Within her community of butch lesbians in San Francisco
and Los Angeles, Catherine Opie found women like Jake who push traditional boundaries
of gender by playfully masquerading masculinity. Upon close inspection, Jake’s
mustache and its glue and netting are noticeable in this close-cropped portrait.
Like much of the facial hair in Opie’s series Being and Having, this mustache is meant to be easily recognized as
fake. “Jake,” the name engraved in the frame’s nameplate, is the pictured
model’s macho alter-ego

—another playful adaptation that challenges gender as
being something rigid and fixed.