NSFW!! Period are Genderless - May 2019

Hello Hello!

I hope you had a wonderful weekend! How are you doing? What's your plans for this upcoming week?

Saturday, I finally did a photoshoot I really cared about: Period are Genderless and today, I'm here to talk about it with you!

THE CONCEPT

I've read more and more transgender/non binary people expressing their frustrations about how period are gendered by our society, which is, when we think about it, pretty transphobic. Indeed, some men experience period, some women don't, and many people with menstruations also don't identify as either of these genders. It doesn't take long to see that the rare times people mention period, it's unfortunately most likely to be associated to "women/girls/sisterhood".

The idea of portraying different genders in underwear for a photoshoot about Periods came really naturally to me.

I wanted to use my art to open the discussion about this subject and help non binary/trans people feel represented and listened to. 

THE MODELS:

I spent countless hours trying to find the ideal models. I knew that I wanted to portray diverse body types and races. I also wanted to portray a group more than a duo.

As you can see, I failed.

BUT at the end, I am still really happy with my models and look how good of a job they did!!

I knew early on that I wanted Nora to be a part of this project. I wanted a cis woman who was comfortable with her body but especially who had good values and morals. I wanted to make sure the trans/non binary model(s) would be safe. If you follow her, you might already know how progressive and interesting she is.

At first, I had another model interested in the project, but he unfortunately had to back out for personal reasons. 

I found Sydney on Instagram after looking all the local queer hashtags and I got SO lucky that he accepted to be a part of it! It was his second photoshoot ever and look how he rocked it! If you are interested, he talks about fashion for Assigned Female At Birth trans/non binary people on @fashionftm!

I also want to use this article to talk about his top surgery. When I contacted him, he was about to have his top surgery, so I preferred to wait until he recovered to set a date for this photoshoot. He just received his anesthesia bill and still have hundreds of dollars to pay. So if you can donate a bit and want a cool badge, check out ihelpedatransman !

I posted ads everywhere on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, contacted my friends etc to try to find more models and it just didn't happen.

PROPS/OUTFIT:

For this photoshoot, I of course wanted something that pops so I bought 2 packs of underwear (1 for Nora, 1 for Sydney) and started a "mini collection" of period themed underwear, armed with glitter, glue, paint and needles.

My favorite still the ones with big glitter, of course.

LIGHTING:

Dan Leonard of course did an amazing job, again. I am SO lucky to have such a talented partner!

ANECDOTES:

We actually had to do this photoshoot a few weeks back, but unfortunately, the weather decided to be absolutely awful and Dan wasn't available with his magic light skills, so I had to reschedule.

My mental health has been absolutely awful the week before this shoot, so I didn't have time to plan anything and like if it wasn't enough, Dan had to work overnight until 10AM (the photoshoot was at 1PM) and I didn't sleep either.

But we obviously made it work and I am really proud of this result.

I decided to keep Sydney's bracelets for the photoshoot since he said that he never remove them. I'm not sure it was the best choice aesthetically, but I am glad I welcomed Sydney as a whole on this project. If these bracelets are a part of his identity, I think they should be part of these frames.

CONCLUSION:

I would have loved to add more diversity in my models selection, but as we say "Better Done Than Perfect".

I am really proud of the fact I received lots of messages of trans/non binary people who loved the project and felt represented. That's all I wanted, really.

I don't think anyone care, but I sweat A LOT when I take pictures and I am completely in my own mind, so I am so hard to understand if you don't know me well. That's two issues that make me really uncomfortable when I work and I would like to either work on accepting them or fix them in some way.

I hope you liked these pictures!! I have many other projects coming, I just have to put them together! Stay tuned!

Have a beautiful week!!