96 Tears

I became aware of an interesting phenomenon through my conversations with other trans people taking testosterone. Many of the people I talked to had all but lost their ability to cry after starting hormone replacement therapy. I was pretty baffled, even more so when it eventually happened to me.

In our conversations, some described "cheating" by slicing onions in order to achieve tears. The photographer who took the following pictures may have ruined that method for everyone by showing how the chemistry of the tears might not be the same when tricked out of the eyes by pungent vegetables.

basal tears

tears of grief

onion tears

tears of laughing til i'm crying

Since learning that tears can vary so vastly, I decided to put some of my own tears under a microscope to really understand the subtle chemical differences among the following circumstances:

tears of feeling moody in november

tears of a robot

tears of an ice queen

tears of waving from such great heights

tears of this song is fucking everything right now

tears of gagging while giving head

tears of glitter

If you made it this far, here is your reward for all your scrolling.