27.07.2019
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How Trans People Feel About FaceApp

Drag the images to the blank faces and click on the button to see the “image to transform” transformed by some percentage of the difference between the “transform dimension” images.

FaceApp — the newest time-wasting app that lets you play with editing your face — is coming under fire yet again. Last week, we reported on how its 'Hot' filter was racist because it dramatically lightened your skin.
The Hot filter has since been removed, and creator Yaroslav Goncharov (no relation to the author of this story, that she knows of at least) apologized, telling The Guardian, 'It is an unfortunate side effect of the underlying neural network caused by the training set bias, not intended behavior.'
Now, trans people are debating the merits of the app's 'Male' and 'Female' filters, as Vocativ reports.
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The app's current filters include Smile, Smile 2, Old, Young, Male, and Female. As we were writing this article, FaceApp also released the new 'Female 2' filter, which looks slightly less cartoonish than the original but also changes your face's outward gender presentation by putting makeup on it and making the skin look smoother.
Many of these filters look a bit creepy and unrealistic, but some people have also found the gender ones offensive because they adhere to a restrictive binary, relying on physical features typically coded as masculine and feminine (long hair, facial hair, and the like).
Pidgeon Pagonis, an intersex educator and activist, told Vocativ that FaceApp and similar apps 'prop up the false notion that there is a clearly discernible binary opposite to one's gender.'
Trans people who have tried the app have varying opinions.
Some have said that the app calls up gender dysphoria, which is the term used to describe the state of conflict trans and non-binary people may feel when their physical appearance is different from their gender identity. Because many people don't have access to (or don't wish to use) hormone therapy, seeing their face as it's 'supposed' to be can create feelings of distress.
Sam Riedel, a writer about transgender issues, conducted a Twitter poll and found that 24% of trans people say the app makes them feel 'all kinds of dysphoric.' (Of course, Twitter polls are to be taken with a grain of salt, and also 39% of the responses were 'WTF is FaceApp.')

Trans folks, how does FaceApp make you feel?

— Samantha Riedel (@SamusMcQueen) April 30, 2017
For others, it was an interesting experiment. Parker Molloy, a trans writer, put in a picture from before she came out to see how well its 'Female' version would match actual her.

Speaking of #FaceApp...
[puts a picture frm bfore I came out as trans into the app, clicks the woman button, sees how it matches actual me] pic.twitter.com/mkui2hsKyZ

— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) April 25, 2017
Jes Tom, a comedian who identifies as queer and non-binary, said, 'I'm honestly pretty interested in how #FaceApp imagines trans childhoods that never actually existed for many of us.'

I'm honestly pretty interested in how #FaceApp imagines trans childhoods that never actually existed for many of us pic.twitter.com/tGJshlCSWJ

— jes tom🦄 (@jestom) April 23, 2017
Devyn Drufke, a photographer who is trans, said: 'Hair ideas? LOL. The male one freaked me out. Never again.'

@melstonemusic Hair ideas? Lol. The male one freaked me out 😭. Never again. pic.twitter.com/MgOmL9GBgW

— D Drufke (@ddrufke) April 27, 2017
Many people found the filters to be 'too much.' A trans writer named Sara Ann said, 'To be honest, I didn't like the way the female filter made me so uber-femme. I looked like a 13-year-old Barbie doll.'

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.@transscribe To be honest, I didn't like the way the female filter made me so uber-femme. I looked like a 13 year old Barbie doll

— Sara Ann M. (@abrahams_wife) May 1, 2017

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Jenny, a computer engineer, agreed. 'Same here, made me look 13 and very pale.' She added that it made her look a little bit like she had gotten facial feminization surgery.

@abrahams_wife@transscribe Same here, made me look 13 & very pale. I got some feels from seeing a young me tho. FFS feels too, even tho it's not an accurate depiction.

— Jenny Messerly (@CodeWitchJen) May 1, 2017
Matty, who identifies as transmasculine and non-binary, said the app actually helped him feel better about his presentation. 'Hardly any changes for the masculine side made me feel amazing.'

@transscribe I can say I had the opposite reaction, as a trans masculine guy. Hardly any changes for the masculine side made me feel amazing.

— Matty Thornley (@mat_has_a_hat) May 1, 2017
While some said the app would just upset trans people, others reported that it helped them view themselves in a more positive light.

I would advise against trans people using the Face App btw. It will definitely fuck with you.

— Katelyn Burns (@transscribe) May 1, 2017Face
'I actually liked it, it shows me that all I need to do is get rid of beard shadow and reshape my eyebrows,' said a Twitter user named Katrina.

@transscribe I actually liked it, it shows me that all I need to do is get rid of beard shadow and reshape my eyebrows.

— Katrina (@KatrinaTransfem) May 1, 2017Face Feminization Software
But the point remains that not everyone who wants it can afford FFS.

@transscribe Annoying because it will show you what you (figurative you) could buy (but probably can't afford) with FFS, or annoying for another reason?

— Jane Lemonhead (@Soul_Mining) May 1, 2017
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In the era of the selfie, there's no shortage of apps that can make you better looking, turn you into a dog, or even swap your face onto someone else's. Now, there's an app that can alter your gender entirely, age you, or add a smile to your face. Called FaceApp, the app can take a selfie or a photo saved to your camera roll and alter it using neural-network technology. FaceApp is capable of adding two different kinds of smiles to your photo, aging you or making you look younger, or swapping your gender. There's also a filter called 'Flash,' which seems to lighten and smooth skin. The app isn't perfect by any means. It often added strange colors to people's skin when making them look younger, and changing a woman's face into a man's often yielded some truly horrifying results. We decided to test it out on various tech CEOs and celebrities. Here's what it looks like.