Fun with Snapchat's Gender Swapping Filter

Fun with Snapchat's Gender Swapping Filter
blog.evjang.com

Similarly, I'm transgender and use those applications to come up with new ideas on how to make little changes to my appearance to feminize my features. Sometimes coming up with makeup ideas is hard since I lack in experience and equipment. I don't want to purchase a bunch products I'll end up never using. Technologies like this allows me to quickly test makeup ideas. For example, I have green eyes so they automatically add purple eye-shadow to make my eyes look brighter. I've since incorporated this color in my daily makeup. I've noticed that they overdraw the lipstick to make the lips look fuller, so I also do that when I want a more polished look.

However, this is a double edged sword.

Those filters raise expectation on what you might look like after a gender transition.

I've seen a lot of angry and disappointed people because of that. Those applications change a lot about your face, sometimes in subtle ways you won't notice. The curve of the jaw is slightly different, the eyes are a bit farther apart, your skull is more round, etc. Changes that are pretty much impossible even with facial feminization surgeries.

People strive to reach that "perfection" and end up being stuck in limbo, unable to reach it so unable to free themselves from their gender dysphoria. It's easy to spiral down from there.

I remember back in the VRML/SecondLife heyday where you could pick an avatar that was another gender. I still do that. But the emphasis for voice chat in modern games and MMORPGs make it far more difficult. A low gruff voice does not bode well coming from a feminine avatar. Catches too many off guard.

Faceapp comes to mind[1]. There's also Artistry Virtual Beauty[2] but it is a bit less advanced. I believe that Facebook Messenger also have some similar features.

> A low gruff voice does not bode well coming from a feminine avatar. Catches too many off guard.

A lot of sound cards those days come with tools that allow you to modify your audio input. Often, they'll have a female settings where it changes the pitch to make your voice sound more like a woman's.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.faceapp&hl=...

[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.perfectcor...

Do you ever feel like these applications are re-enforcing physical gender stereotypes? Like "you selected female, here is what females should look like." If gender is a social construct, tech like this is clearly maintaining that construct, yet nobody seems to have a problem with it.