Soft Brains Shell Focus

As a transgender person, living in this heteronormative culture, i am constantly bumping up against the wall of so-called "normalcy," bumping up against stranger's expectations and perceptions, because i don't really pass, but i almost do.  I live in a very open-minded area in a very liberal state - however, i still have to deal with stares.  I have to deal with something that's not quite stares but similar - that moment, when i turn a corner in the grocery store, or i get close enuff to a person so that they'll look up at me as i pass, or when i come to the counter - that moment, when the person realizes i'm different, i'm trans.  Often people try very hard not to react - but they do, they stare, for a moment, and i can see their lil gears moving, and sometimes, if they're nice, they'll smile; sometimes, if they're not sure how they feel about trans people they'll look askance; or if they want to prove that trans people are not anything to get excited about they'll try to act cool without really succeeding.  Sometimes boys who're are thrown off by a trans girl who gave up male privilege, will try to take control of the moment in order to pretend i don't throw them off, so they'll grunt some sorta greeting, or say a bit too forcefully "what-up," and of course i say nothing, because what is there for me to say? Sometimes young girls will get super pissy with me - like, considering my anatomy, i don't have a chance of measuring up to their standards of beauty, and they can't believe i'd even try.  

Not to mention i have a hard time looking in the mirror when i don't have my makeup on, and i'm not wearing a hat.  I don't like looking in the mirror when i'm naked.  What i see is not who i feel.  And maybe that wouldn't matter if i lived in a more accepting culture.  If i'd been born 500 years ago in America amongst one of the First Nations who accepted trans people, there would've been no mirrors.  When a group of Spanish soldiers came upon a First Nation in South America who accepted trans people, they took the trans women, and had their dogs eat them alive.  That's how i feel sometimes, like i'm being eaten alive by dogs.  

MORE FROM THE GENDER DYSPHORIA SERIES:
These were all made from the same photograph.  First I began manipulating it with iPhoto and Preview on my Mac, then I started Dissolving together different versions on Image Tricks, and using different filters on it.  

         
                                

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