Hearts, Brains, and Other Body Parts

“The thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains“

-Paul Simon

What a beautiful lyric. And now we’re going to talk about this picture.

And NOT because I am not wearing a dress or a skirt, lol.

I’ve referred to myself as “obviously transgender” and that I am 1000000% comfortable with not passing. I do not expect anyone to think I am cisgender. When I am clocked I am not surprised, nor am I bothered. Yes, I am transgender, I know this, and I am fine with everyone knowing this as well.

And why not? I love who I am. Someone realizing that I was assigned male at birth is no more of a revelation (to me, anyway) than someone figuring out that I am right-handed.

Like, whooooo caaaaaares.

When I say I am “obviously transgender” what I mean is that in real life it’s very clear that I was not born a cisgender girl. I know in a lot of my photos I “pass” but a photo is a still picture and benefits from lighting and camera angles. I can minimize certain features by a well-placed arm and a slight head tilt.

But once I move? Then those “protections” slip away, not unlike a filter. Seeing me in real life will show my body language, my movement, as well as hearing my voice. Watching myself for the first time in a video was jarring to me. I was used to seeing photos of myself and looking sufficiently femme, but a video of me walking and moving was very jarring. I might be able to stand still looking femme, but it was clear that I needed to feminize my walking.

By now I have done more videos through Help Me, Hannah! and Wishlist so watching myself move has gotten to be more normal.

As jarring and as humbling it was seeing me move for the first time in those earliest videos, it was also a teaching moment.

Now, of course, you can move anyway you want. There’s not a specific way a woman is “supposed” to move, but I think you know what I mean. I put a lot of money and work into my appearance (because I am shallow lol) and I want to be as femme as possible. Having the same walk en femme that I have in male mode is not ideal.

ANYWAY.

The key to life is not giving a single fuck about what other people think. Sure, people know I am transgender and you know what? Good for them. I am trans. I’m not the freaking Da Vinci Code strutting around the mall. You’re not a world-class detective if you deduce that I am transgender. If I cared (or wondered) what people thought I would have never, EVER left my house. I would have never bought my own panties decades ago. I would be miserable.

I don’t care if my physical appearance “gives me away”. It does. Who cares? I have many features that many cisgender women have. I am tall. So are a lot of women. I have broad shoulders. So do a lof of women. I have a squarish jaw. So do a lot of women. I don’t have the lightest, softest voice. A lot of women don’t.

Annnnd so on.

Although many women have these features, I have all of them. If I was a petite girl and a more traditional feminine face shape, then I MIGHT care about SOMETHING “giving me away” but since I tower at six feet (taller in stilettos) I have made peace (and embraced) with how I look. I used to hate being tall but now I love it. LOVE IT.

Clothes can minimize certain features as well as enhance them. Short skirts elongate your legs, peplum tops suggest a curvier body, and so on. I used to avoid avoid avoid some outfits because I didn’t want to draw attention to my more “masculine” features, but I stopped worrying about that. I can’t tell you how many dresses I didn’t wear because the shoulder straps were too thin and showed more of my torso than I was comfortable with.

But now I don’t care.

Even though I don’t care, it doesn’t mean I am oblivious to how something looks on me. When I wear something I am aware of what it enhances or minimizes or draws attention to (or from) when it comes to my body. Once that awareness kicks in, I then have to decide if I care or not.

Sometimes an outfit is not my vibe but a few days later it is. How we feel about many things changes on a day-to-day basis. You may not be in the mood for Italian food today but tomorrow you might be craving it. How we feel about clothes can also fluctuate.

I wore the above outfit for a recent photo shoot and it is meant to convey a casual look, something someone might wear while running errands or meeting a friend for coffee. That someone is NOT me, lol. This is more of my vibe when it comes to a casual outfit:

I have such a stupid smirk here because my friend Sophie was messing with me.

The casual outfit very clearly shows the shape of my shoulders (however, looking at it now, I can see that a black top against a red background provides a lot of contrast and definition but let’s not blame the wall here). Again, many women have broad shoulders, so it’s not like I am an anomaly here.

This is a good time to remind everyone (including myself) that there are no rules as to how a woman is “supposed” to look like. No one is too tall, too anything to be a girl.

I also just noticed that my hands are doing the exact same thing in here in both pictures.

