DSC03133-bw-v1 – Fivestar (San Francisco), originally uploaded by loupiote (Old Skool).

Androdgyny Two.jpg, originally uploaded by neogeodesy.

androgynous, originally uploaded by dru.bramlett.

So, I’m in the men’s section at the Levi’s store, leafing through the low-slung bootcuts and trying to remember how many inches I need to add to my waist size to accommodate my hips and thighs in a pair of men’s jeans.

It’s Sunday — the official day of the week for relaxing, running errands, and not worrying about how I look. I’m wearing a boxy jacket and baggy pants, and my head is freshly buzzed. I did something unusual today: I left the house without makeup or earrings.

A twenty-something male sales clerk is working next to me. He looks up at my face, smiles, and says in a loud, friendly tone, “Do you need help with anything, sir?”

I hold his gaze for another moment and smile gently. He pauses, looks closer, and says under his breath, “Sorry. Ma’am,” — quietly enough that if I were hard of hearing, I might miss the whole interaction. Quietly enough that his nearby co-workers don’t hear his mistake.

I hold my gentle smile but let my eyes go cold. My response is in my sweetest, most steady, most soothing voice: “No, thank you.” He walks away quickly. I am suddenly not so interested in trying on these these jeans.

I’ve already seen the rest of this floor, and I’m frustrated. The styles I like aren’t made for my body. Feeling stuck, I try to work through the dilemma by asking myself the real question on my mind: “What gender do I need to be right now?” The answer is, “I need clothes that fit.” I walk upstairs reluctantly, drizzling globs of self-confidence behind me on the floor with each step, like a water balloon coming untied.

The second floor is all women — trendy, young, thin, and styled — flicking through hangers quickly and commenting to their friends on what looks adorable.

Between the displays for “skinny jeans” and “super-skinny jeans,” I pause at the full-length mirror, watching myself in context with the women around me.

I look like a boy.
Continue reading »

androgyny, originally uploaded by Rasha xo.

Dear God
(for lack of a better word),

I don’t want to personify you here,

but I do speak to my toothbrush
in the second person,
so I assume that means
I can refer to you as “you”
without inferring gender or human traits.

And I don’t usually disclaim my shorthand,

but with you,
I think it’s important.

I’m in San Francisco’s mission district
at 9 on a Saturday morning
and I’ve been on a scavenger hunt
for two hours now,
looking for you.
I’m out of practice.
It’s been awhile.
I started before I woke up
with flashes of the lover I can’t have
sitting under my eyelids.
I held them there for as long as I could—
her cheeks, her hands,
the angles of his body around mine,
the sound of their voice— Continue reading »

Bowie Ball 2007, originally uploaded by nahcnivek.

Over the last three months, this blog has become quite the repository of images. And when you start to amass a collection of anything, patterns begin to emerge. I’ve spent a lot of time focusing on the common androgynous portrait features that have sprung out at me (chunky hair, curious eyes, and angled jawbones, to name a few). And it’s fair to say I’ve been fascinated by these faces. Hypnotized. Transfixed.

Recently, though, my community has tapped me on the shoulder and pointed out some other patterns I’ve been overlooking:

Most of these photos are of young, thin, pretty, fashionable people.

“I’d like to see more ages and sizes represented.”

“I see androgyny in working class people every day. Where are they?”

“Everywhere I go there are pretty people. When am I going to see pictures of people who look like me?”

Oh. Right. That.

I’m not going to try to justify this pool by saying it’s what people should be looking at when they think of the intersection of genders. The people who have called me on the sameness of these images are absolutely right: I’m missing whole demographics here, and am quite arguably adding to the fucked-up industry of beauty-at-the-expense-of-reality by maintaining this theme. These points are dually noted and amends are being schemed.

But while I’m here, it might help if I give a little insight into my process, so you can understand the reason behind this pool of pictures.

Here’s how I blog:

1. Go to Flickr once every few weeks.
2. Browse under tags relating to androgyny and similar concepts.
3. Compile a bunch of images that speak to me (and that also give permission to be blogged on other websites).
4. Line them up so that new image appears on the blog every day.

I am limited by a few constraints:

• I lead a busy life, and am not in a position to spend as much time on this blog as I’d really like to.
• I’m not comfortable blogging images that don’t explicitly identify themselves as gender-playful, out of respect for individuals who may not want to be seen that way.
• Most portraits on flickr that I’ve found under these tags are of young, thin, pretty, fashionable people.
• My intention is to help people become more comfortable with gender ambiguity, and so I find myself looking for faces that evoke a sense of familiarity with the cultures I come from (which, admittedly, are very WASP and magazine-beauty-oriented).

As I said, though, these aren’t excuses. Just acknowledgements.

I welcome suggestions on how I can broaden the pool from here, and will spend some more time thinking about it.

androgyny, originally uploaded by Nude & Cream.

DSC00740.jpg, originally uploaded by BeatBoy.

Stephanie Cameron, originally uploaded by PeterDuke.