Model: Shimeon Mattox. Photographer: The Sartorialist.

Model: Tiffany. Photographer: Unknown. Originally posted on I Shoot Photos.

The new women’s collection from fashion label Acronym. Hat tip via Androphilia.

Discovered on Cosmic Dust.

“Practically all my posts here are tagged ‘fashion’, ‘androgyny’, and ‘watercolor’” by Kat Mills. Originally posted on Kat’s Tumblr, Bad Art for Bad People.

Originally posted at Hairy Pits Club.

Model: Joey Ma. Originally posted on Ma’s blog, Individuality.

Mugshot, by Paul X. Johnson. Discovered via The Real Katie West.

She Represents, by Jeanne Mammen, 1957. Discovered on artQueer.

Photographer: Luis Pedro de Castro. Originally posted on the Behance Network.

Model: Sunnyday. Originally posted on Genderqueer.

Originally posted on Fa(t)shion February.

Model: Maria Alatorre (ca. 1925) Photographer: Unknown. Discovered at Of Another Fashion.

Model: Daniel Hicks. Photographer: Hedi Slimane.

Photographer: Joe Accardi. Model: Patrice Zapiti. Discovered at Dapper and Dandy.

Model: British singer/songwriter Elly Jackson. Discovered on Fuck Yeah Androgynous Gingers.

Photographer: Art. Model: Unknown. Originally posted on Art’s blog, Little Elk.

Models: Unknown. Photographer: Unknown. Originally posted at gURL dot com.

Photographer: Brian Shumway. Model: Unknown. Originally posted on Brian Shumway Photography as part of his “True Men” project.

Shumway writes, “Expression of one’s manhood, especially in public, must remain within a narrow range of acceptable social norms. Little boys are conditioned as such from birth, almost as a universal absolute. But this ignores the full story of male identity… The men in this portrait series fall outside traditional notions of manliness and masculinity. They possess an effeminate manner, dress, or look, a ‘girlishness’ that is as much a part of being male as weightlifting and football.”

Shumway is also looking for NYC-based effeminate men or masculine women (straight or gay) to continue the project. Email him at hi@brianshumway.com if you want to take part!

Glittery Teen Werewolf Made With 100% Fatty Goodness

by Erica Stratton

This month’s episode of Gender Heroes shines the spotlight on Majestic Legay, co-creator of Glitter Politic. When not collecting Body Love Letters, Legay promotes an obese lifestyle, practices gay witchcraft, wears amazing jackets and cultivates zir mustache.

Legay lives in a shared house in Vancouver with fellow Glitter Politic founder Ashley Aron and Smith, who started Queer, Fat, Hungry. Legay calls this twist of life-imitates-Internet-awesomeness “gay fate!”

Genderfork: How would you describe your gender identity now? What’s your preferred pronoun (if any)?

Legay: If I had to choose an identity category I would say I am a non-binary trans (or genderqueer) femme. I usually use ‘they’ pronouns with people I am close with, but I am pretty serious lately about going by any pronoun. I am starting to gravitate towards that because I am feeling really complicated about all pronouns and they aren’t central to the way I understand my gender right now.

To be honest, the most accurate description of my gender for me at this moment would be that I am a sex crazed teenager who peacocks as a daddy. Everything about my gender seems performative and is constantly shifting and that feels like a funny and accurate way for me to describe this particular moment.  My lover once said to me “if prince and a tough but tender cowboy made love and gave birth to a baby wolf and the afterbirth was glitter, that would be you I think” which made a lot of sense to me. I’m not trying to be pretentious, I just have a non-binary experience of my gender and sometimes talking about it in terms of baby wolves and glitter and vintage glamour and leather daddies makes way more sense to me than things like pronouns.

Genderfork: One of the first critiques that were leveled at Genderfork was about the lack of body diversity (See “Why don’t I see more [insert group here] represented on your site?” in our FAQ). After looking for photos of androgynous fashionistas for three years, I think there is also a problem with the common perception of what body type is “androgynous”: skinny, hipless, and boobless. How can we smash this idea to smithereens?

