Ten years ago I had my very first professional photo shoot. It was a dream realized. It was something I fantasized about for my entire life and for it to come true? Amazing. When I was young I would “borrow” the Victoria’s Secret catalogs that were mailed to our house and my heart was always close to breaking at the sight of beautiful women wearing lingerie. Wanting to be the model in these photos caused such a longing inside of me that I thought I would shatter into a million pieces. I wanted to be that model. I wanted to wear that bra and panties and garter belt and stockings and stilettos. I wanted to have a makeover and long, flowing hair. I wanted someone to capture on film what my secret heart longed for.
My first photo shoot wasn’t as sensual as what those catalogs showed. In fact, it would be over five years until I finally plucked up the courage for a boudoir photo shoot. The courage for such revealing shoots came from years of working with my photographer, who has since become one of my best friends in the world. Wearing a corset and a thong in the same room with someone other than your intimate partner is daunting. Yes, I knew I would post the pictures on the internet where who knows how many people would see them, but I didn’t give a second thought to random strangers online. I was trembling about my friend seeing me in lingerie.
The only reason I was able to step out of the changing room and start taking pictures was attributed to years of building trust, friendship, and feeling comfortable with my friend. Of course, lingerie photos have become a regular feature of my photo shoots since then.
Ten years is a long time for a partnership or a friendship, but ten years is remarkable when it’s both. While we celebrate a decade of pictures, I am also reflecting on how much this friendship has enriched my life. My photographer has become such a good friend and we hang out even outside of photography studios. Few people know me as well as she does. Of course, I had no idea that I would make such a good friend ten years ago when I first met her.
This friendship, and my supermodel daydreams, would simply not exist had I not embraced this side of me. I feel that embracing aspects of yourself is a form of loving yourself. It’s a way to celebrate who you are. It’s like, yes, this is who I am and I am going to run with it, lol. I am going to live my life fearlessly (kind of) and pursue what my heart wants… whether it’s a photoshoot or a pair of expensive panties.
Embracing my gender identity has enriched my life in countless ways. I have experienced so many amazing things that I don’t think I would have if I didn’t. I look back on not only ten years of friendship and photography, but also on other adventures and other friendships. In the fifteen years or so that I have been going out into the real world en femme I have met wonderful people and have made countless memories… all while wearing stilettos. I’ve been to wonderful theatre productions and movies. I wore a beautiful evening gown and saw the city in a horse drawn carriage.
Being who I am, fully and unapologetically, is living my best life. And yes, that is cliche and a little eye-rolling, but it’s true.
I wanted to wear that bra and panties and garter belt and stockings and stilettos.
Although we are all on our unique journey, I feel that we all have discovered similar things and had common desires and yearnings that aspects of our adventures are relatable. Whether we were “borrowing” clothes from family members or worked up the courage to buy our own, we likely arrived at a point in our lives where we stopped looking in the mirror and turned our attention to the window. We would stare for hours at our reflection and were mesmerized by how we looked. We embraced who we are, and loved who we are, but we were growing restless of, well, being all dressed up with nowhere to go. The outside world, the world outside our living room, was calling.
Were we ready to step out our front door? Parts of us were. But the bigger question that consumed us was whether or not the real world was ready for us. And we all know it’s not. The world is seemingly stubborn and is capable of change, but that change isn’t easy or quick. Any progress in social norms does not come without a fight. In the United States, women fought for their right to vote. People of color fought against segregation. Same sex couples fought for marriage equality. These changes were not freely given, they were fought for. These changes should not have needed a fight at all.
Just because a change happens, it doesn’t mean that it’s permanent. Any progress we make needs to be protected and we can never let our guard down. It would be horrible to go backwards. Although I was born after the fights against segregation and the fight for suffrage, I do remember the fight and the victory for marriage equality. Our government did not wake up one day and thought “you know, everyone should be allowed to marry the person they want”. No, it was fought for. I remember seeing the demonstrations and the slow but steady support for it. But like anything fought for, it’s never a guarantee that it can’t be taken away.
Some people say that they just don’t “get” queer folks. I mean, there’s nothing to really understand. People fall in love with who they love. That’s as simple as it gets. That’s as simple as it should be. I think gender is also overthought. If you are non-binary (whether you are a crossdresser or identify as transgender or something else), then you know how it feels a little wrong, a little off to wear the clothes that you are “supposed” to wear. You know the peace that comes with wearing clothes that you’re not “allowed” to wear. Of course, these feelings aren’t limited to clothes. I am legally male, I was AMAB, but I still cringe when I check the box for MALE on medical and legal forms.
The outside world, the world outside our living room, was calling.
If I were to ask certain men in my life if they ever felt uncomfortable when they pick out their (ugly and boring) underwear or pants for the day, they would probably look at me as if I was insane. For cisgender people, they usually don’t think twice about whether or not their necktie aligns with their gender identity. Because of this, relating and empathizing with a non-binary person becomes difficult, if not impossible. Additionally, social norms and gender as a binary have been so ingrained into our minds that the very idea of a man wanting to wear a skirt is ridiculous.
Non-binary people have our work cut out for us. In order for the world to be ready for us, we need support from the cisgender community to be our allies. In order to get that support, we need to be understood. We need others to relate to us. But as I laid out in the example above, that relatability isn’t quite there. Not yet, hopefully. Non-binary people are mocked, attacked, and discriminated against. Collectively, people fear what they don’t understand. Will the world ever understand, and ultimately accept us? Yes. Will this happen in our lifetime? No.
Just as the people in power did not wake up and decide to let everyone marry whom they loved, the people in charge of social norms will never wake up and decide that if a girl doesn’t want to wear a dress, it’s okay to give it to a boy that does. There will never be an official announcement or whatever that eliminates gender as a binary. It will not go away overnight. At best, the binary will erode over time and any idea that your genitalia determines what you are allowed to wear will be looked at as antiquated and primitive.
So no, the world is not ready for us, and I’ll be dead for years and years before the world, the entire world, will be ready for us.
Once you have accepted, albeit reluctantly, the entire world is not going to love us in our lifetime, we then need to make a decision. Do we just shrug and resign ourselves to looking amazing in our living rooms or do we shrug off what some people might think of us and live our lives?
In my younger days I kept waiting for the world to stop caring about what I wore or who I was. As the years passed I realized that this wasn’t going to happen. Instead of waiting for the world to change I strutted out the front door and for the first time in my life I heard the clicking of heels on pavement and felt the wind in my (synthetic) hair. I make this sound so easy and fearless, but the reality is that some of that clicking came from my knees knocking together out of fear and anxiety. Besides a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure I didn’t leave my car lights on, I never looked back. I didn’t know I wasn’t just walking to a coffee shop, but I was walking towards a new chapter in my life. A new path of my journey.
The Butterfly Effect is the thinking that a small act leads to a bigger change. In retrospect, going to pick up a vanilla latte for the first en femme was such a small thing. But it really wasn’t. That first time out gave me the confidence to do it again. But more than that, I fell in love with being myself in this beautiful and flawed world.
Love, Hannah
