Bernadette Fox

Photographer
    
You're Really Pretty
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Nationality: USA + The World
Biography: I’m a photographer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I craft visual narratives for editorial publications and long-format documentary projects, focused on the intricacies of culture and daily life. I am available anywhere you would like to... MORE
Public Story
You're Really Pretty
Copyright Bernadette Fox 2024
Updated Oct 2020
Topics Civil Rights, Documentary, Essays, Film, Freedom, Gender, Happiness, Identity, Leica, LGBTQ, Midwest, Minority, Non-Binary, Photography, Photojournalism, Portraiture, Relationships, Sexuality, Transition
This project explores identity and non-conformity through an individual’s unique experience of embracing a non-binary existence. Although it’s challenging to determine how many people identify as non-binary in the United States (given the current lack of identity options on legal paperwork), a 2018 Pew Research Center survey concluded that 35% of Generation Z (born after 1996) say that they personally know someone who uses gender-neutral pronouns such as “they” and “them”. The photographs and interviews document the day-to-day reality of the choice to break from our social and cultural beliefs in two distinct, disconnected and opposite forms of masculine and feminine, in favor of discovering a new way of being in the world.

Download the full project PDF here:
http://bernadettephoto.com/s/Youre-Really-Pretty_Bernadette-Fox.pdf 

Ray is a 31-year old, non-binary, queer person and full-time artist working in both sculpture and tattoo arts. They live in Minneapolis, MN with their bulldog, Frances. Ray made the transition from identifying as female to non-binary in January 2019. They had been thinking about it for over 9 years. “This was a thing that I just knew, beginning with childhood vibes. It was always in my brain, but I didn’t have the vocabulary for it before. I first came out as bisexual, then I found my queer family, and then I finally had the words to explain what I had been struggling with my whole life. Because I now identify as non-binary… I can dress any way, and present any way, be male or female, be nothing or both. It is such a relief. When I first started asking people to use ‘They/Them’ pronouns with me, most of my friends said they had seen it coming for a long time and weren’t surprised. They were like, ‘Yes! Finally!’. I’ve spent so long trying to fit in with other people’s shit, and now that I know myself I’m like, ‘Fuck it. I’ll die for it’. Of course I’d love for it to be easy, but I would rather have the life that I want. And that’s what it is for most of us in 2019–it’s just not the same dream that our parents had.” Rachel Andrzejewski, 2018. Ray Andrzejewski, 2019.

Created in partnership with @_pretty_boi_ray and @thealdrichtattoo.

You're Really Pretty — Bernadette Fox // Documentary Photographer
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