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I know people want me to sort of defend myself, to sit here and be like, 'I'm a boy, but I wear make-up sometimes.' But, you know, to me, it doesn't really matter.

I look young. I heard this said so often that it became irritating. I once worked as a babysitter for a woman who, the first time we met, said she didn't want somebody in high school. I was 22. Later, I realised that in certain places being female and looking 'young' meant it was more difficult to be taken seriously, so I turned to make-up.

Growing up, I didn't get the talk of 'Make sure boys take you on a date and treat you right.' So I was the girl who wasn't dating and would just text. I dated these guys who didn't have jobs, and I would always be paying. At one point, I remember looking in the mirror and thinking, 'You're too pretty and cool to be treated like this.'

It's not like I cleaned up with girls. I always looked young and I was very small; I hated being 'cute.'

Dressing up is a bore. At a certain age, you decorate yourself to attract the opposite sex, and at a certain age, I did that. But I'm past that age.

I figured out it was a social thing, what women were allowed to do. At a very young age, I decided I was not going to follow women's rules.

My mom wouldn't let me buy clothes she didn't like, so I dressed like a middle-aged woman in high school.

I was the girl who nobody thought would ever get married. I was going to be a fashion nun the rest of my life. There are generations of them, those fashion nuns, living, eating, breathing clothes.

I, like many women, buy into patriarchal standards of beauty every day. I very rarely leave the house without make-up. I dye my hair. I wear clothes that I choose carefully for how they make me look to the outside world.