Interview with Jack (Jackson) Tignor, Constraints and Assumptions: The Unseen Forces Shaping Gender Identity – Gender Identity/Gender-fluid/LGBTQIA+/Queer, History 150 Spring 2025, Conducted by Hannah Ching, March 10, 2025.

Overview to Social Change Interview

Biography

 

Jack (Jackson) Lee Tignor, my cousin, was born on May 20th, 2004 in Norfolk, Virginia. Growing up in a family structure that deviated from the conventional norm, Jack faced unique challenges, including the loss of his father, Matt Tignor, at a young age. This experience heightened the significance of maternal figures in his upbringing. Jack graduated from Norfolk Academy in 2022 and pursued his artistic interests at The Art Students League of New York from September 2022 to August 2023. During this time, he took on a work-study position, dedicating weekends to live-modeling and doing laundry in the basement to gain full-time class hours. Currently, Jack is studying Architecture at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, continuing his exploration of creativity and self-expression.

 

Overview

 

The term ‘queer’ is one that many use in haste without truly understanding its meaning, myself included. Merriam Webster defines ‘queer’ as “denoting or relating to a sexual or gender identity that does not correspond to established ideas of sexuality and gender, especially heterosexual norms.” To prepare for this interview, I feel it is my responsibility to truly understand the complexity of gender fluidity and identifying as queer, even if it was simply putting myself in the perspective of someone who falls outside the ‘norm.’ To understand the inherent isolation that comes with living your ‘true self’ as Jack describes it, we must first examine and understand the implications and restraint resulting from established gender norms.

Gender norms, as defined by Bowie, a gallery that supports queer and feminist creators, as “social norms that define what a man is, what a woman is and how they should act. They act as implicit rules regulating our individual and social behaviors.” It’s not a concept of nuance that society has standards, and that they benefit some people more than others. These ‘others’ are those in the face of discrimination on the basis of their gender identity and exploration as well as their sexual and romantic orientation. I speak with Jack who identifies as queer and how he’s been affected by these biases throughout his experience. One of the major siphons of partiality he describes is the education system. In our discussion, Jack states that “…going to Norfolk Academy, I was kind of pushed into this, like, hyper masculine role where the dress code, just on its own, is this kind of major source of division in the school, and the way of life.” We live in a patriarchal society in which women have been assigned as the complementary opposite of men thus reinforcing the notion that true love is when a man and a woman fall in love, a concept known as heteronormativity. Consequently, those who fall outside of this division are ousted or ignored entirely. But their existence matters and their stories are ones worth telling, ones that need to be told.

According to the Center of American progress in 2022, More than 1 in 3 LGBTQI+ adults reported facing some kind of discrimination in the year prior to when they took the survey, while fewer than 1 in 5 non-LGBTQI+ individuals did so. Much of this disparity stems from rigid gender norms and societal expectations that often marginalize those who don’t conform, however, you will soon learn that constraints can become one of the most powerful motivators. To aid in the prevention of perpetuating this cycle, in this interview, Jack and I discuss how he navigates exploring his gender identity, shedding light on the power of self-discovery as a form of resistance against societal norms and the importance of visibility in breaking down systems of bias.

 

Research

 

Jack’s experiences are shaped by the evolving understanding of gender identity and family dynamics. Over the past few decades, society has become more open to non-binary, transgender, and gender-fluid identities. Schools and art spaces have played key roles in fostering this acceptance. For example, Title IX protections expanded in 2014 to include gender identity, helping create safer environments for LGBTQ+ students. The Art Students League of New York has long supported progressive conversations through art, allowing individuals like Jack to explore and affirm their identity through actions such as live modeling, which has since become a powerful way for him to express self-perception and challenge social norms.

 

Today, youth exploring gender identity face both more significant support and ongoing challenges. Social media platforms have provided young people with resources, role models, and communities that affirm diverse identities. However, public discourse around gender identity remains polarized, with debates about access to healthcare, education policies, and social acceptance continuing to impact LGBTQ+ youth. For Jack, finding affirming spaces like art communities and pursuing architecture has provided a path for self-expression and empowerment, positioning him to contribute to inclusive and thoughtful design in the future.

 

Transcript

 

Hannah Ching  0:04  

 

This is a digitally recorded interview with Jack Tignor. This interview was conducted by Hannah Ching via Zoom on March 10, 2025, at approximately 10pm.

 

Jack Tignor  0:20  

 

My name is Jack Tignor, and I’m a student at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

 

Hannah Ching  0:28  

 

So can you share a little bit about your journey of exploring and understanding your gender identity, and what that looked like for you? 

