Welcome to #TransTuesday! Today we’re going to talk about something unique, problematic, and wonderful for most trans people (and cis people too, if we’re being honest): HEAVILY GENDERED CLOTHES AND TRANS PEOPLE, AND WHY MUST IT ALL BE SO WEIRD.
Every person, trans or otherwise, has a unique relationship with clothing. I’ve had a really weird relationship with clothes, for reasons that probably already make sense to you just from knowing I’m a trans woman.
I always found them a bit odd outside of practical uses. Shoes protect your feet, and socks protect your feet from getting blisters inside the shoes, sure. Great! Layers and coats keep you warm in the cold, yes. All of that makes sense.
And they can protect you from getting too much sun or a sunburn, they can keep… stuff… in the spot you want it kept in. Plus: POCKETS. And all of that has a definite logic to it.
Beyond that, however, I just never got it. Why do we even wear them? Because we decided it was uncivilized for us to all walk around naked, I suppose, but that’s… I dunno, not a great reason? It always baffled me.
I always had favorite shirts or pants or whatever, like anyone. But that was almost exclusively based around comfort. I never understood using clothes as a means of self expression, or appreciated them for their artistic value.
So fashion always mystified me. Why would anyone care about it? It just didn’t make sense. And it’s weird because I always appreciated every other form of artistic expression I came across.
And I think the reason for that relates to some of what I talked about in the Trans Tuesday on THE FEAR OF EMBRACING YOUR TRUE SELF (makeup and hair dye and costumes and Halloween), because it all comes back to appearance.
I suppose because I felt like I was wearing a “cisgender straight boy” costume every second of my life, I didn’t put any real thought into, or even care about, what went on top of that costume. Except for… one thing.
I have always, always hated dressing up. HATED. IT. The thought of it actively repulsed me. My parents told me this just meant I preferred to dress more casual, but SURPRISE, that’s not it. And of course casual dress is not appropriate in all situations.
It’s suits I hate. Collared shirts. Ties. Because our society codes those as intrinsically MALE, and I’ve never felt like (or actually been) a man. And of course ladies and non-binary folks can wear suits, and look amazing in them!
I’ve never actually worn a suit, because you just could NOT get me into one. I’ve worn a tux exactly four times in my life… my senior prom, once to surprise Susan because she’d always wanted to see me in one, then again at our wedding, and in the one wedding I was best man for.
“Best man.” Ha. Hm. oof.
Anyway, thinking about those situations where I was going to be required to dress up… what if it would have been socially acceptable for me to wear a dress, and I didn’t feel scared out of my mind to do so?
My heart would have taken flight, left my body, and flitted up to the clouds, where it’d find a nice home for sale and would immediately move right in. I have no problem with occasions requiring “nicer” clothing, now that I know that doesn’t mean I have to wear a suit.
Part of my distaste for “guy clothes” stems from how horridly bland most of them are. For years and years I was so frustrated at how difficult it was to find anything that wasn’t black, gray, or blue (or sometimes brown, if you were a very lucky boy).
Beau Brummell was the bane of my existence. He’s the reason so much of men’s fashion sucks. Dark, drab colors! Suits! Ties! AUGH. Screw that guy. He was by all accounts also an unrepentant dick, so don’t feel too bad for him. This Esquire article on him is very good.
What the hell even IS a tie? A random useless bit of fabric you wrap around your neck? WHY? Nothing confused me like goddamned ties. Okay sure, you want some color in your suit… WHY NOT WEAR A DIFFERENT COLOR SUIT THEN MY DUDES?
There are so many colors in this world, and I love them. I love when they’re bright and vibrant and society tells us, no, those colors are not for cisgender men who want to be taken seriously. And that’s bullshit.
You can see the Trans Tuesday on UNEXPECTED BONUSES OF TRANSITION for more on how important color actually is to me, and how transitioning freed me up to like what I always liked but was told I wasn’t allowed to.
So the reason I hated suits and ties and dark colors is because they’re not ME, and that does come down to my self-expression. If they’re you, that’s GREAT. We should all express ourselves through our clothes however we want.
My rejection of those things, however, isn’t because I’m transgender or a woman… because again, I think ladies in suits can look AMAZING. But it’s because society codes those as “male” and that’s the absolute last thing I want to be.
But it’s also about how I feel. I don’t FEEL right in a tux. I own a lot of skirts and dresses, and HOOO let me tell you how polar opposite the feeling is when I wear it. This is undeniably GENDER EUPHORIA, which can be a key part of discovering how trans or cis you really are.
I’m still trying to figure out what my style is. It’s definitely girly, but it’s also kind of sporty at times, which probably tracks based on what I said in the discussion on THE FALSE DICHOTOMY.
There will be an upcoming Trans Tuesday all about figuring out my style, now that I’m (maybe) honing in on it some. The first women’s clothes I owned were for running, which I mentioned in the Trans Tuesday on BODY HACKING.
The actual first (non-running) women’s clothes I bought were underwear, because obviously nobody would see them when I was out running errands or whatever. And I’m not going to get too TMI here, don’t worry.
The last thing I want to do is put an image of me in underwear into your head (too late, isn’t it?). But, like… the first ladies underwear I bought had donuts on them. And pizza. And robots. And hearts. And cherries. And a DeLorean. And BABY YODA.
Because you don’t just jump into weird sexy lingerie or whatever. Being transgender is not remotely the same as cross-dressing, or drag, or anything else. And all those things are FINE, I am not casting aspersions.
