idiosyncratic

“Right Bodies Wrong Bodies 2006 This photograph depicts Robert and myself. Robert’s body has had hot wax dripped on it in order to write ‘x’s and one ‘y’ on his skin, as a way of representing x and y chromosomes. In society Robert’s transsexual body is construed to be ‘wrong’. Robert was assigned female at birth, his biological sex was female, and following this there is the assumption that his gender would also be female. However, Robert identifies as neither female nor male and his body reflects this. In contrast to Robert’s body, my body as someone assigned female at birth is considered to be ‘right’. Robert’s body may at first appear unusual because most people are not used to seeing bodies that are outside the polarities of female and male. However, Robert’s body is ‘right’ for him.”

elspethbrown:

Sara Davidman’s portrait ‘Robert and Me, Me and Robert,’ at http://saradavidmann.com/robert.html. Thx to Andrea and Elizabeth for bringing this to my attention.

(via garconniere)