 

Jack Tignor  0:37  

 

Um, wow, that’s a big question. 

 

I’d say [that] I think growing up, I was surrounded by a lot of really confident and self-assured women, and I think that that always had a strong impact on me. And those were typically the people I looked up to the most when I was younger. 

 

I remember when I was little, I used to ask my mom if she would leave me her jewelry when she died. And looking back it’s strange to think that that was even a thought to me, but I knew that that was what I wanted.

 

And then going to Norfolk Academy, I was kind of pushed into this, like, hyper masculine kind of role where the dress code, just on its own, is this kind of major source of division in the school, and the kind of way of life.

 

The girls had so much opportunity for expression, and typically had so much more going on in what they were wearing and how they presented themselves. That kind of shaped, I guess, our interactions with each other. 

 

And I felt like I became very jealous of that, because the guys had to wear slacks with a button down shirt and a tie tucked in with a belt every single day, without fail. Or a turtleneck. That was the only way to get out of it. So, I mean, most guys are coming into school every day in the same Vineyard Vines slacks and Vineyard Vines tie and the same little gingham shirt that everyone else has. 

 

And it was just so boring. Then starting to thrift a little bit, I first went, really, or started to go thrifting for the first time a little bit before the pandemic hit. And [I] just loved it. I did get to a point where I just was, like, over-consuming clothes, kind of an unbelievable amount, but, eventually I really started to kind of fall in love with presenting myself and getting up every day to pick a way to present myself, and figuring out how to poke all of the loopholes into the dress code at school every day and do something that they never would have expected from me. 

 

Where girls were restricted from wearing heels higher than, like, two and a half inches. So I would wear three inch, three inch go-go boots to school, and no one could say anything to me, because there’s no restrictions on the heels that the guys can have. I found that the constraints that were put on me made it so much more interesting; that when I was forced to kind of be forced into a little box and fit all of the puzzle pieces just into their right spot to uphold the Norfolk Academy image and all of that kind of stuff, I hated it, but loved it. 

 

I loved the challenge of the constraint. And I think then like thrifting more and just spending more time looking at all the clothes, [I got to a] certain point [where] I stopped looking in the men’s sections, because one: the pants were no good. There was, there was just not very much good stuff to find. And then spending more time in the women’s sections, I just realized, like, how much more wonderful and exciting these clothes were, and how it seemed senseless to me that one half of the population should be refused that joy and that kind of excitement. 

 

And the excitement of a skirt blowing in the wind is like, it’s a feeling that only half of the world would really even get to understand, and something that so many people, I think, are missing out on. Or how, I mean, just how much fun it is to, like, see yourself in a lot of different ways.

 

Hannah Ching  5:21  

 

Everyone deserves a good frolic.

 

Jack Tignor  5:23  

 

Yeah, exactly. And allowing yourself to be vulnerable and getting good at being vulnerable was a skill that I found myself building at a younger age and realized how much it  helped me through my everyday life. Like that skill of being vulnerable around other people and being able to be okay with that; being able to be confidently vulnerable in front of an[n] unaccepting world taught me so much.

 

Where, not only did it teach me that there are people out in the world that are just gonna get hung up on something and stay hung up on it, but then there are other people that don’t have any hang ups and that, yeah. 

 

I guess my journey with gender expression has been one, like, rooted in constraints. And like, how constraints have kind of forced me, not forced me to, but led me to question, like, why do we have these constraints? Or what difference does it make whether or not we abide by these constraints?

 

And, yeah I think for me, it’s a lot about constraints and a lot about finding the right skirt that fits me. 

 

And it opened my eyes a lot in terms of, I guess, like, how I see my own body, because it made me so much more perceptive of my own body in the sense that putting on clothes that on the hanger look absolutely amazing and so exciting and everything you wanted to find that day at the store. And then putting it on is like, like, this constant reminder that these clothes were not made for me. 

 

But when you do find those ones that somehow just kind of made it all worth it. That was what it was all about. For me, it was kind of carefully and thoughtfully searching for those ones that were made to fit me like made with me in mind. And that’s all in my own little head, because most of it’s like old vintage stuff, and they weren’t thinking about me in the 70s. 

 

Hannah Ching  8:05  

 

Yeah well, a thrift store is a treasure trove of eras of fashion where women were encouraged to feel beautiful. And I don’t think that gender should have any constraint on that. I think everyone deserves to have that level of comfortability in themselves. 

