Nearly every trans and non-binary person I know has stayed home because they didn't want to explain themselves, didn't feel valued or safe in public spaces. To be trans and non-binary is to seek life in places not guaranteed by society, to find beauty in our ability to move in every direction.
I have broken down in clothing stores and at bathroom stalls. My best friend asked if they needed to shave their legs and beard the day they wore a skirt for the first time, at the age of 22.
In navigating a world with few role models, I interviewed five trans and non-binary creatives known for carving out space for queer bodies and voices. Together we discussed beauty standards and gender expression and identity under the public eye. Meet Alok Vaid-Menon (a gender non-conforming artist with a lot of feelings), Jacob Tobia (a writer, producer, and part-time fashion icon), Jamal T. Lewis (a super nova girl from the future), Sawyer DeVuyst (a visual artist, model and actor, a Leo, and a middle child), and Asia Kate Dillon (an actor, writer, director and co-founder of MIRROR/FIRE productions).
What do you love about yourself? Where have you seen reflections of it?
Alok: I’ve been trying as much as possible to find validation outside of my body. I love my creativity, my performativity, my drive, and my emotionality. I love that I can hold conflicting ideas and emotions, can bear witness to struggle, can turn trauma into art. I love that I keep finding ways to recreate and transform myself in a world fixated on categories and borders.
Jacob: I love my snarky edge and my messy sense of humor. I love my big ol’ brown eyes, my big ol’ nose, my lil’ hairy belly, my fuzzy legs, and my superhuman ability to grow my nails out without breaking them. I’ve often seen reflections of my own beauty in mirrors, shop windows, ponds, and other relatively still bodies of water. On a good day, there is so much that I’ve learned to celebrate about myself, about my body, about my outlook on life, about the energy that I bring into a room. I’m proactively working to surround myself more often with people who affirm that life energy, rather than people and institutions who take away from it.
Alok: Who I am is a reflection of all of the love and support I am given. So, I would say my friends are the representation I’ve been looking for my entire life.
Jamal: I love how committed I am to prioritizing my wellness and my future. I love that I choose me selfishly. I love my black, dark skin. I love my southern roots. I love how self determined, audacious, and creative I am. I love the many ways I exist and show up in this world. I love how deeply I love and give of myself to others and the things I believe in. I love that I am Carmon’s 4th born child. I love that I am Jafari and Stephen’s mentee. I love that I am Marcus and Kenny’s best friend. I love the way my body moves in the mirror each morning after I’m finished showering and listening to music. Each roll. Each dimple. Each stretch mark. I love my energy in the morning time singing aloud on a Manhattan bound A express train. I love the way I’m listening to, connecting with, and trusting my inner eyes, my intuition, and my feelings. I see my reflection every time I walk past my mirror and raise my phone to take a selfie — the most important media to me.
Sawyer: I love the compassion and empathy I hold for other people. As a child in church, I learned the bible verse, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” My love of this saying grew as I came out as queer and eventually as trans. Thinking of myself as a small piece of a larger picture, or maybe a large piece of a gigantic picture, has helped me realize that I can only control myself and my actions. You can't change other people — that has to come from them. I definitely didn’t see reflections of empathy in the churches I grew up in. But as an adult, I’ve seen reflections of it in a few people — an actor friend, Chad, who I take a class with, a few people, Veronica and Chelsea, at a company I modeled for, and my Aunt Elaine.
I also love my ears, which were given to me by my dad, and which are reflected back at me every time I look at my brothers and sister.
Asia: I love that although the world is a dangerous place, I still find it to be beautiful. I love that I dream big and go after my dreams with all I’ve got to give. I love my ability to generate empathy and compassion within myself and others. I love my work ethic and that my work is representative of my commitment to support and uplift historically marginalized and disenfranchised people because when I support and uplift others I am truly supporting and uplifting myself. I love my struggle. And, I love all the hurt places in myself. Because those places have allowed me the extraordinary experience of healing through which I am continually awed by, and in love with, my own resilience. I see reflections of what I love about myself in the love and care I receive from my friends, family and co-workers who, in turn, allow me to love and care about them.
What do you feel pressured to be?
Jamal: Inspirational; strong and never scared, fearful, or capable of hurting; a mammy; extraordinary; visibly tragic, but never well, sustained, and at peace.
Sawyer: Masculine. Most people I came out to didn’t call me he/him until I started passing as male 100% of the time. People I was close to would misgender me constantly, but isn’t it funny that that stopped as soon as I grew a beard? I also feel pressure to be polite and understanding when microaggressions are being tossed at me.
Jacob: I feel pressure to “make sense” within the binary, pressure to “pick a side.” To either fully butch it up or to physically transition my body by taking estrogen, removing my body hair, getting top and bottom surgery, etc. I feel that pressure a lot, like I can only fit into the equation in the world if I’m one of two variables. We see gender on two-dimensional graphs, but I’m a three-dimensional curve, arcing elegantly through space.
