Reading over theories and aesthetic projects on how to use makeup and fashion and such in order to subvert facial recognition software and otherwise alter facial mapping, I realized a few things. Outside of the frequently made new-wave/cyber-punk connection, I also realized that I’d consciously endeavored to distort my facial plane constantly in my public presentation. I’ve worn makeup near-daily, and nearly 100% of the time I’ve appeared in public, since I was 17. More often than not it was garishly done and asymmetric.
Compare to this chart of facial-recognition thwarting makeup:
It would be as inaccurate to say that trying to live as a man meant I was not gender dysphoric as it would to say that a monogamous relationship would suddenly make me not bisexual. My dysphoria colored and recoded a lot of my experiences, and I have to wonder if this conscious nullifying of identifiable features was a product of it. It’s became so seemingly obvious that I nicknamed the stage makeup/facepaint I’ve been wearing the past three and a half years as “dysphoria monster” (also the name of the cover image of the album Chevalier D’Eon).
Rani Baker Digs You. 
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