RAIN DOVE

Instagram: @raindovemodel



Do you call what you do drag at all?

I call what I do survival. Gender capitalism is the term I use. I observe the world around me and try to figure out what will get me the most out of it. Sometimes you’ll get the exact same thing being perceived as either gender. But for the most part, there’s a pretty clear line. What it means to look like a woman or man changes regionally—from mannerisms to clothes to posture to makeup to even your vocals—so I just observe, and I replicate. It seems to be working out pretty well.



So, is it performance art?

It’s definitely a performance. The me that is me is not my body. It’s an awareness and an experience. Everything I’m doing, it’s a show. Maybe one of the most dangerous shows you can put on, because if you get it wrong, there can be dire and violent consequences. I do it because I don’t believe we should have to have a specific costume or we should have to be perceived as having specific genitals or a specific type of birth certificate to get the best out of the people around us. We should get it based on our own merit. And so, I do a lot of documentation, a lot of social experiments; I’ll go out into the world and document my experience being perceived as what we consider to be male or female in the same situation, and I’ll talk about the advantages and disadvantages I experience.



Tell me about one.

I just did an experiment at a bunch of barber shops and salons, about 200 in New York, L.A., and London. I asked them all for the same type of haircut, short on sides and long on top. The women’s haircut cost about 40 percent more than going into men’s barbershops, and the most common answer was, Well, women want a luxury hair-care experience, and that’s what they’ve been taught, so we can charge more. The barbershops say, Men already get charged so much, so giving men a good price on a haircut is the least we can do. I find when I’m perceived as male in society, there is an enormous amount of pressure, but it comes with respect, so it’s a balance. People expect you to die first, they expect you to have your shit together, and they expect you to be intelligent. These are both privileges and burdens, and I think that men feel like there aren’t a lot of safety nets for them. There’s not a lot of margin for error. A lot of people don’t like me talking about the oppression of men in society because we have a lot of focus on the oppression of women. I believe everyone should be seen individually because we all experience our own struggles, but, unfortunately, we don’t look at people as individuals. We look at people on a binary scale. Still, people hate it; they’re like, “Men are fine,” but they’re not. They have a higher rate of suicide, addiction, and violence. A lot of men feel like they can’t live up to the standards we put in place for them.



Most days, how do you identify?

I identify with my body, but I don’t identify it as male or female, I just identify it as a vehicle to help me bring my awareness around the world. I see myself as an experience, and I have this awesome vessel. It functions in a particular way. I’ve got tits and that’s pretty cool, I’ve got ovaries that are working overtime half the time, but I don’t see them as being comparable to any particular individual’s because my body doesn’t function exactly like other people’s with tits and ovaries. If we were meant to be comparable to other people sexually, then we’d look more like ants. But we don’t; we’re all unique vessels. I don’t really feel male or female; I just feel like me. But if someone says, “You have a vagina, doesn’t that make you a woman?” I let them define me. So, I’m like, “Sure, yeah, of course.” And if they’re like, “Hey, you look like a man, are you a man?” I’m like, “Of course.” I just go with it. Other people’s perception is their reality. I just want the best from the world around me and whatever I have to do to get it, that’s what I’ll do.