Crossdressing As Art

Valkyrie Shirt by Rayne's Avante-Garde
Article By E.S. Wynn


I am a creator. I love art, and I am always looking for new places and new ways to express myself artistically. I love the act of creation, the ways that the spirit can express itself in color, sound, rhythm and through the use of tools of all varieties and kinds. I am a creator. For me, art is a freeing, deeply spiritual pursuit, a way to make so much good with beauty, with dissonance, with contrast, connection, and with everything in between.

It may come as no surprise then that when I am faced with a form of art that is marked as taboo for no sensible reason at all, I find myself inclined to explore it, to hone it, and to develop my own expression of it.

So it has been with crossdressing.

As I have stated in previous posts, I don't need female clothing to feel like a woman. I was born feeling this way, and I'll probably die feeling this way. It's been a part of who I am, constant and unchanging despite what I might wear or do. I don't crossdress out of fetish or out of a desire to attract the male gaze. I crossdress primarily for the art of it, with an eye toward activism, toward visibility, and toward making the world a safer place for transgender people, no matter where we fall on the spectrum.

When I crossdress, when I work on my art attire, my "Ellie Gear," I work at creating a character, in a sense. I craft an external representation of the woman I am inside, or would be, constantly, had I been born female. I observe, I dream, I extrapolate, borrow and note what excites me artistically and I carry those notes forward to realize a person, a person that resonates with who I am inside, a person that, given a great deal of preparation, I can become, displaying myself in public as living art, even if only for a little while. For me, the art of crossdressing is one of the most intimate forms of creative expression, one where you take the elements at your very core and bring them out, using your own body as the canvas. It's artistic expression that you choose to become, that you carry into public as fearlessly as you can, showing off your work (and your innermost soul) for all to see. It's brazen and bold, especially using a male body as the canvas to express a female soul, bucking a strong taboo and making a statement about roles and beauty standards, about gender and sexuality all with one single outfit.

Artisitic crossdressing also got me into battle jacket building, ultimately leading to my own label, Ellie Valkyrie Battlejackets [link]. Learning to build battle jackets and other punk-style outfit elements was a long, self-taught process of observation, study and experimentation. I explored and polished my skills while building my own jacket, my Ellie jacket, the external expression of my inner soul, and carried those skills forward to make garments for others. Building battle jackets is a form of art I never thought I would get into, but I love it. It's powerful, spiritual, satisfying and totally fun to explore. To use leather and denim as canvases, to stitch by hand and brush designs into something meant to be worn-- it is unlike any other art form I have gotten into.

The clothing we wear is, in a sense, the way we chose to present ourselves to the world. In many ways, there is a stigma in our culture still against certain expressions of individuality. Safe expressions, like a hat with a catchy quote on it, attract smiles and conversation (something we like as social animals) but when a man wears a skirt or a padded bra, he draws as much negative attention as he would if he were to get a full facial tattoo. There is no good reason for reinforcing a stigma around expressions such as these. Saying “you could get attacked / you won’t get hired” is victim blaming and is as offensive as saying a woman deserved to be raped because of whatever she might have been wearing at the time. If a crossdresser is attacked, it’s because the person who attacked them is an asshole, and that’s the long and short of it. It’s not the crossdresser’s fault, and wearing clothing of a certain type should never been seen as an excuse for a person to be assaulted or denied employment for a job they are otherwise qualified for. I stand by this, even for people wearing MAGA hats and nazi uniforms. Self defense, of course, is another matter entirely. See my article on Fighting Hate With Hate for more on this subject.

Life is short. Individuality is rare and fleeting. Be you. Be the best version of you that you can be, and shine in what you know will empower you. Be art, in every moment and in every way. See the art that is you, that is uniquely you, and explore it. The only person stopping you, ultimately, is yourself.


If you have a story about your own experiences as a trans individual or would like to be interviewed so that you can share your perspectives as a trans person with the readers of this blog, please feel free to contact me through the contact form here: [link]. Make sure you have javascript enabled or the form will just display a blank page. I’d love to hear from you, and I’d love to share your perspective with our readers. Thank you!

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True Trans

I’m going to take a quick break from the dense articles this week to shine a spotlight on another great documentary series that I found very fun and informative. Starring Against Me’s Laura Jane Grace, True Trans talks about the experience of being transgender, and how different people in different walks of life cope with it, move through it and use it as a way of becoming the best versions of themselves that they can be. It’s a really well put together documentary, comprised of a series of short episodes, so it’s easy to blow through the whole thing quite quickly. The pacing is great and the message is invaluable.

Check out the first episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKCIWuFB3vE


If you have a story about your own experiences as a trans individual or would like to be interviewed so that you can share your perspectives as a trans person with the readers of this blog, please feel free to contact me through the contact form here: [link]. Make sure you have javascript enabled or the form will just display a blank page. I’d love to hear from you, and I’d love to share your perspective with our readers. Thank you!

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On Fighting Hate With Hate

Photo by Rayne's Avante-Garde
Article By E.S. Wynn


I live a life that is pretty sheltered from judgments and hate, but it wasn't always that way. I'm grateful that I live in a liberal-leaning state in a time when being trans (especially a safe degree of trans [link]) is not such a big deal, but that wasn't always the case. I have lived in places where being white was enough to make me a target for bullying and abuse. I have lived in places where being introverted and intellectual was associated with homosexuality and that was enough to make me a target. During my life, I have been physically attacked by people of all creeds and colors. I have been stalked by women who couldn't care less about consent and who wouldn't take no for an answer, and I have walked many a lonely road with my fingers wrapped tightly around a spray-stick of mace, not because of some imagined threat that might be lurking in the shadows, but because of experience, because of very specific people who I knew walked those same roads, people I knew I'd have to defend myself against if I were to cross paths with them.

