Hi, Rookies! Sady here. I feel really lucky that while M. Sharkey was shooting these beautiful pictures of queer, transgender, and gender-nonconforming young people, I got to hang out with and interview them. Bits of my interviews are included with these pictures, which you should just go and look at right now.
Photos by M. Sharkey. Styling by Shea Daspin. Makeup by Jonathan Young for Dior Cosmetics. Hair by Allison Woodruff for Marie Robinson Salon.
Thanks to Angel, Hari, Christian, Faye, Lily, Liam, Mars, Mark, Eleet, and Mitchell for modeling.Angel, 20 Sweater, Jeremy Scott.
Hari, 19 “In terms of sexuality, I know I’m definitely more often attracted to men than I am to women…in terms of gender, I’m kind of wading around in all those intersectional gray areas. When I was little, I was very fixated on girly things, but attracted to males. I liked the Disney princesses, and liked the Disney princes. I always wanted to wear my mom’s heels, or a dress. I was really fascinated by femininity.”
Hari (right) “I identify a lot with both sides of the gender binary, and I think it’s fun to put that into my physical appearance. It also just throws people off and scares them and upsets them, and I like that. It’s fun. But I also feel like it’s accurate.”
Christian, 23 (left) “I’ve been questioning gender for as long as I can remember. I always felt like there was social injustice towards women. I questioned why men have to behave one way and women have to behave another. It’s always been in me.”
“Identity is based off reaction, not necessarily the individual. I don’t identify. I just don’t. I don’t think anyone should be labeled under a group of ‘queer’ or ‘non-binary.’ I would hope that everyone could see how non-binary they are.”
Necklace: nOir.Leggings: Jeremy Scott.
Faye, 21 “I identify as a woman. But I think there’s a lot of preconceived notions as to what feminine means, and as to what female is supposed to look like. Sometimes I identify as queer in the sense that gender is not super-relevant to me. It’s just not a priority.”
“I’m not happy with the way that the gender binaries are so apparent. It ostracizes people and makes them feel bad about themselves, or that they’re not normal. I just think this strict patriarchal society is slanderous, and it’s dangerous, and it hurts people.”
Lily, 18 “I’m not a gay girl who happens to be an artist who happens to be named Lily. I’m Lily, who is an artist, who happens to be gay.”
Sunglasses: Mercura NYC.“When I was 13, I came out to my entire grade during this assembly where they had an open mike, where people were saying a lot of really inspirational things about their personal lives. And so I went up and told them that I was gay. At first, they cheered. I was surprised, and I was so happy. And then after a few days I started to get all the hate, and that was really hard. After I moved to New York, things got easier. I never get mistaken here for a boy, because it’s very open and people can tell. But in my hometown, it wasn’t as common for a girl to have short hair, for a girl to dress like a boy, for a girl to look like they have no chest. And so I remember being in McDonald’s, and they would say, ‘Can I help you, sir?’ At first I was a little offended, but then I realized, I’m presenting myself in a way where they actually can’t really tell. And I do look like maybe a 12-year-old boy. And I started to realize that it wasn’t such a bad thing.”
Liam, 19 “It started to become clear to me that I liked women in the fourth grade, when I had a crush on Jasmine from Aladdin. It felt very natural, and I didn’t feel weird about it, and then people would act weird about it. But I didn’t like the word lesbian to describe me. Now I identify as a queer transmasculine person. I’m on the masculine spectrum, but not male or female. I don’t identify as male in the way that society would identify me as such. So, like, when it comes to my junk, the way I do relationships with people, and the way I interact with my environment, I don’t really think I’m a man in that way. So I was like, well, I think I can be a man in my own way.”
“I tell everyone. I try really hard to be out to as many people as I can, because I want there to be more trans visibility. I want to go to law school, because I want to do advocacy law for specifically trans people. And I really want to dismantle the system of legal gender in America.”
