Discuss how your clothes do or don’t reflect your gender.
I am so pleased I got asked this question because it has been on my mind since I had a discussion with a friend about gender, clothes and femininity. We had begun to talk about starting T and I talked about my own experiences and how initially I felt I was trying to be ‘seen’ as genderqueer, which meant changing what I wore and binding my breasts. Now I dress less masculine, however I am still not 100% comfortable with wearing dresses or skirts again, unless it is for a fancy dress event. As we were talking my friend mentioned that they had a female jacket that they didn’t feel comfortable wearing yet because it was too feminine. Somewhere between them telling me about the jacket and my brain mulling it over I realised how sad it was that clothes were being perceived to have a gender.
Anyhow back to the question… Most of the times my clothes reflect me, a combination of masculine and feminine styles and colours. As I mentioned above I am not yet able to wear skirts or dresses (which happened rarely anyhow when I did). Once upon a time I would almost obsessively wear male clothing only, bind my chest and hide any femininity that would make people think I wasn’t genderqueer – actually when I am feeling insecure around the trans* community I still do try to be mindful in what I wear (sad huh?). I would say overall that my clothes reflect my gender except when I want to wear pink Bonds women’s Boyleg undies, or a crop top instead of a binder, or my pink pj’s because they are my favourite… Maybe there is no such thing as as gendered clothing…