I have lived through all of this, and all of it even before I crossdressed for the first time or came out as trans.

Sometimes it seems that to be human is to bear the scorn, judgments and attacks of others. Certainly it isn't the only part of being human, but it does seem to be something we have to deal with every day of our lives regardless of who we are and where we choose to live. People can be cruel, and whenever someone lashes out at you (for whatever reason) it can be very easy to lash back, to spit and snarl and show them what it feels like to bear the brunt of the very attacks they're leveling at us.

Sometimes that's necessary. I'm a proponent of self-defense and fighting back to protect oneself. I think all oppressed minorities should stand up and refuse to be silent, but I am not a proponent of senseless or vindictive acts of violence.

I think, far too often, that it is easy to hate those who hate. As creatures who tend to think in all-or-nothing ways, it seems like there is an internal belief that you must either be the victim or the oppressor, that oppression is right if your cause is just. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, when I see nazi thugs marching with the sacred symbols of my ancestral culture (the runes) I'm filled with a singular rage. I start to see red, for all the damage fascism and that brand of hate has done to my faith and my people. There is something approaching hate which fills my heart, and there is the urge to let it out in destructive ways, but to what end? Would I be any better of a person than the neo-nazi in the street if I were to embrace my hate? Would I be any better of a person if I were to echo their means for the pursuit of my own ends? Or would I be just as bad, even flying a different flag?

I understand the urge to get revenge. I understand the importance of standing up for oneself and protecting those who are being attacked by those who hate. Hating people "because they deserve it" is a wholly different animal, though. Whenever I hear someone say "you can't be racist against white people" I cringe just as much as I do when I hear white people speaking racism. Hate is hate and judgments are judgments no matter who they are leveled at. Do the radicals of Antifa have a right to destroy and loot the businesses of hardworking citizens who they have no real quarrel with simply because they are "on the side of right?" No! Destruction is destruction. No one has the "right" to hurt another, except perhaps in direct self-defense. If someone swings a punch at you, take them down, but if someone shows up waving a flag that you don't like or shouting slogans that you take issue with, don't give in to hate. Don't create violence and feed someone else's hate. Oppressing those who have a differing viewpoint than you, no matter what it is, is fascism. No one "deserves" to be oppressed, injured or abused, no matter whose flag they fly or whose words they parrot. Violence is the only thing that matters. Violence, those who use it and those who defend themselves and others against it. Defense is the middle-path between victim and victimizer. It is the high road, but it is also a road which doesn't give into or cultivate a never-ending cycle of hate.

So if you're trans, the next time someone shouts something nasty at you, just grin and nod, or ignore it. If someone throws a punch at you, duck under it and strike back. If you meet people in the street who sneer or express a viewpoint contrary to yours, have the self-confidence and inner strength to not react, to let it roll off of you, knowing that what you know is true for you (and for countless others as well.) Hatred and violence only go as far as you allow them to. Do you want to live in a world of hate and fear or do you want to work to end the reign of hate and fear? It starts with you, with each of us as individuals, each of us being confident in who we are, standing up for ourselves when others judge, and holding back the urge to oppress others as strongly as we ourselves have been oppressed.


If you have a story about your own experiences as a trans individual or would like to be interviewed so that you can share your perspectives as a trans person with the readers of this blog, please feel free to contact me through the contact form here: [link]. Make sure you have javascript enabled or the form will just display a blank page. I’d love to hear from you, and I’d love to share your perspective with our readers. Thank you!

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You Are Not Alone

Photo and article By E.S. Wynn


There are more of us than you realize. There are more queer and transgender people around you than you could ever guess. Many of us have become very good at blending in, at hiding who we really are inside. I had no idea how many people like me there were in the world until I came out and started announcing who I am, what I am, and that there's nothing wrong with it. It was like people started coming out of the woodwork in droves, whispering "I am here, and I understand."

It's unnerving. It's beautiful. It's unnerving because so many people are hiding who they are. It's unnerving because so many are terrified to admit the feelings they have carried inside for their entire lives. Even when someone like me comes out and says "I am Trans!" there are dozens more who cannot, or who don't feel safe expressing who they are, except maybe once, in hushed tones, to someone they know they can trust not to attack, out or chastise them. It's beautiful because it gives me hope. It affirms the normalcy of my experience in a way that nothing else does. It gives me a fresh perspective that I can carry out into the world to show others.

To all of my fellow trans people, I say: take heart. You are not alone. I've caught a glimpse of how many of us there are out there. In the few months that I've been writing these articles, I've been approached by dozens of people who feel the same things, share the same experiences with dysphoria that we do. There are more of us out there than I think most people realize. Many, many more, and though most are quiet, we aren't going away. Look deeply into history and you'll see that we've always been here, sometimes silenced and marginalized, sometimes loud and proud about who we are, but always here.


If you have a story about your own experiences as a trans individual or would like to be interviewed so that you can share your perspectives as a trans person with the readers of this blog, please feel free to contact me through the contact form here: [link]. Make sure you have javascript enabled or the form will just display a blank page. I’d love to hear from you, and I’d love to share your perspective with our readers. Thank you!

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