Project Taboo – Individuality

Project Taboo is a series of posts that I am running where we discuss the hidden parts of society with a quieter voice that are equally as important. Today’s post is brought to you by the marvellous Kate, and you guys should take a moment to head over to her amazing blog to be blown away by her spectacular works of arts and inspirational posts and helpful life hacks. The piece of art in this post is created by Kate herself! Thank you Kate for taking part in Project Taboo! 

If you would like to take part too, you can read this post to find out more and email me at flawedsilence@gmail.com. Now straight to the post.

​Hey there! I’m so glad that I’m able to join Kiya’s amazing Project Taboo! I am Kate, by the way, and I blog over at All The Trinkets (formerly Plethoric Thoughts) Today, I want to talk a bit about sexuality. Specifically, how appearance plays into this issue and one’s self.

And I want to start with fashion.

I love art in general; I am weirdly passionate about it. I believe that art existed because of man’s deep urge to express himself (deep and philosophical, I know) and the different forms of art use different mediums to do just that. 

For fashion, that’s clothes.

Personally, I like observing how other people dress their selves. Because unlike other artforms (drawing or filmmaking) fashion can easily be seen in every person—whether they know or not. I think a person’s style is his/her way of showing the world a part of his/herself.

Which brings us to my friend.

This awesome friend of mine is a girl. And she’s straight. Like me, she is also interested in fashion but unlike me, she immensely likes to express herself through clothes.

She likes androgynous style. She is inspired by Keira Knightley’s wardrobe in Begin Again and she doesn’t like to wear cute accessories or makeup. (See where I’m going with this?)

I think she’s really cool but when we caught up a few months ago, she told me that her gal friends tell her she looks like a boy. That “it’s such a shame” because she’s pretty but she looks like a lesbian.

It made my blood boil like Kilauea.

I was shocked to even hear such a thing from fellow millennials. People who were born in a world where there is no shame in whatever body you have, whatever sexual preference, or skin tone, or religion. Because that one part of you is integral in making you the beautiful and unique individual that you are.

But of course, of course age has nothing to do with it. There are still people who think that way. People who put things in convenient labels and categories. And these people translate everything they see accourdingly. It’s amazing how we love to simplify things so much that we can undermine a person for who they are without even knowing it.

It all comes back to “Girl = Pink” and “Boy = Blue.”

I mean, sure, I get why nurseries do that. But they’re indicating gender. Not the baby’s sexuality. And definitely not who the baby is or will become.

How can one freely express one’s self if people immediately judge him with a single part of himself?

Here is a girl who was brave enough to show the world a part of her own self. And in return she got derision and embarrassment.  And self-hate. Unsure of who she has become, insecure of everyone else.

Not knowing the light that’s so unique to her because it was hidden behind that cloud of self-doubt.

So for her and everyone else like her, I want to put it out there: your style has nothing to do with your sexuality.

A part of you doesn’t have to correlate with another. They don’t have to “make sense”. You can be a girl who hates skirts or a boy who loves pink. But know that, put together, all parts of you make up who you are.

And you are beautiful and amazing just that way.