Tag: transgender

  • Body Image Art

    Who wants to switch parts?

    In my art, I create nude figures. Some are more feminine or more masculine in presentation. It depends on how I feel. Right now, I am dealing with a dysphoria swing, and I am constantly comparing myself to fit cis-gay men.

    Because one of my main insecurities in dating seems masculine enough for others. I have a stronger desire to top, and I worry that there is a certain body type I have to fit. Even though I know feminine men also too, I am just being heteronormative. But as a trans man myself, I worry that I have to look a certain way to be taken seriously. So I end up comparing myself to cis-gay men and feel bad about my body. I am still pre-op and very insecure about my female anatomy.

    But I feel like it is hard to talk about this subject because of the fearmongering around FTM bottom surgery in the community and how others body-shame trans men for getting it. Fuck, I’ve seen people body-shamed for bottom growth due to testosterone.

    So how do I cope with all this?

    By drawing naked people.

    When I feel less bad about myself, I draw my body to celebrate it and mark where it is during my transition. But I have noticed that when I am more dysphoric, I paint more abstracted male forms. Weird vent art about how I want to be perceived. Sometimes the genitals are ambiguous, or there are none. Then straight penis.

    But there should be more art of queer bodies.

  • Hopes For June and Showing Off With Pride

    This year I’ll be attending Pride in Philly. It will be the first time I’ve ever attended a Pride event this large. The only event I had attended before was a small market in my hometown last year.

    Why does this give me hope? I guess it’s hope to have a fun time being myself, after hiding my identity for eight years, I couldn’t go to events like these before. It shows off the city more as I’ll be moving there less than a few months. Something to brighten my summer as I feel numb from the stressers catching up to me. A reason to get out of bed and dress up.

    Maybe give me some inspiration to create some art.

  • Shapes And Stuff Change, And Move To This Way Or That Way

    How Medical Transition Opened My Creativity.

    I came out at 12, about to be 13. I chopped off my hair. I started binding around age 14. I socialized as a boy. Throughout middle and high school, I enjoyed the arts. I was in the band, a part of the theater stage crew, and took art during my last two years of high school. When I graduated from high school in 2023, I drew in my sketchbook here and there, but I would go months without creating. It was November 2024 that I switched to injections. I had already been on testosterone for about 6 ½ months, low-dosing with the gel method. By upping my dose and using a method that better absorbed the testosterone for me, I was finally getting to cis-male levels.

    I finally felt creative. I started working on projects. I remember being in the craft store, and seeing this large pad of bristol paper and buying it because I wanted to make art in a larger size. This was new to me, as I wanted to work in smaller sizes and draw my favorite duck species. Not only did I start to work larger, but I also decided to go to school for art, starting that January 2025. So I went in about a year on hormones, and I had no clue about my identity with my art. That I just wanted to create. While in my classes, I still had some creativity to make art of my own. I feel the need to make things.

    My theory is that giving myself the right levels of hormones and quieting my gender dysphoria enough to allow me to express myself properly in the things I create, but also in how I dress. I would not be where I am today without HRT. I got to be this creative man. Something that should not be radical but is. Going through puberty knowing I was a boy was hell, and it squelched my self-expression because all I wanted to be was not seen. I never had the chance to explore my creativity because I wanted people to respect me as a man. But now, I don’t care because I look in the mirror and see a guy.

    My art has definitely changed. I have not created fan art in a couple of years now. I have moved to abstraction and switched from digital to more traditional mediums like oil paint. Though I primarily work in ink now. Through my journey of finding my creative voice and settling into my masculinity.