About two years ago, I began photographing transgender and “gender-expansive” children and young adults in the United States and Europe. I wanted to ask this question: “Who are we beyond ideas tied to our gender?” The answer is critical not only to the transgender community, I believe, but to everyone.
In the younger participants, I have found self-assuredness and confidence; they are clear about who they are. In the older youths — especially the nonbinary ones who identify as both genders, or neither — I see a willingness to break free from boxes society puts us into. In all of them, there is creativity and compassion for peers and strangers alike.
Below are some pictures and brief thoughts that a few participants have shared with me, condensed for clarity and space.
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Max, 13 Bay Area, California. Nonbinary.
“I asked my mom if I could text her something. I texted her that I am attracted to boys and that I feel more girl than boy. Later that year, I found the term nonbinary. It just felt right. I still am often scared of the reactions of people when I tell them.
“As a trans person who has experienced hate, I want people to understand that nobody deserves to be hated. Everyone deserves love, regardless of race, gender, sexuality.”
“It is really different living as myself. Before, I felt like I was always trying to squeeze into jeans that were six sizes too small, but now it feels like I am in jeans that were made just for me. I no longer wake up hating myself or this world that does not understand me. “I want to make sure the world does not take as long as it did to be open to gay and bi people. I hope that I am able to help girls like me, so they don’t go through what I did. I want to slay the gods 100 times over doing things that trans girls have never done. I want to be the face of equality.”
Owen Edwards
Chloe, 20 Cork, Ireland. Transgender woman.
“After coming out, I had huge dysphoria and struggled hugely leaving the house and speaking when I was out in public. There were moments when I would feel like I was doing the right thing and moments I thought I was going crazy. Gradually over time I started to feel the benefits of being truthful to myself.
“Living in a body that you feel doesn’t fully belong to you yet is extremely painful, but dealing with people who think you are disgusting and sick is mentally draining....I understand that my gender does not define me or who I am. I refuse to let gender roles and female-male privilege control me.
“I am perfectly imperfect. And proud.”
Jacob White
Zak, 13 Isle of Wight, England. Transgender boy.
“When I was 12, I realized that transgender was a thing. It made sense. I’m straight — I’m a straight guy in a girl’s body.
“I had very distorted expectations, though, and thought that I would be able to have hormones and operations straightaway. The process is too long. I hate looking like this, I hate the body that I have. I want it to transform, and it is wrong that I have to wait until I’m an adult.”
Luis Lopez
Lilly, 12 Northern California. Transgender girl.
“While other kids are developing, you’re not. You’re either on hormone blockers or you don’t know what to do yet. Also, nobody really has a crush on you, because they think you’re weird or different because they think you’re really not the gender you are.
“At the end of the day, people can say what they want about you, but the only voice that matters to you is yours. They just don’t struggle with the things we struggle with.”
Brody Reed
Kyla and Mya (twins), 18 Los Angeles. Nonbinary.
“I feel most comfortable in the space between the gender binary, a space where I’m allowed to construct my own ideas of gender and gender expression. That means I feel more masculine than feminine. For many, this is a hard concept to understand.
“Being nonbinary also means I will never truly be accepted by society. It means that when a stranger asks me, ‘Are you a boy or a girl?,’ I have to evaluate which option will keep me safest.” — Kyla, left
“Gender still baffles me, and I didn’t grow up seeing it the way others do. I can’t say I now understand gender on a personal level, but I have a better understanding of it on a societal and institutional level. Trans identities expose the underpinnings of gender in ways that our society often deems as dangerous.
“We are complex individuals living in a complex, multidimensional world. It doesn’t make sense for gender to be any different.” — Mya
Asher Price
bump
Juan Jackson
They think they can change what they are just because they feel like it, even though all the other cells in their body say otherwise. Modifying your body to fit your fantasy doesn't change anything, you're just feeding a mental illness. It is clear these people are mentally ill. Yet we are supposed to listen to what they feel? You don't question a schizophrenic person if they are ill, it is just evident, as it is with these mentally ill creeps
Grayson Nguyen
Lower test levels among males caused by a number of factors, combined with a culture that denigrates masculinity
Leads to softer males more susceptible to manipulation and in some cases leads to males who have no interest in being males at all
Note how many more male-to-female trans there are than female-to-male. In western countries many live in a bubble of prosperity, where feminin traits are free to flourish and masculin traits are regarded as irrelevant. Outside the bubble, the opposite is true, masculinity is necessary while femininity is a luxury.
Cameron Flores
Because they don't have kids yet?
Alexander Brown
I'm actually a tranny, I still believe that it's a mental illness, and all of these special snowflakes are mentally ill as well
I think that kids that "feel trans" should be given therapy, but if that doesn't work, the only way we have to cure it is transition.
Sad feels.
Justin James
>t. Schizophrenic who is very good at hiding it. It's not a party, trust me, if you can act "normal" most of the time you're fucked. Set the bar low.
