The Salt Mines(1990)

Part of the Salt Mines + Transformation Collection

Released the same year as PARIS IS BURNING, Susana Aikin and Carlos Aparicio’s extraordinary documentary THE SALT MINES focuses on three homeless Lantinx trans women living in a parking lot of old garbage trucks on Manhattan’s West Side. Aikin and Aparicio document the daily life and hardships faced by these women living on the margins of society. Five years later in THE TRANSFORMATION, they reconnected with one of that film’s most engaging subjects, now living as a man in Texas, forced to transition back by an evangelical missionary that offered her much-needed shelter and safety in exchange.