a new image

since i’ve done this exercise before, i attempted to recall how i made my avatar choices last year around this time. i remember establishing criteria, that i still wanted to follow. they were, in summary, inoffensive (radical is fine, but triggering or nsfw isn’t; sadly, that crosses butts off the list) and authentic.

i also remember that i worried about making my image too relatable. it’s something i didn’t put into words, but i realize that it was less about being too general, but i didn’t want to select a picture that was bland, or so ~inoffensive~ that i wasn’t pushing or creating boundaries. that i wasn’t being fully authentic. that i was shielding something that makes me the blunt individual that i tend to be. that connected me with so many people because the image is simply pretty or cutesy.

so i decided i wanted an image that incorporates those aspects about me. the broader, more relatable image somehow combined with the radical things about which I’m passionate or something radical about myself.

then i thought, wait, i… have a tattoo that could be described this way?

i’m transgender, and identify as neither of the western binary genders of Man and Woman. this is something that is not inherently radical, but the ways i experience push create decolonize decompress fight want mold unlearn relearn gender makes it something radical to me.

space is… well. vast. it is something pretty, generally harmless as an image that many of us admire from a young age. it means a lot to me that i cannot put into words. in some ways, “space”, in all its meanings, is how i experience gender.

so i somewhat recreated my tattoo as my avatar.