In honor of Pride Month, Apple has created an exclusive rainbow-colored watch band to champion inclusivity in the market, and celebrate its LGBTQ employees and customers. Backed by its openly gay CEO Tim Cook, Apple's latest initiative will directly benefit the queer community, with a portion of all Pride Edition band proceeds going to charitable organizations, including GLSEN, PFLAG and The Trevor Project in the US and ILGA internationally. In the following slides, we meet four New York-based Apple employees—all of whom identity within the LGBTQ spectrum—and discuss their own experiences with self-discovery and advocacy.
Photography: Lauren Perlstein
“I identified as a lesbian until a little over a year ago, but that didn’t ever sit right with me. I’ve been out since I was 17 and I’ve been privileged enough to be surrounded by a lot of queer communities that are really accepting. My best friend is trans and watching him go through that journey, I realized I don’t feel like a ‘She.’ I started getting more comfortable going by ‘Them’ and eventually realized I have a masculine center. I wanted to get to a place where I was more comfortable with my body because I didn’t want feminine features, so I started hormones last August. It’s been almost a year, now.”
Photography: Lauren Perlstein
“Now that I have more masculine features, I also have to realize that I have privilege in a lot of places now, especially at my job. I get spoken to differently—I don’t get my head bitten off the way that I used to when I was more soft spoken. Now, my voice is deeper and as I get perceived as a male, I’m always trying to challenge that. I’m not comfortable with it. I’m a non-binary trans masculine person, which means I don’t identity. I’m not transitioning to be in either binary, I’m just trying to reach more masculine features. I think it’s important to talk to people and help them realize we don’t have to conform to either gender.”
Photography: Lauren Perlstein
“Growing up in New York and given the experiences that I’ve had as a gay man, it’s easy to think that’s what everyone else experiences in the LGBTQ community. But that’s not the case. People need lots of different examples of LGBTQ individuals to understand that it’s okay—to feel comfortable about themselves and make the decision to be happy.”
Photography: Lauren Perlstein
“Right now I'm working with all the Apple stores in NYC with a group, called ‘Out Of My Closet.’ One of the big things we do is take clothing donations, whether it be new or slightly worn, and we set up a pop-up shop. Kids that are displaced and not living at home, anymore—they don’t have clothes, so we allow them to shop through the racks and pick out clothes they feel comfortable wearing. At my store alone, we're already at about 1,000 pieces."
Photography: Lauren Perlstein
"In Taiwan, the idea of gender is very different from Western culture, where it’s very masculine and feminine. In most of Asia, it’s more about gender harmony and gender balance. So coming here, I didn’t fit into the Western world of masculinity, and I didn’t fit in as a female either. I started to realize I felt most comfortable being ‘other’—not just male, not just female. In my soul, I’m both, but not at the same time, so I fall into a more non-binary pattern."
Photography: Lauren Perlstein
“Growing up, there wasn’t a gay Asian male in the media that I could look up to and often, when I speak to my Asian friends who don’t want to come out, there’s so much fear from a lack of representation—self-loathing because there’s this Western standard of being gay they don’t fit into. So I think having gay Asian representation is so important, because it says, ‘We exist.’”
Photography: Lauren Perlstein
“I’ve definitely become a lot more vocal since Trump became president. Just the other day, I posted on my Instagram a photo of me and the rainbow flag, which I’ve never considered doing before because I never had that coming out experience. But representation is so important—standing up and speaking for the people who can’t, who are afraid to say they’re gay, afraid to talk about crushes or have normal conversations about love.”
Photography: Lauren Perlstein
“A year ago, when Trump was in the process of being nominated, I created a platform at Apple called #Connect. A lot people were feeling unsafe, thinking “Where’s my outlet? What are my resources?” So we created a team to address that through round tables. It’s an opportunity for us to learn from one another. It’s about opening the door—opening up that communication to increase awareness.”
Photography: Lauren Perlstein
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