Mars, 18 “I’m somewhere on the transmasculine spectrum between genderqueer and binary. I think I started realizing [I was different] in 10th grade. I went to an all-girls Catholic school; it’s a little hard not being a girl there. I think the problem now is that other guys don’t see me as a guy. I’m not particularly masculine, and I don’t really try to be.”
Marck, 22
Eleet, 20 “I identify as a transgender female. My family could always tell: the way I talked, the way I walked, the way I moved, the way I socialized with my peers and my family members. They always said that I had ‘a little fruit in [my] tank.’ But hey, you either love it or you hate it. Honest to say, my upbringing was a little hard for me. But all those things that I’ve experienced in my life is what made me stronger, and it made me the person that I am today. And it made me want to reach out to my community, and let someone know that it gets better. Don’t give up. Go for what you want in life.”
Necklace: nOir.Mitchell, 20 “I identify as a gay male, because I’m a boy and I like boys. I never actually had to come out. When I told my father, he was like, ‘Whatever.’ I’m not really guarded, and I discuss things that are going on in my life, whether or not people are going to find issues with them. It is kind of like, whatever, fuck you, I don’t give a shit. If you don’t want to let me in, I’ll go to the next place.”
Necklace and ring: nOir.M. Sharkey is a portrait photographer based in New York. He began documenting LGBT teenagers and young adults as part of his Queer Kids project in 2006. Six years later, he doesn’t see an end. Please join the discussion and keep up to date about the Queer Kids project on Facebook. You can see more of M. Sharkey’s work here.
94 Comments
That’s such an impressive shooting with a great subject!
YES! i love this! 8,14 and 17 especially.
oh my gosh lily! so happy to see her and the rookie world have met (twice now). she’s super wonderful. and I love Mars’s photography; it’s very moving.
this article is wonderful and the photos are as well. it’s so insightful and so engaging. I love reading about different people’s perception of gender and hearing their individual stories/experiences as well. I love everything about it.
I LOVE THIS
This is amazing. Would it be legal for me to marry Rookie?
NO BUT LET’S DO IT ANYWAY
LETS DO THIS!!!!!!!
MY BIG FAT ROOKIE WEDDING!!!!!
Oh man, I love this article a whole lot.
Also, I think Lily might be one of the best looking people I’ve ever seen.
…my heart may have (it totally did) skipped a beat when I saw Lily’s picture.
Serious. I think I just developed a gigantic crush. Actually maybe on all of these people.
Lily is absolutely striking!
AGREED!
How can someone be so gorgeous, seriously. It’s like Lily is too ethereal for something as petty as gender.
ah, yeah, lily is v.pretty and all are really interesting, cool photos!:)
Wow, this is awesome. As someone growing up in a very small town with very little diversity, I don’t often get to really learn about all the different types of people and hear their stories. I feel a lot more informed now about how people might identify themselves in terms of sexuality and gender. Thanks Rookie <3
Yes, yes, yes, blurring the gender lines. More on this topic and social constructs in general ploise!
I’m actually crying. It’s been a long week, and this article and these people are ALL so cool and wonderful and interesting. This article has come at just the right time and…gah articles like this keep me coming back to your site Thanks for sharing these guys with us!
Hey! Love the photos and I’m really glad I got to be a part of this, it turned out really well, but I think I was misquoted a little in that second sentence. I tend to go through the identity spiel pretty quickly (and I was super tired that day), and I think some of the words might have gotten a bit mixed up? Pretty sure I meant to say somewhere on the transmasculine spectrum between genderqueer and binary (vs. binary spectrum between gq and transmasculine). Looks great though!
Hey, Mars. Thank you for alerting us to our mistake. I’ll fix that right now.
Thanks so much!
Thank YOU.
Angel has the most fascinating face! All these people are so beautiful and cool and the photos are just amazing and UGH. One of my favorite photoshoots yet on Rookie.
This is really, really beautiful.
This was such a good time
are you lily from the shoot???
