"trans//face," a new exhibition by photographer and activist An Xiao, explores the lives and words of survivors of anti-transgender violence and their allies. The show opens at Bluestockings Bookstore on the Lower East Side of New York on Nov. 21, in conjunction with the 8th Annual National Transgender Day of Remembrance.

"I began this project not because I wanted to," writes Xiao in her artistic statement, "but because I had to. I don't know a single transgender individual who hasn't faced at least some level of discrimination and violence, even at the hands of people who otherwise identify as liberal."

In her portraits of transgender and queer New Yorkers in their daily environments, Xiao captures this sense of inhumanity and helplessness by blindfolding her subjects, who stare back at the viewer blankly as city life rushes by. Prose and poems written by participants accompany the photos in her installations.