Prince Ngarambe is a transgender* woman aspiring to become a professional model. The 22 years old lives in north-eastern Rwanda, in the town of Musanze.
Assigned male at birth and raised as a boy, Prince says she always preferred to play among girls since primary school, and dress in feminine style whenever she had the opportunity to do so. Soon she realized she was more attracted to men than women. But growing up in rural Rwanda, she would often face discrimination and rejection from other children. When she reached twenty years old, she finally got introduced to the Rwandan LGBTQ community who helped her understand her feelings. She understood she was a transgender woman, an identity she had never heard about before. As a teenager, Prince became passionate about fashion modeling. She would watch videos on YouTube of professional models for hours, practicing to walk like them with high heels in her concrete courtyard whenever nobody was home. Her mom would sometimes see her, quietly accepting her passion.

When Prince shared her dreams of becoming a professional model with her father, he told her to focus on her studies. »My family accepts my uniqueness, but I have not been able to tell them about my gender identity yet, there is a big chance that they would reject me if I do so« says Prince. Although homosexuality is not criminalized in Rwanda, many LGBTQ people face discrimination at every turn: they are often fired from their jobs, disowned by their relatives,denied housing or medical treatment, and even beaten up by bigots.
»Most of the time, I have to hide my true self and dress as a man to protect myself« says Prince. Therefore, when she walks in the streets or goes to work, she often hides under a hood : « I prefer to avoid negatives looks or remarks, I even change my way of walking ». But now that Prince has found a place among the LGBT fashion community, she collaborates with Rwandan designers, wears dresses, crop tops and high heels at certain events or safe spaces. On the runway, she expresses herself as the woman she always knew she was. In May 2022, she participated in her first big fashion show in Kigali in front of dozens of
photographers. On social media, she started calling herself « The Prince of catwalk ». Through this photo assignment, I explored Prince’s quest of acceptance, her relationship with her relatives, the « mask of a man » she often has to wear to protect herself from discrimination, and the emancipation she seeks through fashion modeling.