 

But you identified constraints as kind of a central drive for how you took on exploring who you were and how you presented yourself to other people. Do you think that you kind of took what you learned? I mean, high school is kind of a widely renowned area of constraint for younger adults and people that are figuring out who they are. Do you think that you carried that drive for yourself past high school, like in your experience in New York City, or even [in]your experience now at Drexel, but we can start with the Art Students League.

 

Jack Tignor  9:15  

 

Well, I think my younger childhood really made me learn how much potential there is with constraints. How like constraints being in place really result in greater creativity, or a more thought-out response to anything. So I think I learned at a young age that constraints could really work in my favor when I figure them out; like when I kind of find the hole to poke through it. 

 

And I think then, like having that understanding of of constraints within my own life and then seeing those things imposed on how I wanted to see myself, how I saw myself internally, maybe not how I presented externally, but how I saw myself wasn’t so much an image of myself, but more so a feeling. Like how I felt within myself. 

 

And with how I present myself in terms of gender expression, I like to think of it as just kind of all a lot of fun. I mean, I kind of just look at it as it’s all just [a] kind of dress up. It’s for fun. 

 

They’re comfortable, fun, colorful clothes, and it’s something that someone else can enjoy, which has always been something that has brought me joy about clothing. And being honest about yourself is something that brings a lot of other people joy. 

 

When I moved to New York, everything about that way of life was about constraints. Well, it was equally all about constraints and a complete lack of constraints. I mean, like living in New York without a set direction, like that gave me so many possible directions to choose to go in. But moving there with not enough money and not a job lined up to get there and immediately start doing, it wasn’t easy at first. 

 

Like, my first three or four months there, I really wasn’t eating much more than one meal a day, if even that. Like it was not an easy time. And it was hard to be seeing everyone else I knew at a nice, swanky college with a bunch of other 18 year olds and hav[ing] a dining hall and all these different kinds of things. And I felt constrained in that sense, quite a bit when I lived in New York where, like, um, it was very isolating at times. It was very hard to not be in an environment that’s about your first step away from your hub, away from your home, away from like, kind of your life before. And transitioning, I was doing it on my own, really, like I didn’t have a lot of people that had also just moved to this new unfamiliar place together and we can all share in that. But instead, I had to, kind of have, like, a realization that: Okay, I have to just, I have to sit on this a little bit. I have to just take this as an opportunity to be very introspective and very kind of ‘this year’s about me,’ like, this year is only one year. 

 

And that it’s not so much ‘we’re gonna do this for a little while and see if it’s what I want to keep doing.’ I think if it was what I really wanted to do, I could’ve stayed in New York and kept with my job and kept up doing what I was doing with the foundation I was able to put together in living there for a year. 

 

But, going about it in a more unique way, and choosing to go about that first step away from home completely by myself; like that was probably the biggest constraint of of that year was having to kind of abandon expectations of what I thought my life would be like because there wasn’t a need to establish expectations of what I thought my life was going to be like there. Where it didn’t matter what I was doing and I didn’t have to report to anyone. 

 

I didn’t have grades at the end of every semester to tell me whether I was doing something right or doing something wrong. But instead, I really had to go about my life and know that what I was doing was right and know that everything I am going to do now and in this moment is going to compound and be so, so so much more important later on. 

 

Um, and moving to New York, that was all of a sudden the complete lack of constraints in terms of how I could present myself externally, and well, that’s not completely true. I mean, when I moved there, that was my assumption. And when I was living in Harlem, I quickly realized that I was in a neighborhood, in an apartment that was taken away from someone else by me living there. Like me living in Harlem, I’m not the primary demographic that makes up Harlem, and so my presence there in some sense, was an invasion and I very quickly became perceptive of that. 

 

But I had signed a year-long lease. I needed a place to live, and I didn’t have any other options, so I was kind of grappling with that for quite a while. I remember going around my neighborhood and seeing some people that didn’t appreciate me living in the neighborhood and stuff like that. And especially when I’m going out in a little red cocktail dress, it’s maybe not the most familiar sight to a lot of people that have been there for a long time. 

 

And so my first few months there, I really was totally free and was living my no constraints life. And then I really started to realize my presence and [consequently] what are the different ways that I can make my presence in this neighborhood a beneficial one rather than a negative one?

 

And there’s no surefire way to do that in every sense of it, but to me, that manifested as shopping at the grocery store around the corner rather than at the Whole Foods downtown and bringing it back uptown. And like taking my friends out to dinner to the restaurants around my apartment, rather than going to this trendy place somewhere else in the city. 