Yup!!!
hit me up, people!
This…….is…….FREAKIN’…..AWESOME…….This is so wonderful…..I….AHHH…..words…..I don’t know what to say…..
OMG I LOVE ROOKIE EVEN MORE NOW
Why wasn’t this site around when I was in my early teens?? This is so amazing :)
this is amazing. It’s wonderful to see that people like them exist, and they’re so powerful and beautiful. It kinda opens your mind a little bit.
This is amazing.
I’m never going to regret procrastinating on Rookie.
so GGGGOOOOOOOODDDDDD
So amazing.
Beautiful. The photographer did a wonderful job on capturing their true personalities. IT’S BRILLIANT!
Wow! Such an incredible article! Thank you for publishing stories with such serious social importance, it’s really wonderful that you try to open people’s minds through Rookie.
This is really great! I really think that it is a great thing that people accept the fact that some people don’t know their gender, or their sexuality, and are still trying to find themselves out.
i love this so so so so much. everyone is so beautiful!!!!!
I feel like I should have been in this!
I was just talking with my mom about gender identitys and stuff yesterday.
We where playing a game at school and it was girls against boys and I felt confused so I just walked over and sat on a bench watching people the whole time and I just told people I don’t feel comfortable participting in activitys like that. I don’t want to be either gender I just want to be myself and wear what i want.
It’s Always nice to see other amazing people like this. I love this, thank you.
Did you know there are a billion billion stars just in our galaxy?
I would kind of like to know how many of those people changed their names themselves and why and how they chose.
Love it. I want to hear Angel’s story, too! But I honestly love everything about this. :)
This is so amazing. There are so many shades of gray to gender and sexuality that people don’t understand.
I love the styling, especially Lily and Faye’s c:
A gorgeous photo shoot! Beautiful clothes, beautiful hair, beautiful people.
Damn you, Rookie! Everytime I read an article on here I seem to bawl my eyes out or at least tear up a little bit. Your articles are so wonderfully moving and relevant and all things that are good in life. <3
Ugh!!! number 6!!! Next time I hear CIS or anything like that I just want to hurl. Quit self identifying! You are you and you are beautiful!!!
not that I hate people who self identify!! I just hate that they even feel like they have to, but unfortunately, I see that is necessary. and THAT is what makes me sick. That people are such bigots.
These photos are gorgeous.
Aaaaaaaa Lily you are gorgeous
oh my. this is awesome. so very awesome. gorgeous photos and awesome people. thank you.
I think Lily was someone’s coming out story today!!
Even though I identify as a straight female (which matches my genitalia) and can’t say I know how any of these people feel, I think this is really cool :). Great job. And the pictures themselves are so cool, too. I can really feel the people in them.
Great pictures! And it seems as if Faye and Liam have got it all figured out!
LOVE <3 <3 <3
Liam with the pug just KILLS me.
I love this, great to see people who are open about this. And the photoshoot is amazing, they all look stunning :)
This is so great. They’re all so gorgeous and inspirational!
Wow… Just. Wow.
The only thing more amazing than the people is the styling. I love Faye’s and Lily’s especially. <33 Makes me want to run to a store and buy similar things immediately =))
Great job on this one Rookie :')
Aaaahhhhh this is so perfect <3
THIS IS AMAZING, everyone looks beyond great/INSPIRATIONAL
What an incredible and inspirational post! Amazing, beautiful, bravo, Rookie!
xo, Tori
I see I’m not the only person here who has developed a massive crush on Lily. (Where can we see her artwork?) Lily aside, this whole article and photoshoot was amazing, and I just want to thank Rookie for your commitment to queer teens.
i love this.
This is so brilliant.
this was awesome!
So inspiring, and the photographs are beautiful!
FUCKING AWESOME
YAY EVERYTHING IS SPARKLES AND RAINBOWS INSIDE MY SOUL.
Interesting to see varying degrees of identification with certain ideas and types.
