Gender Portrait Activity

June 27, 2025 |

Creating a visual representation of how you feel in your gender. Let your creativity drive you forward, settle in with yourself, and make something truly unique to you 

Your portrait can focus on emotions, concepts, unique styles, or realistic details. Portraits use shape, colours and textures all to express your gender:  

  • Gender is one part of your identity  
  • Gender shapes how you see the world  
  • Gender can be interpreted in an infinite amount of ways 

Materials

  • Drawing Materials (Crayons, Pastels, Pencils, Pens, Markers, Anything!) 
  • Paper (Any kind…Whatever speaks to you!) 
  • Optional: Collage materials (magazines, books, scissors, glue). 
  • Optional: Paint (watercolour, acrylic, anything!) 
Two hands use warm tone pastels to create abstract drawing.

Getting Started

Narrowing down what to create when dealing with such a huge topic like gender can be super tough! Take the pressure off yourself and choose to use this activity to have fun and be curious instead.  

Think about the following prompts to help you get started:  

  • If your gender was a shape, colour or symbol, what would it be?  
  • If your gender was a landscape, what would it look like? Trees? Mountains? Rivers? Open Fields? What do these elements represent for you? 
  • Is there a specific song or album that speaks to you and makes you feel affirmed? Put it on and draw to the music! 

Not feeling inspired by these prompts? No worries! An easy place to start is to pick a style, character, element, or idea that you already love and make it your own. Think: Studio Ghibli, Minecraft, your OC, or Dungeons and Dragons character.  

For example, nothing represents my gender more than Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street. Oscar’s favorite thing is trash, and his pride and joy is his collection of seemingly useless items.  

Now, I’m not a particularly good illustrator. But a trash can is just a round box, right? I can do that!  

And Oscar’s face is just a green oval, with a semi-circle for the mouth.  

Now I have something to start with, I can choose whether to try to make it all more realistic, or whether to get wild with my own creative ideas.  

Things to Consider (or ignore)

Abstract elements are full of nuance, but don’t get bogged down in the details so much that they stop you from creating. Below is a list of things that might help direct you when trying to give your gender shape. Below might also be a list of restrictions and things that you don’t want to think about and we support that just as much. Use the list, or don’t: it’s all up to you: 

  • Focus on shapes, lines, and colour, 
  • Use bold or subtle visual elements to represent a vibe or feeling, 
  • Think about things that are already associated with gender. Hack them to make them your own, 
  • Incorporating elements of the body or face, be as realistic as you want, or use fragments, weird blending, and reimagined parts to express your vision, 
  • Use symbols to incorporate ideas, personality, or experiences 
  • Prioritize interpretation (how you understand something), over literal representation (facts).  
Youth holds up an illustration. There's a central figure with a rainbow swirl surrounding them. The swirl grows from their head like hair.
An over the shoulder picture of an individual working on a colourful drawing at a grey table
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