When I was young, I always had the thought that I was different. It made me remind that I was not someone whom the society terms to be. I always use to imagine myself as a woman but quietly manage to present myself as a boy. This duality of gender was something I lived for a decade now.
The idea of sexuality and gender in the early days was narrow to the understanding of male, female and trans person. When I wanted to consider myself as trans, I was always given a definition that trans people must modify their gender and there was no vocabulary to describe my gender situation. I grew up with this for some time now but all of it changed with just a google search.
It was 2018, every time when the sec 377 was decriminalized and the world cheered for the LGBT community. More positive stories of homosexual love were coming into the forefront and there was a huge change in shift of how things were becoming vocal . when I realized the change to be positive, I also realized the half of my age I have already lived.
And I had a limited time to embrace my idea of sexuality and gender which my body sees. As the years passed , stories from the first four spectrum started coming forefront and Pride Month becoming a saga of Rainbow washing, with brands looking for Lesbian and Gay experiences to propagate a pink slip to sell their products.
In once such situation, a music production company approached me asking to be a part of a Gay, trans and a lesbian story outlined video, hardly realizing I don’t fit into any of its context. They then reduced my queerness to be a merely being invisible questioning my entire existence.
That was a time I realized the society is so backward in accepting the other alternative sexual and gender identities.
I couldn’t let few more years of mine be wasted in the fight for getting acceptance of my sexuality and gender which still does comes under the books of queer representation and as a move, I wanted to protest the very fact of missing my gender/sexuality contest with the power of ART.
Drag becomes a way of protest for me to highlight the unspoken, unknown sexual and gender orientation experience and definition which I nurtured to rear the attention from the people.
Flags are not only a piece of cloth, but flags become the idea of the politics of what the society sees. Every country, religion, and political movement has its primary symbol as a Flag. A flag becomes the firsthand idea of protest, proclamation, and provocation to change.
May that be a regular pride flag or the flags of the country every flag has a history of existence and brings people to seek steps to change.
I took it as a photo performance to paint my face with one alternative gender and sexuality flag to reclaim the missing identities representation with mainstream media. With that thought started this photo project called “Face of Pride”. I started defining these sexualities and gender by painting my face with its respective pride flags through pride month.
Asexual Flag
The flag consists of four horizontal stripes: black, grey, white, and purple from top to bottom. The black stripe represents asexuality, the grey stripe represents the grey area between sexual and asexual, the white stripe sexuality, and the purple stripe community used the colors of the asexuality flag such as Purple, white and Black to recreate the image of Asexuality on my face.
Pansexual Flag
The pansexual flag is a magenta, yellow and cyan flag, designed as a symbol for the pansexual community to increase its visibility and recognition, and distinguish itself from bisexuality. I used the pointed crystals with a yellow wig, to sum up the look.
Polysexual Flag
Someone who is romantically attracted to multiple, but not all, genders. The colors and design of the flag are based on the bisexual and pansexual flags, borrowing the blue and pink, and replacing the purple and yellow stripes with the green ones. I used gold eyeglasses and a pink wig to create a look of a Polysexual Piolet.
Bisexual Flag
The bisexual flag is a pride flag representing bisexual individuals and the bisexual community. The pink stripe represents homosexual attraction, the blue stripe represents attraction to different genders, and the resultant overlap color, purple, represents attraction regardless of sex or gender.
Rather than painting the entire face, I used the idea of having the wigs as the primary canvas while giving a flag-inspired eye makeup
Transgender Flag
The Transgender Pride flag was designed by Monica Helms. It was first shown at a pride parade in Phoenix, Arizona, USA in 2000. The flag represents the transgender community and consists of five horizontal stripes.
wo are light blue which is the traditional color for baby boys, and two pinks for girls, with a white stripe in the center for those who are transitioning, who feel they have a neutral gender or no gender, and those who are intersex.
I used a face painting technique to create the trans flag and used the red wig to represent the idea of the traditional Hijra community within the trans identity flag.
Intersex Flag
The flag was created in July 2013 by Morgan Carpenter of Intersex Human Rights Australia (then known as Organization Intersex International Australia) to create a flag “that is not derivative but is yet firmly grounded in meaning”.
Yellow and purple were chosen as colors as they were viewed as free from gender associations and were historically used to represent intersex people. The circle is described as “unbroken and unornamented, symbolizing wholeness and completeness, and our potentialities.
Gender Queer Flag
The genderqueer flag consists of a lavender stripe on the top, as it is a mixture of blue and pink, traditional colors associated with men and women, in order to represent androgyny. Lavender also represents the queer identity, as it has long been a colour associated with the LGBT community.
In the center is a white stripe, meant to represent a gender- or gender-neutral identity. Finally, there is the dark chartreuse green, as the inverse of lavender, it is used to represent third gender identities and all those who identify off the traditional gender spectrum.
Non Binary Flag
Non-Binary People are those whose gender identity does not fit within the traditional male/female binary. The four horizontal stripes of the colors- yellow, white, purple, and black are symbolic of non-Binary peoples’ experiences. This flag was not created with the intention to replace the Genderqueer flag but to be flown alongside it.
Yellow Represents those whose gender falls outside of and without reference to the binary. White Represents people of many or all genders. Purple Represents those whose gender identity falls somewhere between male/female or is a mix of them. Black Represents people who feel they are without gender.
Gender Fluid Flag
Within the transgender umbrella, gender fluid is a subgroup in the genderqueer community. Created by JJ Poole in 2012, the Gender Fluid flag consists of five stripes, representing the fluctuations and flexibility of gender in gender-fluid people. The first stripe is pink, which represents femininity or feeling female.
The second stripe is white, representing the lack of gender. The third stripe is purple and represents a combination of masculinity and femininity, including various degrees of androgyny. The fourth stripe is black and represents all other genders, third genders, and pangender. The final stripe is blue and represents masculinity or feeling male.
Ally Flag
The straight ally flag represents unity and support towards the LGBTQ community. Here’s what the straight ally flag means: The letter ‘A’ means ally.
Gender Maverique
Maverique is a non-binary gender that is completely different from male, female, neutral, and everything that comes with it. However, maverique is anything but genderless.
The following are the meanings of the colors: Yellow, which denotes primary gender, is a primary color, meaning it is distinct from the other primary hues, much like maverique is distinct from masculinity and femininity.
Non-binary gender is frequently related with yellow. From both the gender binary and the color spectrum, white denotes independence and autonomy. White is the gender-neutral canvas on which maverique is built. Mavericks are symbolized by orange, which indicates a fiery inner conviction as well as their unconventional and unique personality.
With this project, I intended to bring in more perspective on alternative genders and sexual identities. It’s important to decode and realize that sexuality and gender are far more than four-letter words and as the world progresses it’s important to not see sexuality and gender in a unified way and accept conversations of alternative identities too.