Transgender Man Documented Transition With Selfies

Jamie Raines is a 21-year-old student in the U.K. For the past three years, the transgender man has taken selfies every day to document his transition. The project began when Raines first started taking testosterone to assist in his physical transition just before he turned 18, and the resulting video of Raines’s hundreds of selfies compiled together shows how dramatically testosterone can affect the face and body.

In an interview with Buzzfeed, Raines said, “I was taking testosterone so I could go through the correct puberty for me.” The hormone can help people who are transitioning to develop more masculine physical and voice characteristics. Raines explained, “[T]estosterone affects everyone differently and different changes come in at different points. … I didn’t pin too many hopes on T [testosterone] changing me drastically and just took the changes as they came.”

For Raines, taking testosterone changed the way he relates to his own appearance. He said that when looking in the mirror before taking the hormones, “I didn’t really see myself. … I didn’t like looking in the mirror…. And it’s the complete opposite now, I’m very happy with what I see in the mirror and very grateful for how I look now.”

As the video shows, after beginning the medication, subtle changes to Raines’s face appeared slowly over time. He told BuzzFeed, “My face started to get longer and I lost the chubby cheeks.” The shape of his nose also changed, and his voice lowered significantly. After two years, he developed facial hair. Here he is in the early days of taking testosterone:

And this is Raines three years later:

Raines’s family has been supportive of his transition. He said,

I told my mum first and then she told my dad and brother and they’ve all just been really great with it. My mum thinks this was always how I was supposed to be. She doesn’t feel like she’s lost a daughter, because I’m the same person to her – I’m still her child, but now I’m just her son.

Watch Raines’ full transformation below:

Images: YouTube (3)