[StyleLikeU] Can you talk about what your style
says about you?
God, I hope everything. (laughs)
I always have felt the weight of like,
I got to say right off the bat,
who am I, who do I want to be?
I think at this phase in my life,
it feels like there's a particular weight on gender
and trying to adequately communicate.
I'm not a woman, but I'm not a man.
As I started to age and become a so-called teenage girl
I was dealing with the expectations of that,
whether that means being popular,
being pretty, being feminine, kissing boys.
On the inside I was like,
I'm a fucking monster because even though I'm wearing,
UGG boots and fishnets,
I'm obsessively thinking about pinning that 12 year old girl
up against the wall and fucking her.
What the hell is wrong with me? (laughs)
I have distinct memories
of going to something fancy and being put in a skirt
and just freaking out and locking myself in the closet
or sobbing.
I had this idea that I would go, I would leave home,
I would go to school, I would accidentally
end up sleeping with a woman and I would be able to just say
'It never occurred to me, but then I did it,
and it felt really good and I think I like it.'
- [StyleLikeU] So you hadn't been with a woman
at that point?
I wasn't with - I didn't sleep with anyone.
I slept with a woman for the first time when I was,
18.
The night I graduated from high school. (laughs)
- [StyleLikeU] And what was that like?
It was perfect.
I found that the experience of doing something
that I had spent my entire life intensely visualizing.
It was just was as good or better as I imagined it would be.
Because it was such a sense of relief, you know?
I had this very, almost traditional,
experience of closeted-ness,
of like there is my public persona,
there's the fact of what I want inside my mind.
I'm keeping it a secret. Nobody knows my secret.
And it was very isolating,
I was so lonely.
Because I literally had never verbalized
the fundamental truth of how I experienced my desire
and my gender.
- [StyleLikeU] So was there a formal
coming out or anything?
I didn't come out until I was 17,
when I told my best friend, Emily, that I was gay.
And it just happened by accident.
She was talking about how she was worried
she was gonna marry a guy who was like her dad.
And I was like, 'You probably will.
You always like guys who kind of are like your dad.'
She was like, 'Well then if I will, so will you.
And I was like, 'No I won't.'
And she was like, 'If I'm gonna marry someone like my dad,
why aren't you?'
And then I was just like, ''Cause I'm gay.' (laughs)
Or something like that.
And then I told my parents like a month later.
We're very close,
so I think it was very painful for them,
that there was such a huge part of myself
that was cordoned off and not accessible to them.
At first, when I came out, I was like,
'What I'm coming out as is gay.'
I was like, 'It's okay if I'm gay,
but it's only gonna be okay if I'm gay,
if I'm like a perfect girl in every other way.'
So I was like, I could be gay,
but I have to get into the best college possible.
I could be gay, but I have to be really fucking thin.
Seeing the truth of my identity as something shameful,
so wanting to make sure that every other aspect of myself
made up for it.
I'm like, people are gonna love me less
if I'm running around in
filthy clothes, like a sloppy, androgynous
four year old monkey, you know. (laughs)
It's just like less, I'll be less esteemed.
I'll lose a seat at
the table of women, or something, (laughs) you know?
Or I won't get to be someone's girlfriend anymore.
I won't get to be someone's daughter.
I won't get to be a sister.
'Cause I think I was really confused.
I was like, 'But I'm having sex with women.
I'm out, everyone knows I'm a lesbian.
Why do I still,
What is this feeling I'm having?
Why am I still feeling a lot of shame?
Why do I still hate my body?
Why do I have moments where
I am trying to get dressed
and I just like start to cry - what's up with that?'
Some friend of mine had a chest binder,
like a breast binder.
And as a joke, they were like,
'Put it on, let's see how it makes you feel, put it on.'
You know? And I put it on and my breasts were flattened.
And I went and looked in the mirror and I just felt
I liked what I saw so much,
like in a way that I truly hadn't since I got breasts.
I starting dating someone, my current girlfriend.
We were walking down the street or something,
or we were lying in her bed
and she just said something to me,
like this really light thing.
She was like, 'You're so handsome.'
Which no one had ever said to me before.
And it just hit me so intensely.
And immediately I was just like, 'Oh my god.
Why did that feel so good?'
And also ashamed that it felt so good.
What does it mean that it felt so good?
But I think that's the growth for me.
It's like, running from that
or taking it in and accepting it.
Like when she said, 'You're so handsome.'
I wasn't like, 'Shut the fuck up.' (laughs)
It's like the labor of trying to love yourself,
even if you never get there,
that's fucking labor.
The idea that it's more authentic labor
if I win something or make a shit ton of money
or I'm famous,
than just working every day
to actually try to have honest relationships
and actually,
attempt to love myself, even if I never get there.
Like, pay me for that, you know? (laughs)
Jesus, (laughs) pay everyone for that.
- [StyleLikeU] Can you talk about
someone that's been a great influence in your life?
I met this person named Reina.
She's amazing.
She's an activist, she's trans.
She spent the last decade doing,
sort of trans justice.
The time that I met her,
just having finished school,
so confused about what the hell to do.
Who do I want to be?
How do I want to be in the world?
What matters to me?
Do I want to be successful?
What's success?
What will that actually give me?
Sometimes to the point where I'm just paralyzed in my bed.
Just like, 'Well, there's nowhere to go but here, (laughs)
because nothing is what they say it is.'
I think about the first times that she and I hung out
and some of the stuff that I said,
and accidentally saying these trans-phobic things.
No one ever having said to me, 'Some women have penises,
some men have vaginas.'
What does it mean to associate a body part
with a way of being in the world?
I think that she understood that I was so pent up
and so badly needed a trans community,
and so badly needed people in my life who were
helping me turn over these stones,
that she was incredibly patient with me.
