On 2024-06-10 I did another selfie photoshoot. By this I mean a proper camera on a tripod, controlled remotely with my phone — not the standard mirror selfies.
I was ill prepared for it: unwashed hair, no makeup, nothing. But I felt compelled to do it nonetheless: I had recently acquired a small selection of skirts, padded camisoles, etc.
This was my first girlmode photoshoot.
The process itself was pretty standard (I’ve done this a few times before) but the results were…interesting: oily hair, dandruff, and splotchy skin, yes, but seeing myself with that silhouette — largely from the padded camisole; to a lesser extent from the pleated skirt; to an even lesser extent thanks to improvements in my thighs from working out — I wondered, for the first time ever, if I might actually have a chance of liking how I looked. Of finding myself…potentially attractive?
What a ridiculous idea:
- one-sided ptosis
- angular face
- splotchy skin
- forehead wrinkles and glabellar lines
- hair still in an awkward stage of growing out
- really broad shoulders
But part of me still dares to wonder: with enough makeup and care in choosing clothes, and a bit of practice in editing, and the occasional offering to the AI deities, might anyone be fooled — at least for a brief moment, by a photo?
And then there’s the inward-facing side — the side that’s always hardest to own up to: I’ve known for well over a decade that I’m nothing like the archetypal cishet man and have in the last 5 years come to embrace the idea of being non-binary. But given all the below, am I really (feminine-leaning) non-binary?:
- these girlmode photos are the first time I’ve ever actually liked the way I look; some I can’t stop revisiting.
- much that western societies deem “masculine” I tend to find mildly unattractive at best, both in myself and others.
- I could almost certainly come up with more pros than cons for removing my present genitalia and, if offered (or threatened with) it, might not find it such a terrible idea.
Yet to accept any label but “non-binary” would be to buy into the whole shtick about gender roles which itself I find immensely unattractive.
Perhaps, then:
- outwardly — the gender that broader society as a whole imposes on me — I may well be considered trans.
- inwardly, I continue to prefer the non-binary identity.