Alok: I am constantly made aware of my difference and pressured to be “normal.” But what no one wants to talk about is that by “normal,” they mean: white, cisgender, gender conforming, straight, and respectable. Why should I have to erase all that I am in order to be accepted? I’ve developed coping strategies to deal with this pressure from most places, but it’s the pressure from within my own communities that stings the most. Women and trans people telling me I would be more believable and desirable if I was more binary hurts so much. Hurt people hurt people.
Asia: For many years I felt pressured by culture at large to either look more traditionally, patriarchal, feminine i.e. shave my legs, armpits and vagina, have long hair and wear feminine clothes or to look more traditionally masculine/androgynous, when it came to my hair and clothes, in order to be desired. That pressure was bullshit and I knew it but, I couldn’t free myself from it. Then I realized, as Alok said, that it’s not the trans, non-binary and gender nonconforming people who need to confront their complexity; it’s the cis and gender conforming people who need to confront the fear of their complexity.
Do you preserve yourself in a binary world? Why do you think people are so attached to binaries?
Sawyer: I’ve preserved myself by physically transitioning, specifically taking HRT. After I came out, I found myself in some unsafe situations, both physically and emotionally. It’s scary and humiliating to be screamed at, to be called names, to be followed and have things thrown at you. I realized that I’m not an Everyday Gender Warrior. Even though my identity lies in the middle of the gender spectrum, it was and is more important to me that I feel safe.
Alok: I’m not sure that I do preserve myself. The toll of existing in this world as a gender non-conforming trans femme of color often feels insurmountable and like I’m just staying afloat by the skin of my teeth. I also sort of reject the premise that I should be the one who should have to do the work of this preservation.
Jacob: My sisters, my siblings, and my chosen family are my everything. They are the only way that I get through all of this bullshit. For me, a key part of survival and self-preservation has also been learning how to pick my battles. I will be spending most of my life fighting against the people who produce pop culture, urging them to include people like me in it and to break out of the traditional gender stories. I can’t do that and bother correcting every person on the street who misgenders me or every person at a deli counter that calls me “sir.” I am not a 24-hours-a-day-7-days-a-week trans 101 robot.
Jamal: I preserve myself through everyday intimacies: I talk to my grandmother on the phone as much as possible; I spend time with friends who make me feel alive and joyful and seen; I listen to music and dance around my room naked and carefree; I talk to myself and practice voice inflections when I speak; I laugh at almost everything, especially racist, anti-black, transphobic, and fat-phobic people in physical and digital space.
Asia: I preserve myself by spending as much time as possible with my family and friends, when I’m not working. I preserve myself by working. By drinking water, eating healthy foods and getting lots of sleep. By taking baths. Long, quiet walks outside. By giving and accepting love. By listening. By keeping my priorities in order and expressing gratitude. By reminding myself that I am multi-dimensional and infinite, existing ultimately beyond time and space, beyond any binary and that I am here, now and that’s a miracle. People are attached to binaries because a binary creates an ‘us’ and ‘them’ which is useful for social, economic and political gain. Without binaries there is only ‘us’ which means ultimately we are all equal. Binaries are meant to keep us unequal and I’m not about that life.
Jamal: They are attached to it for what it affords them — convenience.
Sawyer: I think religion, specifically Christianity, has a lot to do with it. Right in Genesis, it says God created a man and a woman, Adam and Eve. Boom. Binary. But in so many other cultures where Christianity isn’t the dominant religion, there are records of three genders, Hijra in India, Muxe in Zapotec cultures in Mexico, Fa'afafine in Samoa, etc. And in many Native American tribes, upwards of four and five genders were recognized.
Alok: I don’t believe in trans or non-binary issues, I believe in cis issues. It’s cis people who have issues with themselves and extrapolate them on me. Binaries are so tantalizing because people have been made to feel like they do not deserve their own complexity. It is easier to belong to one word, one identity, one fixed story than a universe. That’s why I rely — no, I need — other people to get through it all. I shouldn’t have to clean this mess up alone.
What's an early memory of feeling beautiful on your own terms? What would you want to say to that person?
Jacob: When I first learned to walk in high heels, it was in a McDonald’s parking lot with two of my friends from high school. I loved how my legs looked, and while the shoes hurt, I loved how I felt. But deep down, I couldn’t let myself have the fullness of that beauty.
Alok: When I was a little kid I always used to wear some of my mom’s clothes and dance for all of our family friends at our weekly Indian potluck dinners. Everyone enjoyed it because there was a space for my femininity back then. I often think about that moment as one of transcendent beauty because there was no shame. Shame prevents me and others from recognizing the beauty of transfemininity.