I was just like, 'Oh my god,
I am... definitely trans.' (laughs)
Because before I had understood it to mean
this very clear binary journey.
Like you are a one thing, it's not for you.
You're trapped in the wrong body
and you go to the other thing.
There are two options and to be trans
is to journey from one to the other.
Not, it's this expansive unwieldy way of being.
Maybe just accepting that I don't have a name for myself
and accepting that uncertainty is a more accurate reflection
and a more freeing reflection of who I want to be,
than trying to just figure out which box is best.
I come from a very, as we all do,
a very specific kind of family.
My parents are very successful artists,
my sister is incredibly famous, as no one doesn't know.
It's just a certain model.
If we're talking about success,
I have had a very clear model for like
success is recognition, success is public achievement.
That's what it means to work.
That's what it means to find a purpose.
You know fame is like, it's money, it's visibility, it's--
But it also is just a way of saying this person ...
It's like a scale.
This person is supposed to matter more in the world,
than this other person.
And that's just not true.
Any system or person who tells you
that someone matters more than another person,
because of what they have or what they don't have,
or whether you know their name, that's just a fucking lie.
Of course at the same time that I see that,
I also want to be loved, I also struggle.
I also want to be known.
I also don't want to feel lonely.
And sometimes it seems like the best way to
get at not feeling lonely is to be loved,
or to be known, or to be appreciated.
I literally grew up in downtown Manhattan
in a world of artists.
Like doesn't get more fucking status obsessed, and vapid,
and pretentious than that.
And I developed an attention for this at such a young age,
a lot of anxiety on behalf of people's feelings
of inferiority.
Just looking around a room and being,
well that person has power,
that person feels like they don't have power,
that person feels excluded,
that person wants something they're not getting.
It's overwhelming, you know.
All these things I've been criticizing,
cultures of fame and status,
I still... at the same time that I can hate them
and see the way they function,
it's still scary to feel like you could go far enough
that you wouldn't be a part of it anymore.
And clearly it's coming from within me.
Like no matter how much my mother loves and affirms me,
I'm like, 'If I get top surgery,
is she going to love me less?
Because I'm not going to be her daughter anymore?'
And she could say, 'No, that's not true.'
But I still feel the fear.
I didn't realize I was so neat. (laughs)
- [StyleLikeU] Yeah, you're very neat.
[StyleLikeU] When do you feel the most vulnerable?
I get really sad if I feel like
I'm not actually having
authentic interactions with people.
And to a point that I think it sometimes
is hard for people who are close to me.
They're like, 'I can't go at your speed.
I'm not ready to go there yet.
I'm not ready to tell you what I'm feeling.
You don't get to just know, it take time.
You have to earn my trust.'
And I have this thing of like,
'Let's just tell me now, you know.
I just want to know, I just want to be intertwined.'
- [StyleLikeU] When do you feel the most beautiful,
handsome?
But no, you can say, I like being beautiful, too.
[StyleLikeU] Okay. Either! Answer both.
Both, I like to be beautiful, I like to be handsome.
I like to be cute, I like to be sexy.
I think everybody wants to be all the things,
it's just you feel like
you're supposed to only be one of them.
It feels really good to
have sex with someone who gets you. (laughs)
Sex is a space where I,
when it is good I feel really
like a lot of, like the obstacle course
we've been talking about,
sort of is less present.
You never really know who someone is going to be
when you have sex with them,
'cause a lot of things you might expect, change.
There's a level of physicality and closeness
that isn't happening in the day-to-day
when we're constantly inside of these more formal ways of
relating to one another,
like shaking hands and hugging and being polite,
and not going up to people on the street
and telling them they're beautiful.
Which I would like to do,
I wish that was more how things were.
- [StyleLikeU] Or your glasses, which would you prefer?
Glasses.
- [StyleLikeU] What's your definition of self acceptance?
I think self acceptance, self love,
it's a process that might not ever come to an end.
And I get this frustration when I'm feeling bad
about my body.
I'm like, 'I don't know if I want to be a man.
I don't know if I want to take hormones.
I don't know if I want to get top surgery.
I don't know if I'm a woman.
Like when am I going to fucking figure it out?
When am I going to get there?
Like, when am I going to get there?'
And I have to have friends,
or in my stronger moments I have to tell myself,
'This is actually where you are.' (laughs)
[StyleLikeU] Bra?
[StyleLikeU] Can you talk about why,
being in your body, is a good place to be?
It's funny how we talk about our bodies like
they don't belong to us, like it's a suitcase we have.
My body, like it's mine, it's me.
It's not even something that belongs to me, it's who I am.
It's like without my body I wouldn't have
learned a lot of things about myself.
Like when someone touches the back of my neck
in a certain way,
or the first time I hold hands with someone,
or holding someone and I was able to realize,
'Oh, this is what I, that feels good to me.
That makes me feel like myself.'
Like my body recognized that before my brain did.
So it's smart. (laughs)
And probably knows a lot of things
that my brain has to catch up with
because it's experienced so much.
- [StyleLikeU] That was amazing.
Thank you so, so much.
That was absolutely incredible.
Thank you.
- [StyleLikeU] I feel completely transformed. (laughs)
I'm going to take pictures of you.
Okay.
Thank you so much for watching our video
and for being such a incredible supporter of StyleLikeU.
We're Elisa and Lily, a mother and daughter on a mission
to inspire acceptance
by revealing what's underneath personal style.
Through radically honest docu-style videos
we are leading the fashion and beauty industries
towards self love, diversity and inclusion.
Join our movement by following us on Instagram,
subscribing to our YouTube channel
and buying our new book today.
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