Dylan Morris
when did you transition
Thomas Howard
I started like 18 months ago
Sebastian Phillips
have you felt different ever since you were a little kid or did it start after puberty?
Adam Wright
Thoughts on xir?
Zachary Roberts
It was there in the background since I was a kid, but it really ramped up into overdrive when puberty started.
>tfw if you stop and think about it your gender isn't apart of your psyche at all and you worry that you might be an agender nonbinary moldkin
Adrian Robinson
Bump.
Great work, OP. Keep going
Lincoln Rogers
Blame Japan, Republicans and millenial anime/furfags for spreading this cancer.
You ever notice they're almost always white too?
Ethan Reed
Because it's overcomplicated and useless tldr sage
Austin Price
I love how all of them have extremely affected appearances. It's like they've only ever been alive in the age of social media or something...
Zachary Young
Narcissism.
Landon Reed
These people are just mentally ill
They hate that certain characteristics are usually ascribe to males or females and reject that, so they create their own identity from their own characteristics... and assign it to this new gender.
How is toxic masculinity different from vicious tiger kin attacks?
They're so obsessed with class and self identity to be different that they are the ultimate conformists
>tfw straight white male
Feels good man
Luke Diaz
God dammit just put them down, they will most likely kill themselves anyway so make it now and stop bother the tax payer with their mental illness.
Xavier Richardson
>alcoholic father >child will either follow example or hate alcohol
>Tumblr mother >child will either follow example or hate the left
Ryan Harris
This, endocrine disruptors are incredibly common these days. They are in tap water, plastics, food, fabrics, etc.
William Turner
This,
Gavin Gonzalez
It's like babby's first redpill in 2007 was "Zeitgeist" and now babby's first redpill is "gender"
Xavier Gutierrez
Sounds like you better opt out of life
Bentley Edwards
Why do these faggots even care about gender so much? I can somewhat understand sex dysphoria as a medical condition, but many of these guys just seem to have some strange variation of: "Well, I like this traditionally girly thing, so that means I'm a girl!" mindset without even being uncomfortable with their bodies. It's like they're incapable of understanding the concept of personality.
Adam Morgan
oh its almost like they are gay, feel that being gay is wrong even though everyone around them says is okay, and only find peace in deluding themselves that they are not gay
almost as if being gay was a cause of distress for them but they had no other way of fixing it cause society doesn't let them
Robert Garcia
>inb4 anecdotal evidence
most young people i know see thee whole "non binary gender" thing as nothing more than a fucking meme. a joke to to be made fun of in your free time and not an actual movement.
>t. 18 year old in high school
Eli Howard
Absolutely fucking disgusting. There's two genders mate. You're either born a male or a female. Stop denying biological facts. Majority of theses cunts want to kill themselves. They have a mental illness and they need to be shipped to the asylum fast!
David Jenkins
It's not that youths are bluepilled
its that the jews are pushing this en masse to make it seem normal.
Unfortunately, you will never make this normal.
No matter how much the jews try, this will NEVER be accepted as normal. Never. Deep down everyone knows this is completely fucked up.
Homosexuality etc can be pushed onto society to make it normalized.
But this is where the jews will fail.
Anthony Jenkins
>12 >nobody really has a crush on you OMG THE HORROR OF BEING A NON NORMIE
Sebastian King
> some thing > child will either do that or the opposite REALLY MADE MY EGGS FRY
Josiah Watson
>fries eggs >children will either look at fried eggs nostalgically or grow sick of fried eggs
Nicholas Bennett
if homos didn't know on a deep level that they were fucked up, their clubs wouldn't look like they look
Jackson Rivera
>Isle of Wight people live there?
Kevin Price
Jewish campaign to drive down white birth rates
William Peterson
But society would much rather have gays around than trans...
Adam Jackson
teenagers are stupid, horny and confused >used to help them by giving them social roles until they grew out of the phase >now give them total freedom to fuck up their lives forever >qui bono
Nolan Morales
>I see a willingness to break free from boxes society puts us into. they are delusional
they believe gender is far more then it actually is, yet at the same time believe its something that you can just change whenever you want.
and this nonsense only gets encouraged, not corrected.
Adrian Brown
yeah but they themselves don't want to be gay look at what they say
"ohh im not gay! im a straight person of the opposite gender"
what moves them is rejection and disgust to homosexuality, but they can't find any help for it in society other than this, everyone else encourages them to buy a dildo
Luis Taylor
This shit is why I'm raising my kid out in the country side at a small christian school. Also I'm going to teach him how to think critically and teach him about degeneracy before letting him use the internet.
Liam Smith
No actual life experience, just mindless hopping on the latest fad the Jews push on them.
Jaxson Price
and when did we go from >if you are not normal, dont worry. accept your differences and yourself.
to
>if you are not normal, make up a gender for which you are and mutilate yourself if needed, >also gender roles dont exist, yet at the same time are absolutes.
