oct 6, 2016 - INTERVIEW Magazine Io Tillett Wright By Nan Goldin

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Io Tillett Wright
By Nan Goldin
Photographed by Nan Goldin

I’m proud to say I’m not just the interviewer, not just the photographer, but the godmother. iO’s godmother. I first knew iO when he was still floating in his mother’s belly. I was preparing for the coming of iO. But not prepared for his being. I knew Rhonna, his gorgeous mother, from the streets of our neighborhood—the Bowery. I often saw her floating by, an apparition, an Amazon, tough and sexy, always moving on air with the grace of a goddess.

I asked Rhonna to model for me for one of my first fashion jobs—for the fashion insert of The Village Voice. It was a lingerie story shot at the Russian Baths. Rhonna was nine months pregnant. She brought pregnancy to a new level of beauty, skin so soft and flawless, body smooth, so at ease with her belly. She was the star of the shoot. Oddly, when the photo editor of The Village Voice saw the pictures, he was quoted as saying, “I once knew a woman missing a toe.” I could only assume he meant that he saw pregnancy as a handicap like the missing digit. Clearly he never met Rhonna.

Within a few days, iO emerged. It was the third time a baby came out immediately after I photographed a pregnant friend with a flash. Perhaps the intense beam of light was like a summons to the infant. I met iO as an infant in Positano, Italy, with both his parents, on the beach, always exploring boulders, festooned with necklaces with stars, the darling of the summer of 1986. I met him at openings in SoHo sitting on his father’s shoulders, so often showered with the attention of an inebriated crowd of the art world—easier to engage with a baby than with each other. I went missing for some years. When I reemerged into the outside world, iO was a kid. I’d run into him with his mom in health food stores making the selects from the salad bar or proudly decked out in camouflage. We visited occasionally—a trip to Central Park at the last light, where he scampered up trees, swung from railings, and hit whatever he could with long sticks. I saw a rage I didn’t understand as anything different than the violence performed by young boys.

I saw iO’s mom as gentle and supportive and proud of every move he made. I thought their relationship was idyllic, but I only saw the surface. I knew very little of the deprivation, the lack of electricity at home, the rule that he not go home except at certain hours. He and his ma seemed inseparable. I went to one birthday party where he performed card tricks and imitated a carnival barker. We sat in his room among his Hardy Boys books and he told me about living as a boy. iO was transgender before we used the term, before the majority of people knew anything about gender—fuck. He first lived as a boy from about 6 to 14 with one of his library cards identifying him as “Richie” and told me he passed as a boy. I was extremely impressed and proud of him. Here was a 6-year-old kid kicking against all convention, fearless and daring to be who he felt rather than who he was supposed to be.

When I received a hysterical call from Rhonna that iO had been forcibly taken away from her and shipped to his grandmother’s in preparation to move to Germany, I fully supported Rhonna and hired a lawyer for her. But I didn’t know for weeks that this was iO’s desire, iO’s need to break with Rhonna, iO’s dream to live with his pop.

Now, with his new memoir, Darling Days (Ecco), iO has opened the door to the house that he has always carried on his back. He’s let us in on his trip, on a search for a home. For iO to write this book, to let us in on his secrets, is a gift he has given us. It’s the perfect time for this memoir. He’s already lived so many lives in the reality of a girl and of a boy. The acuity of his vision, his memory, his relationship to language are all extraordinary. He can describe his pain and anxiety, his loneliness and his pleasure in a way that’s so visceral that it’s impossible to detach from. He fluctuates between empathy and rage for his ma. He turns a cold eye on her and the damage that’s been done, but in spite of that, we feel the incredible love. That within the pain and anger, he is describing a love much bigger than him or his ma, a force unto itself. He has found his own way and always had to rely most of all on himself. But as shattering as his descriptions are, there is unbreakable glass surrounding them.

iO’s book is astounding. Written in the first person, from a survivor of so many trials. So honest and wrenching but also full of hope. He is an emerging writer who already found his voice sharing his journey without an ounce of self-pity or embellishment. He is a guiding light for so many teenagers and adults who are traumatized by family or deeply disturbed by their own gender dysphoria. This book will allow his voice, his wisdom, to resonate for a much wider audience, and it’s the time for this to be heard loud and clear.

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