About

COLLAPSE SECTION

Dear Diary, This is My Gender Today: Volume 1 began as the product of Mia Yaguchi-Chow's Major Research Project (MRP), which was for their Master of Arts in Fashion degree at Toronto Metropolitan University; developed in Fall 2023, executed in Winter 2024.

Abstract

The gender binary is constantly weaponized against queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming individuals, limiting their self-expression and risking their safety—but transphobia affects more than just queer people. Dear Diary, This is My Gender Today is both an active dialogue and expanded discourse of gender identity expressed in everyday dress. Reflecting on our queerness and experiences often brings mixed emotions, but it is important that our narrative not be overshadowed by struggle, tragedy, or violence—we also deserve joy and self-celebration. This project both highlights and fills gaps within gender discourse, fashion studies, arts-based research, and more by contributing self-authored arts-based stories as told by members of the queer community in scrapbook entries featured in the final zine, Dear Diary Volume I. Scrapbooking is an effective method for bringing community together and creating community in its result, for facilitating queer joy and sharing personal examples of what it is, for developing one’s knowledge of self to a greater degree, and lastly—what exists independently and as a culmination of these three themes—for empowering the queer community. Perhaps readers connect with our plights in body image or celebrations of culture, and gender just happens to play a significant role in it for many. At the very least, I hope everyone can empathize with our joy, and for us, our joy just happens to be queer. Memories fade but the feeling of transness is forever. And it is this feeling that is the most important part of these entries, not just the way they look, or the way we look.

About the researcher

Mia Yaguchi-Chow is a non-binary experimental multidisciplinary artist from Toronto. They mainly specialize in graphic design, illustration, and photography, but they otherwise love storytelling and using any applicable medium or method.

At the time of publishing Dear Diary Volume 1, Mia was in their final semester of their Master of Arts in Fashion degree at Toronto Metropolitan University. The first volume of Dear Diary is the product of their Major Research Project, reviewed by the Toronto Metropolitan University Research Ethics Board (REB 2023-343).

Mia conceived Dear Diary out of their own inspiration to deepen their relationship to and understanding of their gender identity as expressed through fashion. Interested in the perspectives of other queer kin, Mia wanted to see if Dear Diary could be an opportunity for other interested community members to participate. Journaling and scrapbooking have always been ways for Mia to archive, reflect, and reminisce, but how each individual uses the tools available vary. Mia was interested in this as well; how each individual uses their tools uniquely. Not only can a lot be learned from the subject matter of one’s personal archive, but in the ways they record them too.

Welcome to Dear Diary, This is My Gender Today

Dear Diary, This is My Gender Today Volume 1