I sort of wish we were like snails, so there would be no difference in physical sexes and no one would even have to think about this sort of thing and defend their states, because any would be recognized as natural by everyone and never be debated.
(well, ideally)
I swear I saw Christian in Blood Orange’s Sutphin Boulevard video! Oh so beautiful.
#11 is a really attractive person..sorry i’m akward, but you’re very attractive :) and i LOVE the style in #16
So fierce it suited last month’s theme of power and I would’ve been stoked to see it then. But still these people are wonderful and I’m happy to see this article no matter the month :’)
You guys are incredibly amazing! Why don’t we find stuff like that more often?? So so so so great and TRUE and just perfect! Thank you!
I’m really lost in the jargon, “transmasculine spectrum between genderqueer and binary” huh?? sorry if this is a stupid question
Hey! I realize it gets technical and confusing, and it’s a lot to rattle off every time I’m asked how I identify. It basically means that I was AFAB (assigned female at birth), and though I don’t identify as strictly male (binary) now, I don’t quite feel genderqueer anymore. I respond to male pronouns, I just don’t feel entirely male, but closer to that than anything else.
Not sure if that helped at all haha
Thankyou! it really did help actually. I wasn’t necessarily aiming that question at you specifically I just noticed that phrase.
Does binary kind of mean the gender that you feel ignoring any kind of physicality or is it more technical than that? Or is it that genderqueer means you don’t really fit into either gender and binary means you feel settled on one or the other? It seems a shame you have to find so many words for just you being you.
P.S. loving the shirt with the flowers, awesome colour combo!
Marck looks like T.O.P.
This is really, really cool and sooo beautiful. There is something I’ve been wondering with regard to the whole gender issue. How should language be changed, or at least used differently, to reflect the blurring of the gender lines? Especially pronouns. We always refer to people as either he or she; we have no neutral, singular pronoun to use when referring to people who don’t identify as either. What do you guys think?
I think there should be an “official” pronoun for all neutral people in English, but I guess the problem is that in English generally things are not male or female like in other languages, but they are neutral objects. And since we use separate pronouns for people and non-people things, we can’t just use the neutral pronoun that’s for objects, “it”, because then it’s usually considered rude.
I mean, unless the person says that they prefer an “it” pronoun, but it’s still their call.
And then there are some specific pronouns that were invented for people who don’t use “he” or “she” to use.
Usually, I think you should probably ask the person what pronoun(s) they prefer so that you can use the correct one(s).
If I don’t know and can’t directly ask the person what pronoun(s) they prefer, I just use “they”.
It’s grammatically incorrect, but only English teachers will correct you because not a lot of people say “he or she” in real life. (plus saying “he or she”, “him or her”, “his or hers” instead of or they/them/theirs/their is definitely not neutralish at all).
Well, there is singular they (I’ve been told it’s not grammatically correct) and “invented” genderneutral pronouns (per, hir, ze,…)
English language is way less difficult that way than french, even if some french use genderneutral pronouns (xille, ol/mo -mo is possessive, such as mo frère or mo sœur… there is no word like sibling you have to say sister or brother or maybe we could say frœur?-, el/ille which still sound like binary pronouns spoken), for example jobs’ names, what you are (a student: étudiant, étudiant*e*) AND EVERYTHING are different for the two binary genders.
So I just don’t say I’m a student, I say I’m doing studies, not a chess player but I play chess (well, that would be true either way, because I’m not good enough to be a chess player.)
There are surely other more complicated languages.
French is probably more “stuck” in using gender as purely descriptive of what is physical, because even a friggin’ table or tabouret has a gender here which is kind of cool in some way? Thoughts for when you’re stoned: in french a table is feminine. How? I still assume a table is feminine. I just self-fugged my mind. Anyway, a table is not sentient so I guess it doesn’t care about its gender. I wonder how historically it became that tables are feminine…
I think the whole “objects have a gender” thing comes from a sort of feeling or image that the object gives, sort of like how in Mandarin there are different measure words used for things with specific textures/shapes/aspects- long, slender things, flat things, round things, things contained in a cup, things grouped or arranged in a certain way- as in it is not really about the object itself but the feeling/type that it is said to be and the image that it gives the person when they hear this measure word which qualifies this object.
