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The Most Common Accessory

Sophie Lynne | Sep 10, 2012

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On a given night out, T-girls will wear short skirts, long skirts, tight shorts, jean shorts, jeans, jeggings, leggings, micro-mini skirts, or Daisy Dukes. They wear dresses, tube tops, tank tops, crop tops, blouses, Polos, sweaters, cardigans, or camis. Clip-on earrings, pierced earrings, nose rings, necklaces, chokers, bracelets, anklets, pearls, rhinestones, rings and bling. Pumps, strappies, sandals, boots, flats, Mary Janes, or stilettos. And of course, the right bag to top it all off.

Okay, most my bags are kind of old, but there you go. Donations are always accepted to the “Get Sophie a Decent Bag” fund.

Variety. None of us have the same style. A veritable cornucopia of looks. But whether she goes out or stays in, there’s one accessory that almost every T-Girl has on her.

Her Camera.

That’s the one accessory almost all of us carry. Cameras at any gathering are ubiquitous. Know what that means? Means they’re everywhere.

Transpeople and cameras are, to quote one of my favorite movies, “like bacon and eggs, franks and beans, politics and corruption.”

Why is that?

What drives us to take So Many Pictures? Are we all so vain? Do we think this song is about us?

On my Flickr account, I have 1,846 pictures as of this writing. And there are many I don’t post! Am I the world’s biggest narcissist?

Well, I can’t speak for anyone else, but this is why I take pictures.

First of all, what is a photograph? It’s a frozen moment in time: a monument to that which will never return. Those of us old enough have old pictures that have faded with time; yellowed and curled. In these pictures, we see our childhood. We see people long since gone from our lives. We see reminders of what we were. They are time capsules.

So I look at my old pictures of myself and trace how much I have grown as a woman. I see my weight falling off slowly, my eyebrows shrinking as I thinned them over time. I see how my makeup technique has improved. I see how my personal style in clothes has developed over the seasons.

Thanks to Flickr, I can see what “looks” people like more than others (funny how my most popular pictures tend to either show other, prettier t-girls . . . or my cleavage.)

Sometimes I compare these pictures with the few pictures I have from the time when I first dressed in the early 1980s. I have no TG pictures from that time, only memories. But with the pictures I have of me as a young teen, I try to extrapolate (Oooh! Another big word!) what I would look like if I transitioned then. As if that were a choice for a poor kid in a conservative, blue collar small town in Reagan’s America.

Yes, I torture myself like that sometimes. Wishing upon stars.

But there’s another major reason I take pictures like it’s my job.

I need to preserve these moments.

I don’t get to be Myself very often, so I treasure the times when I can be Me. When I can be the Woman I really am. During these times, I often see friends and we have pictures taken together. For the most part, these are the pictures I DON’T share — these are just for me. My treasured reminders of the times that I am out and about as Sophie Lynne.

And so I take pictures. So do many other T-girls. One of my friends is a professional photographer and you should see HER camera! Look through the viewfinder and it looks like the view screen of the Starship Enterprise! The pictures are so sharp you can see the threads sticking out of my bag on any given night! (Donations to the Sophie bag fund are still being accepted.)

Properly Accessorized Sophie

My face in high def? No one needs that!

I think my reasons for taking pictures are probably similar to many other T-girls. I’m sure there are many other reasons as well; as many reasons as there are T-girls, and styles of dress. As many as there are of different kind of cameras. Cameras many of us carry.

Our Ultimate accessory.

It’s better than any bag, as it gives us a window into our lives that we can always look upon for whatever reasons we wish.

So on September 15th, I’ll be out at Angela’s Laptop Lounge, camera in hand, or in my threadbare old bag. I’ll be taking many pictures, and I’ll post some of them. So will other girls. And they will All look Fabulous. As all the pictures of all of us have always been, and always will be.

Not bad for an accessory. Almost as necessary as a Little Black Dress.

Or a beautiful new Coach bag.

Did I mention my birthday is this week? 😉