Loving My Genderqueer Body
By Jade Runk
Photos courtesy Jade R
What is a body? At its most basic, it is a suit made of meat, that our soul powers and our brain controls, yet our society places a higher value on people who happen to be living in an “ideal” body over everyone else. But, if the body is only one-third of who we are, then assigning value based on looks reduces us to one-third of our total sum, which, frankly, isn’t fair to any of us.
What does having an “ideal body” even mean? In capitalistic culture, it’s about having a body worth consuming, one that others would look at and think, “I desire that,” in some capacity. Whether they want ownership of it in a relationship, to interact with it in a sexual manner, or if they desire to live in a body like that, themselves—the common theme is desire. But, who decides what makes a body desirable? And more importantly, can we decide this for ourselves? For me, it’s about the person living inside it, how they carry it, how that person navigates the physical world in that body. An ownership. A feeling of, this is my body and it works for me. I am in control of it, not the other way around.
I lost that within myself after I came out as genderqueer. I didn’t know how to feel about a body whose gender would only ever appear to the outside world as one thing, when my feelings about my gender were so different from that perception. For me, my experience with gender makes me so much more vast, expansive, ever-changing, and beautiful than my body could ever be. How could I learn to love a vessel that constricts what I see within the confines of my skin?
As someone who works in fashion and media as a model and performer, my body confidence had been reduced so much it was affecting my work, and therefore my financial security. I needed to do something to get it back, and quick.
I set up some lights and my tripod. I looked at my body in the little screen on my phone and demanded myself to make peace with what I saw.
So, I got naked. I set up some lights and my tripod. I looked at my body in the little screen on my phone and demanded myself to make peace with what I saw. I told myself to look at that body as if it belonged to someone I loved. Surely if I could look at myself with the same amount of love that I’m capable of showing others, I could find this body just as beautiful as I do theirs.
I know every fold, I know every birthmark, I know every quirk and I know its faults just as much as I know its strengths. But in that moment, it looked foreign to me. It had been so long since I’ve looked at it like this, completely naked, that I’d forgotten my way home to self-love, let alone self-acceptance.
I started with something that, as a model, I’d grown very used to. Lingerie had, ironically, always been my favorite thing to shoot. Before I realized I was genderqueer, I felt a disconnection with my body that had always read as confidence, when in reality, I just never gave my body a moment of thought. But of course, that disconnect made me a perfect candidate to be mostly naked in front of a camera!
Coming out as genderqueer, however, forced me to finally examine and criticize my body. I grappled with the idea that I have a body no one else would look at and see anything other than “woman,” and I hated that—which in turn, made me hate my body. For a while, I tried so hard to distance myself from anything that would feminize it because I hated the idea of doing anything to reinforce the illusion of “woman.” So, specifically because feminizing looks had become something I was so afraid of, I dove into this one first, as a way to break the ice between my psyche and my physical form. We needed to get reacquainted, and what better way than with a shock like this?
It was the type of thing I’ve shot a million and a half times before. I figured eventually the muscle memory would settle in and I would find myself getting into a familiar groove, and I was right. Taking the time to shoot myself in this way, alone, in my own home rather than in a studio surrounded by other people, gave me a chance to relax and accept that I can still be this version of myself. I chose the colors of the trans flag for this look to keep myself connected to my gender variant identity while traversing through such cisnormative waters.
Next, I moved on to a black robe. I wanted to include a masculine equivalent to lingerie, but I ended up regarding this look as fairly genderless. But then, why is pastel lace seen as feminine? If I had a different body—one with muscles instead of curves, covered in hair rather than smooth skin—would that same lace have seemed genderless? No. It would be seen as breaking the norm, and therefore gender variant. It seems as if, by society’s standards, canceling out gender requires the body of one sex dressing as what’s expected from the other. But if we are to accept that anyone, living in any body, can be any gender, then why am I seen as a woman when I wear lace, but someone with a different body type than mine, in the same lace, would be seen as being beyond gender? And if someone with a different body type were to wear this black robe, they would be seen as a man, yet I am not?
Contemplating the intersection between societal expectations and gender, I changed into my chest binder and boxers. Depending on the day, this is how I actually feel most comfortable—but this was the first time I’ve put myself in front of a camera looking like this: mostly naked, in what I would wear under a more masculine look. It felt at the same time very natural, but also brand new. This was my first time in front of a camera, exposed like this.
A binder is meant to alter my body’s shape, so in every picture I took, all I could notice was how, even though my chest was flatter, it was far from flat. No matter how I feel about my gender, my body continues to rebel against me. This piece of shapewear wasn’t giving me the desired effect. I chose the image of me removing the binder, because the act of removing shapewear that alters my body to a more masculine figure and bringing it back to its natural form is an extremely vulnerable moment, which takes a lot of strength.
Spending some quality time alone with my body like this definitely helped me reconnect myself to it. In the beginning, I wasn’t sure if I would leave feeling empowered, or wind up collapsed into a puddle of anguish on my floor. I’m thrilled to report, this worked for me. Ever since this project, I’ve been standing taller, laughing louder, and have even been much more engaging in social situations. I’ve grown more confident, not just in my body, but in my sense of self. If the rest of the world wants to look at me and automatically gender me female, I can learn to live with that, knowing I have a strong sense of self to keep me grounded, and that I finally included my body within that. Q