An Unlikely Affirmation

Written by Violet

One of the most affirming things I’ve done recently (aside from talking to my best friend; nothing beats that) is try FaceApp. 

I was feeling particularly boy-mode-ish the other day. Near the start of my transition, I used a locally installed AI app to feminize my appearance, but as someone told me recently, I’ve exceeded that caricature already. But, feeling particularly dysphoric about my face the other day, I had to know how FaceApp would initially identify me. I uploaded one of my favorite recent selfies. It identified me as male, of course. But the feminized pic wasn’t much different. 

A FaceApp comparison of me, on the left, with a feminized version on the right. The obvious differences are longer hair and a smoother, younger-looking complexion. Aside from that, it gave me a slightly wider jaw and more sharply defined eyebrows.

I tapped the option to make my pic more masculine. Once again, not much difference. 

A FaceApp comparison of me, on the left, and a masculinized version on the right. The only differences are a slightly taller skull, my jaw extended a couple of millimeters, and my orbits squared off a tiny bit.

Then I selected a pic with my wig and pantsuit. If the system identified this pic as male, that would confirm my facial dysphoria. But it identified me as female. I hit the option to make me more feminine. Hardly any difference.

A FaceApp comparison of me in my short purple wig and pantsuit with a further feminized version on the right. It widened my smile, lengthened my yhair a bit, and minimally increased my bustline.

I uploaded a dozen more photos, most of which I didn’t save. FaceApp identified me as female just less than half the time. Even a picture in which I thought the light made my face particularly angular, with makeup but no wig, was identified as female. 

My face is pretty much gender neutral. I’m the best of both worlds, baby!

While putting this article together, I looked at these pictures in my Google Photos album. Google Photos automatically detects pictures of you and prompts you to add other faces in the picture. If you save a collage of multiple pictures of you, it will only identify one, assuming that the others are different people. 

In the first picture in this post, it recognized the feminized version as me and prompted me to identify the face on the left. When I viewed the masculinized version of the same pic, it identified that version as me, and, once again, asked me to identify who the “other” person on the left might be. 

Even mighty Google, with all of its invasively collected image data, couldn’t tell the original from the modified version, getting it wrong four out of five times. The only comparison it identified correctly was the one below, and no kidding; I can’t even dream of having that hair! 

A FaceApp comparison of me with a strongly feminized version on the right. In addition to the changes in the first picture, my eyebrows are much more sharply defined and my hair is luxuriantly long and thick. It also rounded my glasses a bit.

I think I need to go wig shopping!

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