But they’re not the same as being transgender. Though trans folks, including me, can also certainly wear underwear of the sexy variety if we want to (I just put that image in your head now too, I guess, so SORRY but maybe also YOU’RE WELCOME).
Outside of all that, though, I still can’t usually stand anything remotely baggy. Which is a shame because, again, looser clothing looks amazing on all kinds of people.
But for so, so long, I wore baggy everything because it hid my body. I didn’t want the world to see it, and didn’t want to see it myself, because it made me feel awful for reasons I didn’t understand.
Er… except for my jeans, which well into my early 20s were far too tight because I didn’t know how to find the right size. Susan thankfully helped me fix that because 😬
Anyway, the baggiest thing I have now is one sweater, and I love it because it was the first (non-running) piece of (outer) women’s clothing I ever bought.
Because although it has a big neckline, it’s otherwise kind of gender-neutral and I could wear it without (in my mind) giving away my true self. So I love it for that reason, but was still a struggle for a long time.
Because anything even remotely loose or baggy is associated in my head with hiding myself and the awful dysphoric feelings that came with it. Which is not to say all my clothes now are skin-tight, but they’re definitely form fitting.
I hoped that would lessen over time… and to my surprise, it has! See the Trans Tuesday on PHOTOS 2: THE SELFIE APOCALYPSE and you can see it happen in real time.
For basically my entire life pre-transition, I was SUPER uncomfortable with tank tops and never wore them. Having my arms exposed somehow felt more feminine, which terrified me. I got more comfortable with them the more I came to accept I was transgender, though.
Which is weird and bonkers, anyone should and can wear them if they want to. But everything gets so mixed up in your head (or it did in mine, anyway) when trying to decode all of this that it took me forever to figure that out.
And now, trying to determine what my style is and what I prefer is difficult for a number of reasons, because (spoiler alert) women’s clothes vary in sizing so much that the sizes are almost useless. You guy-clothes wearing folks seriously don’t know how good you have it.
I can’t just say I’m a “medium” and be done with it. Everything has chest and bust and waist and hip sizes, and even then everything varies by manufacturer and store.
On top of that, hi and hello I am 6’ 1/2” and did you know not many cisgender ladies are this tall? So women’s clothes that actually fit me are a trick to find. (I’ve found some now, this isn’t a call for a flood of links, but I thank you for your thoughtfulness)
But EVEN STILL, when I find things I like and that fit me, they don’t always fit right. My jeans are all baggy in the butt, because I HAVE NO BUTT. It’s flat as a sheet of drywall back there.
I may yet get MORE BUTT from hormone replacement therapy, but if so it’s not remotely begun to start yet. ANY TIME IT WOULD LIKE TO, however, would be good with me, and throw in some damned hips while you’re at it (more fun images for your head, I am here to serve).
And let me tell you about pockets, friends. Pockets pockets pockets.
In dude jeans I carried my wallet and keys in my left front pocket. My right held my iphone and there was STILL ROOM. I could fit my entire hand in either of them, up to the wrist.
But the pockets on my women’s jeans can hold… half my wallet, or half my phone. I mean, I knew before having women’s jeans of my own that the pocket situation for ladies was horrid, but I didn’t realize HOW horrid.
Why don’t women’s clothes have real pockets? It’s for all kinds of sexist reasons… that are ACTUALLY sexist. The “slimmer silhouette” is one reason, which is all part of upholding the sexist, patriarchal ideal of how a woman “should” look.
Another is because it literally puts women at a disadvantage. Sure, many women carry purses. And this is why. But think about that for a second.
My wallet, keys, and phone are going from a pocket held next to my body that there’s no way anyone could get to without my noticing… to an external bag that anyone could just grab and run away with. It instantly puts women at a disadvantage.
It also means it takes us longer to get anything we need, including perhaps items for self-defense (like phones to call for help, or pepper spray, or whatever else).
This Vox article about it is pretty good, and explains how the entire thing was rooted in misogyny and controlling women.
Here’s a choice quote. “Women’s pockets were private spaces they carried into the public with increasing freedom, and during a revolutionary time, this freedom was very, very frightening. The less women could carry, the less freedom they had.
“Take away pockets happily hidden under garments, and you limit women’s ability to navigate public spaces, to carry seditious (or merely amorous) writing, or to travel unaccompanied.”
So fellas, the next time you make fun of ladies for not having pockets or for asking you to hold their damn purse, maybe… DON’T do that and instead understand the horrid power play the lack of pockets is and how that affects everything women do, everywhere we go.
Hell, even BUTTONS are likely sexist and classist. Didja ever notice buttons on women’s clothes are on the opposite side as buttons on men’s clothes? Learning how to button the opposite way it worked my whole life has been really hard!
A tweet I made on Feb 4, 2023 that reads: so much of your life changes when you transition, but nobody ever tells you that the buttons switching sides on your clothes will be your undoing
Smithsonian Magazine has an interesting article on why buttons are the way they are, which ranges from men drawing swords to prove their manliness to rich white women having chamber maids who were dressing them.
All of which is to say… fashion and clothes are a form of self-expression, and that’s great. But don’t buy into whatever you’re “supposed” to wear because of your gender or body type or anything else.
Just be you, whoever that might be. And wear whatever the heck you want.
…except for neckties, which will forever be inherently bad and wrong, and should all be destroyed immediately. 😌
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com
It’s me! In a black v-neck dress with white stars all over it! Yay!