It’s a self portrait referring to how Cantons looked in 2007. This woman does not take hormone medication. This woman leads a double life in which she has some very close friends that know her truth but at the same time she also has family and strangers that when they are aware of her truth laugh at her and mock her. At various times she has been called a freak, she has been propositioned for sex, she’s been treated like a joke, she’s been told “You’ll never be a woman, you’re just be a bloke in a dress“. And admittedly it was very hard because every time I looked in the mirror what I saw was a reflection that I knew was me but it was also not me. Throughout all of this, she holds down a high responsibility job, is the main bread-winner at home, pays a mortgage, is in a marriage and is a step-parent.
Ravi Ghosh in 2022 wrote for Elephant magazine of the works:
…A potent series of portraits tracing her own transgender history-works that were, in part, inspired by the visceral paintings of Jenny Saville. Cantons says: "[Saville's] works smack you around the head with a sledgehammer" Cantons tells Ghosh. "[She] makes you think about the body in a way that it becomes political ground, and specifically the female body. I took that as a challenge. I thought, 'Can I make an artwork that may, if I'm lucky, be able to operate in the same way?'"
