"Remember when we cut our hair? We both looked like boys but we didn't care."
I am sitting in a coffee store in Glasgow, drawing up designs and prints to sell and earn money to run off to America in Summer. Sounds like something from a movie, but currently it's my life. Across from me is a woman, about 40, drinking a large coffee and applying lipstick. I glance up at her. Wondered for a split second what she is thinking, who was that lipstick for? Her boyfriend or her girlfriend? Or just for herself? I never did find out. However, as she got up to leave, she approached me and said with a look of curiosity and a voice of reasoning 'you look lovely, boy or girl'. My heart skipped a struggling beat. She walked off, touching my shoulder gently.
Damn, I was in shock. Not because she had called me a boy or questioned my gender but because she accepted my look, my in-between visual on life. She was middle aged, well dressed, seemingly educated and had noticed me in my utopia, or dystopia. I felt a rush of sheer pride for 2016.
Growing up my heroes were Tony Hawk and my brother. I worn baggie skater jeans, with chains hanging from the side, paired with a scuffed pair of DC trainers and carried a skateboard religiously. My hair was knotted until I cut it short because it was blowing into my eyes when I skated down hill. I walked with a swagger, copying the men from my local area, and longed to be in the army fighting front line, defending my country. In school I played football, went mud sliding and hand shake spat with my best friend. In group games I played the solider or the knight, waiting to save a princess or slay a dragon. I had no concept of make up, of how I should look, or how I should dress. Partly I think this is because I was brought up by my father, a man who believes in freedom of speech and individuality. A man who never challenged me to wear a cute dress or curl my hair, but bought me new wheels for my skateboard and my first football. Why am I telling you all this? Because gender has never been on my mind and to my absolute delight, society is seemingly disregarding it accordingly.
I proudly and hopefully ask the question, is this the year we forget about gender? That we stop pigeon holing the world into categories dragged down by expectations and stereotypes? I only laugh and pray to whoever may be up there.
2015 was groundbreaking in terms of gender slamming. Or in media terms, gender 'bending'. In late 2015 the whole world fell completely and uncontrollably in love with Orange is the New Black star Ruby Rose, myself included, who proudly voice her own personal experiences with identifying as gender fluid and greeted the nation at the EMA's with the statement "ladies and gentlemen and everyone in-between.".
In fashion, Rain Dove became the face of a menswear campaign for Ace Rivington. And Other Stories released a campaign starring only transgender models. Designer Jonathan Anderson won Designer of the Year in both menswear and womenswear categories. Known for dressing his models androgynously this was a beautiful achievement.
2016 has only just begun and already it has been announced that Jaden Smith is starring in Louis Vuitton's womenswear ad campaign and transgender film director Lana Wachowski will be the face of Marc Jacob's Spring/ Summer '16 campaign. Damn, can I stay it, 'what a great day to be alive.'.
As 2016 begins to run free, is this the year of the culture shift which disregards gender identification and accepts the beings of gender fluidity and simply leaves all questioning in the hand of our DNA make up? I think it might. *drops mic*