 

Because I realized that my kind of stake and my money, my interests need to go back into this community, because I’m a part of it. And so then that made me have a bit of a reckoning, where not only was I starting to get tired of some of the looks I was getting on the sidewalk, like, walking to the subway, but where I was just like, there are moments where this is called for, and there are moments where subtlety is much more called for.

 

And then I moved downtown to Noho, so like Soho, but just above Soho. And I was there for the summer, and that was a very different world and a very different demographic of people. So the pendulum swung back in the other direction where now I really felt like I was in the environment where this is a little bit more of a celebrated thing, and this is a little bit more, I don’t want to say that, more accepting, buta little bit more maybe familiar to where […] I guess to me, it became kind of about that familiarity, where people in the Village are very well accustomed to seeing a man in a dress, but it doesn’t phase them. 

 

And people go to the Village and know that that’s going to happen. People don’t go to Harlem knowing that that’s going to happen, and don’t live in Harlem knowing that that’s going to happen. 

 

And so that was an important realization that I had had. But, yeah, I think New York was the perfect place to have a good experience dealing with constraints. That set me up for New York well, and very much so aided my life there.

 

At the Art Students League, I thought my love for constraints kind of ended up guiding the medium which I chose to work with which is etching/printmaking. 

 

And that half of the time you spend working on those kinds of works is just a process. It’s just following strict, careful instructions to yield the best rendering of what your idea is. And so that was what interested me so much, was, how do I go through this crazy chemical process, and given that baseline requirement of the medium, how do I still create something beautiful out of it? 

 

And that was really, really interesting to me, and with etching, you can’t just […] I can’t have an oil painting and just replicate it as an etching. There’s an active translation really, where you have to have an idea, and you have to funnel it down using the tools available within that medium. 

 

And that’s like that with any artistic medium. But that was such an important part of it to me, and such an exciting part of it to me; a satisfying part where you can know that you’ve done all of those old, almost ancient knowledge steps in the process, and still do something kind of completely unique despite the constraints. And yeah.

 

Hannah Ching  21:16  

 

I do think that your print-making was one of my favorite mediums that you’ve utilized, and the amount of detail that you could accomplish was insane. But I do think that, in a kind of roundabout extended way, your experience with how its constraints and how you have utilized it has […] it’s kind of like an extension of your experience, and how you take in these constraints that you’re talking about and work them in your favor to express your personal identity, your personal story. 

 

So at some point, yes, you do have a box to fit in, but not necessarily one that is intended to repress you or to forge a certain final product. You still had that liberty, and I think that that was really inspiring. 

 

But we’ve also talked in the preliminary interview about how you had kind of a reaffirming experience with your identity and also with your presence, like with nude modeling. 

 

And if you’re comfortable, you can express a little bit about how that was for you, because that’s quite a feat to to approach.

 

Jack Tignor  22:49  

 

Yeah, um, I mean, I had been taking classes that had models in them, and then I was kind of like, wow! That seems like it would be a pretty cool job. 

 

And so I asked someone, I was like, “How do you guys […] what’s the hiring process for this look like?” And at the school, they were just like, “Oh, you just put your name on a list, and anytime we need models, we just host a group interview and schedule a bunch of you guys. Really, we just make sure you have a social security number, and you’re basically hired.” 

 

And so I was lucky to be offered a position as a live model at the Art Students League in December,having moved there in September. 

 

So yeah modeling […] I was never somebody that was so massively insecure about my body. I don’t think I was necessarily the most body positive person on the planet, but I didn’t necessarily have any major insecurities about my body, but I wasn’t necessarily at the point where I was like, “Let me just get up and stand naked in front of people.” 

 

Um […] I think part of it was definitely I was just desperate at that point to find a job and the pay was great. And it was great because I would be able to go to my classes and then just go work a shift and go back and forth between the two, and just spend all my time at the Art Students League. 

 

The experience itself, like modeling, is really interesting  because being in that kind of environment […] like, no matter what, every creation of every student is so beautiful. 

 

It’s such an amazing thing to like, to see yourself seen by 18 different people and have proof of being seen by those people and observed and studied. And kind of assigned that value. 

 

Like, “Here’s proof that you’re worth studying for 18 hours.” And moving to New York and  getting that affirmation was really, really incredible. 

 

I was a sought-after model at the Art Students League because I was 18, and I would embark on crazy poses for two weeks, not knowing how badly it was going to hurt my body by the end of those two weeks. And I was just naive and great and always willing to try a crazy pose that a teacher or a teaching assistant suggests.

 

They loved having an artist […] like when I would tell people that I studied there and worked there as a teaching assistant as well, a lot of people thought that was a novel thing: having an artist on both ends of the process; it was an interesting quality. 