Legay: I think we need to remember that the very notion of “visibility” is very, very loaded. We need to ask ourselves, “who is visible and why?” and “is visibility always a good thing? Is it always a choice?”. Visibility is often really about who has privilege in certain spaces and is often raced, classed, and gendered in complicated ways. For example, white, thin, “androgynous” queers dominate queer fashion blogs and websites while those who are more feminine, have different bodies, who aren’t white are often vastly undervalued and underrepresented. I am doing some writing on queer visibility in November and I hope to be able to better articulate this critique then. I think we can smash this idea to smithereens by recognizing that visibility is constructed in a way that makes certain people and bodies totally invisible. I don’t think people have to “look” androgynous to have complicated experiences of their genders. I’ve identified as trans for a really long time, but that’s not always how people saw me (I was often read as a cis femme). Visibility fails me and many of the people I love whose bodies and aesthetics don’t fit into the narrow confines of the dominant ways we see “queer”.

Genderfork: What message are you sending with your fashion?

Legay: I construct my visibility on my own terms but I acknowledge that I have no control over the ways that other people see or interpret that. I once said to my friend “I want people to see me and feel uncomfortable. Like they are simultaneously disturbed and really turned on“. This reminds me of an article that Dean Spade wrote on resistant aesthetics called Dress to Kill, Fight to Win. In it he says, “I want to be disturbed by what you’re wearing, I want to be shocked and undone and delighted by what you’re doing and how you’re living. And I don’t want anyone to be afraid to put on their look, their body, their clothes anymore. Resistance is what is sexy, its what looks good and is hard to look at and what sometimes requires explanation.”

I suppose that part of what I am trying to do is redefine people’s understanding of beauty with a forceful aesthetic that leaves people with no other choice than to notice that beauty, gender and desire are much more complex than mainstream media says they are.

On a less intense note, right now my style is teen werewolf because it’s fall and I am growing out my moustache. This means a lot of black clothes and glitter and trying to reclaim nailpolish.

Genderfork: Where do you get your clothes? It’s already difficult to find decent plus size fashion, and finding decent queer fashion just seems to add an additional level of frustration for a lot of people. (In other words: OMG, that purple rain jacket! *swoons* Where can I get one???)

Legay: I’ve been going to thrift stores since I was a tween. I get most of my accessories, t-shirts, button ups, jackets and sweaters from thrift stores. I pride myself in being able to work a thrift store like a boss and I love to shop for my clothes there as much as possible. That being said, PANTS ARE THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE. Finding pants as someone with big hips is really, really hard. I actually don’t really fit into boy pants, because I have a super wide waist. I usually always wear jeggings and women’s pants and usually get mine from Old Navy or Torrid. Finding decent fashion can be really time consuming and annoying. I would say, go to the thrift store, have patience and try everything on (because then you will find things like cropped satin purple jackets that make it all worth it!).

Genderfork: Any resources/style guides/fellow androgynous radfatties that you’d like to recommend?

A Dark Congregation (GQ Fat Latina Swag)
Callout Queen (Blogging for Brown Gurls)
Deli Sub the Femme Cub (Deliciously Subversive)
Dressupbox (Trans Queer of Color)
Fat Genderqueers
Fuck Yeah Chubby Butches!
Fancy and Dandy Fatties
Glitter Geek (Queer Geeky Glamdrogynous Korean Flowerboy Adoptee Fat Crip Artist)
Hickies ‘n’ Hotpants
Many Bothans (webmaster for Glitter Politic)
Pens and Paper ( Queer. Fat. Trans-masculine Bigender Boi.)
Queer Co.
Queer, Fat, Hungry (Queering Eating)
Trans (Fat)shion!

Genderfork: And… what are you thinking about gender right now?

Legay: I feel like there is a lot of misogyny in queer spaces (misogyny = the hatred of the feminine), and I have a lot of internalized misogyny I am dealing with right now. I feel like masculinity is often at odds with femininity and constructing my masculinity in a way that is not predicated on the hatred of the feminine but actually embraces and celebrates it is very important to me. Right now I am trying to explore masculinity while thinking about misogyny and transmisogyny a lot. My understanding of how misogyny feels personally is shifting with my gender presentation, and I don’t ever want to forget that as a femme I am committed to making misogyny visible in all of its forms so that I can resist it for myself and also be in solidarity with other femmes and feminine folks.

On a less serious note, my gender idols right now are Elvis and Prince because they both have a very meticulous masculinity and wore fancy makeup. Embracing blush and mascara like it’s going out of style is really important to me all of the time and you can often find me drinking coffee and contemplating the merits of different shades of blush.