This gendered or typed notion varies in different cultures/languages, and so can help to understand the mentality behind the language and culture.
For example, mouse is masculin in Spanish and Portuguese, but feminine in French.
Bigger things tend to be feminine in Spanish. Smaller things tend to be feminine in French (as well as diminutive forms of things, with “-ette” for example). Wide, short, or hollowed things tend to be feminine in Portuguese while long, slender, solid things tend to be masculine.
But it is really not always the case.
The fact that languages are influenced by and built upon one another makes this less clear-cut and more difficult to be backed by any logic, because there are too many exceptions for it to be a rule, and there is no real rule which determines the gender of an object.
I guess giving gender to objects is part of a common desire to illustrate, categorize, and clearly define the nature of all things, which just can’t be done for everything.
I’ve heard German has neutral pronouns, though.
I’m learning French right now and I totally didn’t think of gender in languages of today. I see how it would be hard in both languages, but especially in French. My teacher and I were discussing about how there were probably genders in English at one time too, since people always refer to cars as “she” here and things like that. I feel like over time it would be impossible to truly change French, because it is such a strict language, but perhaps the way you phrase things will become more common place for people who don’t wish to identify as either gender. I’d never thought of that before. But I’ve heard that the German language has a neutral gender, is that true? I wonder if it is used for people ever?
German has a masculine, a feminine and a neutral gender (der, die, das or er, sie, es), all of which are used for objects. The neutral gender is hardly ever used for people.
An exception would be “das Mädchen”, meaning “the girl”. That means a (young) girl can sometimes be referred to as “es”, meaning “it”.
But as I said, it’s an exception. Most people would consider the pronoun “es” for a person to be just as rude as “it” in English. I assume “das Mädchen” comes from children in general not being perceived as particularly masculine or feminine, although “der Junge”, meaning “the boy” is masculine in German.
Mitchell is the coolest guy ever.
THEY’RE ALL SO DAMN CUTE.
omg i love this!!!
and i gotta say, Mars is GORGEOUS.
i love what lily said though, and she’s totally right – your gender/sexual preference doesn’t define who you are.
I find these people so fascinating and cool. It’s like, gender does define SO many aspects of life, which is kind of weird, if you think about it. I think the most civilized people are the people who don’t let their genders define them. The purpose of gender and gender recognition is for the purpose of furthering the race, basically. But we as a species don’t really need to worry about that anymore, so why is everyone still so hung up on what roles men and women should play and how they should dress and act? We can become whoever we want to be. That’s why I think these people are really visionaries. I admire them so much.
Mars is beautiful.
Yes! Seconded (or thirded? Or more, probably.)
There are such beautiful people in this shoot.
I absolutely loved this shoot. They are all so beautiful, I loved Lily and Mars! Thank you!
I love this. LOVE LOVE LOVE it so much :)
I want to chest-bump every one of these beautiful kids so much. So much respect.
fantastic photoshoot, great stories. i love that these people spoke for themselves so we the readers didn’t impose our own assumptions on them. really refreshing and important to see.
I LOVE the solo photo of Christian and their quote. And all of the photos, really. These are all beautiful people. I hope we can see more and more trans* and lgbtq models in future Rookie shoots.
I’m so glad this is here. This just made me happy. Thank you Rookie.
PRETTY PEOPLE O_O
I hope Rookie do more stuff related to transgender. It’ll be so good if you could have a transgender writter.
OMG Miranda July movie reference!!!!! Dying.
it’s kind of funny because i was just thinking, “rookie should do more things on non gender-conforming people” when i came across this article :3