I suppose I would tell that kid to be prepared, that they will try their best to destroy you and call it love, that you have to try your best to hold onto that confidence and that beauty because they will punish you for it.
Jacob: In my teenage years, I spent so much energy hating my femininity, I spent so much energy trying to bottle it up, to regulate it. I told myself that that couldn’t be who I was. I wish I could sit down with my past self and help them feel an iota of the love that I feel for myself now. I wish I could sit down with my past self and say, “Why do you hate this part of yourself? Don’t you know how beautiful it is?”
Asia: I grew up being told by culture at large that girls and women were expected to have long hair; that was the beauty standard. As someone who was assigned female at birth and identifies as non-binary, I knew in high school that part of my journey would include cutting my long hair short so that I could challenge other people’s, and ultimately my own, standard of beauty. I had big ears that I didn't like and I thought, "This is you. This is who you are and you better start loving it now." Cutting my hair short was a way of giving love to myself. To that person I say, keep going. Keep loving yourself.
Sawyer: I don’t remember feeling beautiful until I was 18-years old. My neighbor was in art school and she asked if she could take photos of me for one of her classes. I didn’t understand why. A few weeks later, she gave me a copy of the photos, printed in black and white. Her professor loved them, but the other students didn’t like them at all and felt like she had cheated because they thought she hired a model and that, “the girl was too beautiful.“ I was floored because I’d only been called names and told I, “wasn’t pretty enough to model.” But in that moment, I felt beautiful.
Jamal: My earliest memory of feeling beautiful on my own terms had to be the first time I purchased a digital camera and began taking pictures of myself. There was something so magical about seeing myself. Perhaps, that was my first selfie before I became obsessed with the front camera on my iPhone. If I could tell that person anything, it would be to never lose your selfie. Your selfie is a powerful thing.
What would you want to share with teens who don't see themselves reflected as “beautiful” or at all in the media?
Alok: Don’t wait for mainstream media to include you, create your own media. Creating your own archive is one of the most powerful and important things you can do. Just documenting: I exist, I was here, you can’t erase that fact. I started writing poetry because I needed to write myself into existence — I realized I didn’t even have the language to describe who and what I was, so I had to make it. It’s not easy or glamorous, but it’s incredibly rewarding work: you have the potential to create new worlds, new ideas, new ways of being. Don’t wait for others to catch up with you, just go ahead.
Sawyer: Like Alok said, create your own work! A few years ago, I was fed up with the lack of trans male visibility in the media. I’d spoken to two people in the film and TV industry who I look up to, and both of them stressed to me the importance of creating your own work. It shares your voice and vision. It shows the world you’ve created or the world you live in. With this inspiration, I created a photography project called Mine, a growing collection of daily fine art self-portraits, which turns an eye towards transgender men.
Jamal: If you don’t document your existence and the magnificence of your beauty in this world, no one else will. Don’t ever wait for the media to tell you that you are worthy and beautiful, look in the mirror and gift those things to yourself. Then take your cellphone out and capture the moment. Do this often. And share with your friends. Take pictures of them. Print them out. Make a zine. Find joy in this and continue to make art from it. Show the world new possibilities and make it catch up to you like Alok said. Queer and trans archival is work of the future and critically important counter narratives that disrupt the status quo. Disrupt! Create anew! And watch how it constitutes a new world order.
Jacob: Feeling beautiful can take a lifetime of work, and it’s still something that I struggle with on a daily basis. There are some models out there who make me feel terribly about myself, so I unfollowed them. I know that if I pick up a fashion magazine, I’m going to feel ugly from looking at it, so I pick them up less often. Certain TV shows and films have narratives that I know are going to make me feel bad about myself, so I don’t engage with them. Instead, I focus on creating the world as I want to see it, with representations that empower my beauty rather than hurting me. You don’t need national publications or advertisers in your instagram feed making you feel ugly; you need glorious queer cuties who make you feel good and energized about your body.
Asia: I say, I hear you. I know how that feels. It’s so very hard to constantly come up against images and standards that are simply for profit and therefore so damaging to all our precious psyches. I will humbly echo everything that has already been said and just add this: in the moments where you feel that you are alone, that no one loves you and that you don’t matter, because you feel invisible, remember that I am there with you. I love you, I see you and you do matter to me. Remember that no matter what anyone says, you are awesome and anyone who tries to deny your awesomeness is missing out and that’s their loss. Keep Ya Head Up.
Sawyer: Just by existing in this world, you are beautiful and you are valid.
Photos Courtesy of Instagram/@sawyermine, @fatfemme, @jacobtobia, @alokvmenon, @asiakatedillon.
Related: I’m a Trans Boy, and I’m Navigating My Relationship With Femininity