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GENDER TRANSCENDENCE

2017

If we continue on the path of progress that we are on now, I believe that our society will reach a stage in which we have transcended gender. A post-gender society would be a beautiful world. People wouldn’t see male, female, etc. People would only see other people for who they are as an individual. Gender does not define us nor should it exist. We as individuals set up physical, mental, and social boundaries that restrict us from reaching our peak of potential. These boundaries prevent us from achieving self-actualization because we begin to warp our own reality to abide by others’ realities. If we adjust our reality, we are essentially adjusting our perception of ourselves and we ultimately lessen our ability to reach our full potential.

I am not focusing on the break down of gender norms or gender roles, but rather the destruction of the concept ‘gender’ itself. I believe in a post-gender society where the terms ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ are foreign and where personality has replaced gender as a form of identification.

By utilizing dark, contrasting colors at the beginning of the gif, I portray my figure as going through a sort of decay/death. The gif fades to black to suggest a death has occurred. The gif transitions into much brighter images than the previous sequence to suggest an enlightenment has occurred. The figure blends in more with the environment to suggest that the figure has now become a part of the environment which is a metaphor for the individual becoming completely indulged in their own reality. I continued to communicate the idea of transcendence with an androgynous figure floating around in the sky. This suggests the common association between transcending and the idea of one’s spirit ‘transcending to the heavens.’ The heavens representing individual enlightenment.