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ELLE Throwback: A Look At The Blurred Lines Of Gender Identity

- #UNGENDER - We imagine a world without labels.

Team ELLE

February 17, 2022

In May 2015, ELLE was asking questions few were willing to tackle. Gender was often spoken about in hushed tones, pronouns were not addressed and identities were strait-jacketed. It was then that Elle explored conversations around gender.

What if your gender didn’t matter? Not its stereotypes. Nor its stigmas. None of the shoulds or should-nots. Not even its clothes. Just the freedom to be whoever you choose to be.

It is a question we’ve been asking ourselves for some time now at ELLE. And the sheer avalanche of possibilities a world free of gender roles would allow has us bewildered. Imagine walking down a street at 2 am and forgetting to be afraid. Or dating a man with a penchant for swishing skirts. Imagine slender not being equal to weak, or swarthy not meaning lesbian. Equal pay, equal opportunity, equal rights. More clothes, more compassion. Imagine unabashedly bawling your eyes out, boy or girl, in a theatre full of people when the sad part comes.

But first, we had to confront our own prejudices — the language of he and she lives in the most liberated, forward-thinking and defiant among us. We decided to consciously dream of such a free world. Our first attempt was an installation at the FOCUS Photography Festival in 2015 in Mumbai, featuring real people, who were willing and ready to dream with us. With their help, we prodded the boundaries of what is gender-appropriate and what is not, and questioned why these tags should exist at all.

ISHAAN HARLHARAN, 28

ILLUSTRATOR

*Wool vest, Gucci. Cotton skirt, péro by Aneeth Arora. Canvas and rubber slip-ons, Kenneth Cole*

RADHIKA NAIR, 30

MODEL

*Jersey T-shirt, her own. Satin jacket, Diesel*

“Bodies are different, but minds are not”

BANRAP BORLANG, 33

TELEMARKETING PROFESSIONAL

*Kala cotton bomber jacket, Rashmi Varma*

JIMMY GRANGER, 32

PHOTOGRAPHER & FILM-MAKER

*Cotton top and palazzos; both Lovebirds. leather slip-ons, Zara*

RIA ANA SEJPAL, 31

ENTREPRENEUR & MODEL

SARVESH MAMGAIN, 28

SHOE DESIGNER

*Cotton tunic, Akaaro by Gaurav Jai Gupta*

“My mom bought me Barbies even though I was a boy”

TSUNDUE PHUNKHANG, 36

VIDEOGRAPHER

*Cotton top (worn inside), péro by Aneeth Arora. Jersey t-shirt, his own. linen jacket, Eka. Wool pants, Diesel. Canvas and rubber sneakers, DC Shoes*

HIMANSHU SINGH, 33

MODEL & THEATRE ACTOR

*Cotton dress, 11.11/eleven eleven. Jersey skirt, Rashmi Varma. leather sneakers, Gucci*

“Bowie wasn’t kidding when he became Ziggy Stardust, you know?”

D. MEENU, 28

MODEL

*Silk shirt, twill trousers; both Salvatore Ferragamo*

SHARMISTHA RAY, 43

ARTIST

Embellished cotton shirt, Not so Serious by Pallavi Mohan

“Gender is not merely a biological construct or social binary: it’s a powerful personal expression, at once privately maintained and publicly performed”