There are certain ways we think men and women are supposed to look. Before we're even able to fully realize what gender means, we're presented with gender role standards and stereotypes -- pink is "for girls," blue is "for boys," this sort of thing is feminine, that sort of thing is masculine, etc. -- enforcing a gender binary that leaves no room for anything in between two seemingly opposed ideals. But what would happen if you tried to push against those ends? To bring them closer together? That's one of the questions the "Crossover" installation at Brookfield Place's Move! exhibition set out to explore.

The exhibition, curated by Visionaire co-founder Cecilia Dean and New York Times writer David Colman, paired artists with noted fashion designers to create seven unique experiences like "Fifteen Minutes," an installation that would send participants away with a silk scarf depicting one of their memories, "Splatter," the fashion version of a carnival game, or the installation I went to, "Crossover," which used makeup to transform participants' gender expression before their eyes.

The day before I went to "Crossover," I was told the session would take between 30-40 minutes, and for "best results," I was instructed to bring a baseball cap to cover my hair and wear a top that was not "too feminine" -- not too hard since I dress almost exclusively in oversize T-shirts but I digress. Upon arrival, I was greeted by the lovely Move! team and world-renowned makeup artist James Kaliardos, whose most recent work you'd recognize was painting Miley Cyrus' face for "Saturday Night Live." These were the people who would hold my hand (and apply a synthetic 5 o'clock shadow to my face) through this makeup transformation.

"We were going back and forth on what I would do. Would I mud wrestle with makeup, with pigments? We were thinking about all these different things," James explained. "I've done this sort of thing back and forth through the years, and every time I've made [...] a woman into a man, this more masculine part of themselves emerges, their behavior, just by doing the makeup. Just by having this topical, artificial cosmetic applied to their skin, they're able to sort of behave in a way that they're usually not able to behave in."

The whole process of transforming me into the ~dude version~ of me was antithetical to my regular beauty routine: darkening under the eyes, thickening the eyebrows to very near Drake levels, adding hair in general. It was surreal. But James isn't wrong. After seeing myself with even just the exaggerated "ruddy complexion" as he describes it, I felt I needed to posture differently, tilt my head up, broaden my shoulders, smile less (but only a liiiiittle less).

"I feel like girls especially have to behave a certain way. Even if you're not thinking about it, it's so engrained in you from the time you're a tiny girl," James said of the emotional change that comes with his makeup transformations. "It's so nice to have five minutes or an hour or whatever where you can experience something else. ... And the guys, too. I feel like guys fight it first, but then, they get into a softer way of being. It's funny to me the way makeup does that because we're not dealing with the body. We're not putting in breasts or stuffing your crotch, it's just the face. Just how we perceive ourselves every day."

To create my scruff, James first brushed Aquaphor onto my chin. Then, with a Swiffer sheet, made a blown up balloon staticky so it would pick up a bunch of pre-cut teeny tiny synthetic hairs. When a layer of hairs was picked up, James applied them to my face by slowly rolling the balloon on the areas where a beard would grow.

And while the prickly feeling of my new 5 o'clock shadow was super unnatural, James was quick to point out that a lot of things we accept as normal -- like the "classic" red lip -- are inherently not normal. If you saw someone born with red lips, that would be...weird, to say the least.

The beauty of the "Crossover" installation is its ability to force participants to consider, and even occupy, the gray area between gender binaries. Not all women are supermodels, and not all men are built like a Men's Health magazine cover. "We choose to perceive a man and a woman in a certain way, but to me, I hope this shows people who sit here that there's a lot of variation between a man and a woman," James explains. "It's not just these archetypal gods and goddesses that we're brought up to believe. There's a lot of in-between."