But the bigger (no pun intended) clue that I was not assigned female at birth is a little south of my hands. Leggings are wonderful but they are not forgiving, lol.

But for the purpose of this article I am referring to what the media wants to teach us when it comes to gender presentation for a binary perspective.

Do my shoulders “give me away”? Sure, I guess, but only if you don’t think that a woman can’t have (or shouldn’t have) a body frame like I do.

I am very aware of my genitalia when I do boudoir photo shoots. I NEED to. Some panties and lingerie aren’t very accommodating when it comes to certain features of my anatomy so I need to be… ah, clever, I suppose.

I tuck but not always. In this picture I clearly did not. Two reasons:

-I don’t think one’s genitalia is indicative of what their gender is “allowed” to be

-En Femme (whom I wore this outfit for) has a very freeing perspective when it comes to tucking which is you should tuck if you want.

To be honest, unless I am modeling lingerie I don’t think about my private (maybe not so private lol) parts. I get emails whenever I post photos that show a bulge (no matter how subtle) and these messages are divided between these two reactions:

–Tsk, it’s obvious you have a penis and shame on you for letting it take away from an otherwise perfectly feminine presentation

–YOU HAVE A PENIS AND I LIKE IT

The dichotomy is striking. There seems to be no middle ground. On a side note it’s very weird to realize that some people care more about what is in my panties than I do, but that’s the internet for you.

At any rate, if my shoulders didn’t “give me away” then ifas your eyes keep going south then you’ll have the “ah-ha” moment.

Although I don’t care if my anatomy is obvious, for an outfit like this I should have tucked. OR I should have made sure my top was long enough to cover my midsection.

And this is one more reason I’ll always wear a dress or a skirt en femme, lol.

What is the point of this post? I am not really sure, haha. If I have a goal in life it’s to normalize that someone’s body and their anatomical features have nothing to do with their gender. I feel if we all knew that, it would be incredibly freeing and I think it could help with people who struggle with dysphoria. The media does a very effective job when it comes to showing what everyone is supposed to look like and when this message is drilled into our hearts again and again over the years it can impact how you feel about yourself. A website might feature something like “the ten most beautiful women in the world” or something and you probably don’t look anything like ANY of them.

Like, it THAT’S the beauty standard, what chance do I have? Even if we are reminded that an actress has been airbrushed, filtered, and has had cosmetic surgery it really doesn’t help either. It can cause someone to think that one MUST undergo those steps in order to be attractive. Not all of us can afford to have FFS so we can look more feminine.

Our hearts feel, and our brains think, that we should look better, and that we can… IF we can afford it. But we are not born with these feelings or thoughts. They are taught to us. We are conditioned to think and feel these things.

When I realize I am being intentionally manipulated I get REALLY annoyed. That’s more or less what is happening when the media (social or otherwise) tells us that we SHOULD look THIS and we CAN’T look like THAT when it comes to gender identity. Oftentimes this messaging is borderline bullying but in a subtle way. We see catalogs and websites advertising a cute dress but the model is almost always in her twenties and is a size zero. We are led to think that we HAVE to look like that if we want to wear the same outfit.

Because let’s face it, we’ve all bought something online but feel emotionally devastated when we don’t look nearly as cute as we thought we would.

In my own small way, I hope that my photos erode, even a tiny bit, the pressure that we are meant to feel when it comes to how we SHOULD look or the physical features we are SUPPOSED to have. When I started to post pictures I would try to not share photos that drew attention to certain features, like my jawline or whatever. I didn’t want a single shred of any evidence that I was assigned male at birth.

Years ago I would have NEVER shared the above photo because this is how I saw it:

There is a lot of “evidence” that I was not assigned female at birth here and even just one of the, ah, clues would have been enough for me to never show this picture to anyone.

Also, the labels above use “man….” in them. I don’t think ANY physical features are either MALE or FEMALE, rather the diagram is a reflection on how we are taught about gender presentation.

But I have softened that thinking over time. If I like a photo I will probably share it, even if my shoulders look more masculine than feminine or what have you. It would be hypocritical of me to not share certain photos while saying at the same time that one’s physical characteristics do not determine your gender. I’m not the first to say this, but gender identity is what is in your heart, not what is between your legs.

Love, Hannah