Mars, 18, Brooklyn, NY

I decided I wanted to go to the School of Visual Arts in sixth grade. I thought I wanted to do interior design. My mom had a lot of HGTV going on around the house. Then I realized design required a lot of architecture, and I was awful with math and didn’t really like choosing throw pillows. So I changed my mind. But then I realized SVA’s photography program was a lot better than their interior design program.

Seeing Catherine Opie’s “Being and Having” series made me want to be a photographer. I’m going to try to do photography as long as I can. Going to school for photography, nothing’s more apparent than how competitive it is. But I’ve never really considered anything else. I’m just going to hope it works out.

My work was featured on Autostraddle in their Artist Attack Spotlight. The funniest was this website, Queerie Bradshaw, which made a list of seven semi-celebrities they wanted to sleep with while they were single and put me as number six.

My very first photo series I did featured photos of the same people both as extremely female and extremely male. At the time I couldn’t really get past the idea of the two being very separate, though I was trying to talk to everyone else about gender being fluid. As fun as fake mustaches are, they’re nowhere near the work I’d be putting out if I was trying to show the same sort of thing now. But I’m still interested in portraiture and documenting the queer and gender-variant community.

Myself, I’m definitely transgender of some variety. I’m not sure where I will stick. There are so many labels. The terminology is always shifting.

When I told my friend I wasn’t comfortable with my birth name, my friend was like, “If you’re going to change it, you have to make it something cool like Mars.” And I usually use gender-neutral pronouns, which is terribly awkward. I generally say I can be called anything that’s not female. If someone I haven’t met before uses female pronouns, I don’t get that upset. It’s only people I’ve told several times — that’s when it bothers me. My friends seem to feel bad when I correct them, but they don’t put any effort into changing it.

I go back and forth if I should tell people I’m dating right away. I’ve only dated girls, though I found out one girl I dated is transitioning to male. I met Molly at Queer Prom in Halifax in July of last year.

When I was younger, I first identified as gay. But I’d been feeling a little bit off in my gender identity. I went to a Catholic girls’ school in Halifax. I wore knee socks, kilt, the whole works. When they added a separate boys’ school, a few girls asked if they could wear the boys’ uniform and the administration said no. So I wasn’t exposed to different gender expressions in high school, apart from my own research. I was reading some things online like GenderFork and Original Plumbing. It’s strange being in New York now and everyone is suddenly genderqueer.

My first week in New York I knew Amos Mac would be at TransMan 2012, so I asked him if I could shoot him for my project. Now I’m interning for him. I helped him mail out Original Plumbing. I’ve assisted on shoots. At first I was definitely intimidated. I was shaking.

My mom was not quite as proud of my internship with Amos as I thought she’d be. I’m never really sure how she’ll react to things. The other day my mom asked if I was living as a male. I just said no, and hopefully that will keep her at bay for a little bit. My mother was very certain I would come to New York and join a cult. No, I don’t have a cult-like personality.

As told to Diana Scholl.
Photo by Laurel Golio, taken in Brooklyn, NY, 2012
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