SUE STUBBS ︎ GIRLS WILL BE BOYS & BOYS WILL BE GIRLS
When I was growing up it was pink for girls and blue for boys. Boisterous behaviour was excused as 'boys will be boys', crying was for sissies and tomboys were the outdoor sporty types.
The closest I came to gender fluidity was Bowie, Jagger and Bolan with feather boas and eyeliner, and a song written by Lou Reed Walk on the Wild Side. That was the 70's.
'Boys will be girls, girls will be boys' was shot in Bangkok, a city known for its tolerance and acceptance of Ladyboys, Tomboys and Trans communities. Conservative values and traditions still hold at the core of Thai life so my subjects and their kin deal with the incongruence of what they feel on the inside and who they are on the outside.
How accepting you find it is probably an indication of how we've come as a society, but as The Kinks sang in Lola 'Girls will be boys and boys will be girls, It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world.' Even today.
The Series Project, Bangkok. June 2019.
︎ SUE STUBBS
Sue Stubbs’ work features in the campaigns and projects of some of Australia’s best-known brands, most loved magazines and most treasured books. Raised in the rural outskirts of Melbourne, Sue’s work has taken her to the hustle of New York, the world of fashion and advertising in London and to Sydney where she now lives with her two sons, a border collie, a rescue cat and a rescue greyhound.
Sue works with a busy, trusted team between Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and can’t imagine life without a camera.