 

People would ask me for my artistic opinion of their stuff, and that’s something I would usually shy away from a little bit. I didn’t try to offer opinions on stuff, unless it was just compliments.

 

But to see yourself reproduced in 18 different ways and hear a teacher explain how to paint your cheekbone and stuff like that are all kind of really amazing or really affirming things to me. Where I just, […] home for me wasn’t a heavily affirming environment. School wasn’t either like growing up and in high school and stuff like that. 

 

Neither of those places were environments where I felt like there were always open arms to welcome me. It was more often the reverse of that, and at least how it felt towards me, to move to New York and feel very welcomed with open arms, and especially in that way; like be physically and mentally, and culturally a part of the art here, like what I came to do, and what I came to kind of see what it was all about. 

 

To be so deeply ingrained and included in it all was, was really, really amazing.

 

Hannah Ching  28:00  

 

Yeah, and the stories that you’ve told me outside of the interview have always just been so nuanced to someone like me who has not actively experienced it. 

 

And I think that although many people have been in your shoes when they arrive in New York City, one of the biggest global cities in the world, and they kind of don’t know where to put their feet in or where to start. 

 

But I think that, coming from an outsider, it’s so inspiring to hear how your experience, obviously, is unique to you. And how you have taken those communities and not only made it a priority to become part of them, which many people don’t set as a priority, but also to figure out how you can contribute to it actively, which I think is a very, very noble thing to do. 

 

Even though I know that you don’t do it straight out of nobility, you do it strictly because you feel it’s your duty as a person. And I just think that that’s really inspiring. But many people probably share your sentiment with not having that community back home, or not having that community with the people that it would normally be attributed to. 

 

But did you have any other facets or communities that weren’t entirely conventional, but that aided you in this process, or even other people that identify similarly to you, that you’re able to connect with?

 

Bibliography

 

Murphy, S. E., Harris, R., & Wilson-Daily, A. E. (2024). The courage to be: LGBTQ+ youth within the heteronormative and cisgenderist school environment. International Journal of LGBTQ+ Youth Studies, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/29968992.2024.2427618

 

Vonlanthen, Céline. “Gender Norms: What They Are, How They Impact Us and How to Change Them.” BØWIE Creators – Home of Queer & Feminist Creators, Brand the Change, www.bowiecreators.com/article/how-gender-norms-harm-us-and-how-to-change-them-bowies-mission. Accessed 07 May 2025.

 

Director, Mishka Espey                    Associate, et al. “Discrimination and Barriers to Well-Being: The State of the LGBTQI+ Community in 2022.” Center for American Progress, 15 Apr. 2025, www.americanprogress.org/article/discrimination-and-barriers-to-well-being-the-state-of-the-lgbtqi-community-in-2022/. Accessed 07 May 2025.

 

Peer-reviewed

 

Phillips Collection. “An Exploration of Queer Spaces and Multiplicity.” The Phillips Collection, 1 July 2024, www.phillipscollection.org/blog/2024-07-01-exploration-queer-spaces-multiplicity.  Accessed 17 Mar. 2025.

 

University of California, Santa Cruz. “Social Media’s Role in Growing Gender and Sexual Diversity.” UC Santa Cruz Newscenter, 1 May 2024, news.ucsc.edu/2024/05/social-media-role-in-growing-gender-and-sexual-diversity.html. Accessed 17 Mar. 2025.

 

Follow-up commentary

 

The interviewee, Jack, approved the information shared in this transcript on March 15th, 2025. No changes were requested at this time.

 

Interview and Technology process

 

This interview was recorded over Zoom, as Jack lives in Philadelphia, PA and I am living in Harrisonburg, VA. The meeting was recorded in two sections because the original zoom recording was cut short (free-trial limitations) and the audio files were combined successfully, converted, and saved as an mp3 file. I used Otter.ai to transcribe the interview, and then edited the transcript manually using Google suggestions.

 

Transcription process

 

The transcription process followed the guidelines from the Columbia University Center for Oral History Research Transcription Style Guide. I started by using Otter.ai for a preliminary transcription, which included name labels, time markers, and double spacing, as required. I then edited the transcript in four steps: first, I fixed any speaker assignment mistakes and clarified words that Otter.ai couldn’t recognize; second, I corrected spelling and punctuation errors; third, I removed filler words like “like,” “um,” and phrases such as “you know,” unless they added meaning or style to the sentence; and finally, I added brackets to provide extra context where needed. Afterward, I sent the transcript to Jack for review, and he approved it without requesting any changes. An open line of communication remains present in case additional context is needed.