid.” In recent years, the artist-activist has come to reject the social and political constraints of certain labels in favor of a more inclusive — and nuanced — attitude toward sexuality. One result of this broader view of self-definition is iO’s Self Evident Truths project (@selfevidentproject), a six-year effort to photograph 10,000 people — like this awesome character from Iowa — who, by their own reckoning, are anywhere on the LGBTQ spectrum.

While the project began as a protest against legal efforts to ban same-sex marriage in the US, iO notes that, with the Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 decision that same-sex couples have a fundamental right to marry, both the political landscape and the project have changed. “It’s more of a celebration now,” iO (@iolovesyou) says. “It’s not about being gay or trans. It’s about allowing human beings to be who they say they are.” #NationalComingOutDay