Snapchat Can’t Tell You What It’s Like To Be Trans

Try listening to actual trans people instead.

Image of two people smiling and taking a selfie. Photo by Lina Yatsen courtesy of Unsplash

A few days ago, Snapchat released their Gender Change Filter, which overlays the user’s face with a hazy image of themselves with either a square jaw and beard stubble, or massive Frozen-style doe eyes and puffy, sexy baby lips. Cis people have been chirping excitedly about this filter since its release, and posting screen caps of their “gender swapped” selves to Snapchat’s primary rivals — Facebook and Instagram.

Snapchat lost most of its relevance in recent years, as Instagram Stories and TikTok videos usurped its hold over self-deleting images and strange, digitally altered thirst traps, respectively. But the Gender Change Filter has sent the social media app rocketing back into prominence, at least for a time, with scores of former users redownloading it so that they can see their altered, transitioned selves.

Of course, the Snapchat Gender Change Filter does not actually show you, humble cis smartphone user, what you would look like if you had a different gender identity. For that, you only have to look in a mirror. Or listen to literally any transgender person in the world.

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