Reject femininity, embrace…something else?

If you follow me in instagram, the fact that I started wearing clothing other than tailoring – a little corset there, a miniskirt here – must not have passed unnoticed. How did I get from sharp suits to skirts in such a rapid succession? How am I reconciling this dichotomy?

I’ve alway professed there is no one way to “look” agender. Hell, there is no one way to look like a woman, or a man, or any other gender. When I first realized I did not in fact want to participate in gender as a concept, I was very ambivalent about how I was going to dress. I am not alone in this struggle, as I see this among many other people in the non-binary space: how do we express our identity with confidence and authenticity, in a world where dress is unfortunately still inextricably linked to gender expression and, with it, all the trappings of gender itself? Are we traitors if we want to put on a little makeup and wear a dress while also having breasts?

When I look back at that initial discovery phase, I can see that I really doubled down on the masculinity aspect: I stopped wearing any make up, shunned wearing dresses and skirts, avoided anything which I associated or I thought society associated with femininity. This reaction was not motivated by a rejection of the very concept of the feminine per se, but due to my desire to avoid being addressed as somebody I was not, at all cost. I felt like a suit was my armor, that if I could be ambiguous enough that would save me the heartache of having to correct people and the subsequent awkward conversations. I like to call this the “reject femininity embrace tailoring” phase: a moment where I was striving for appearing as masculine as possible, mostly unconsciously. While I received a lot of validation at the time, I never felt completely confident in this position either: while I truly enjoy making suits, and I generally believe I look good in a more straight cut, this was nothing but another trapping I constructed around me. I am aware I have a stereotypically feminine body and I was trying to hide it in any way I could.

Obviously it was very clear in my mind that clothes do not intrinsically possess any gender, being inanimate objects, and the value we assigned to them is merely societal and cultural. I wrote about this topic extensively in various publications, and I truly believe what I said then, even now. However, I was also keenly aware of the fact that I was living in a society which was judging me based on how I presented myself. At that time it was very hard for me to be gendered as a woman, and therefore I was trying very hard to not appear like one, and while it was a cumbersome stage these were necessary growing pains as they led me to addressing why I was choosing what was effectively a costume instead of just being myself like I normally do.

Do I prefer being butch, being femme, am I a boy or a girl (seriously what 😂 ), these are questions I get asked more often than not. What are the rules of dressing agender? Is there a guidebook we can all read? Ultimately, the real Marxist position is that neither butch nor femme really exist: we should instead strive to be ourselves and present as we feel confident, how people read what we adorn ourselves is their problem. For me, at this point, labels have stopped having any meaning, pronouns are just sounds, I no longer have any interest in correcting people and educating them, I just want to be left in peace living my life. While I realize this is a very privilege position to hold it is where I am now in my journey as a queer person. I am very comfortable and confident in my body, my presence, and my energy so I can confidently say that how people see me doesn’t really matter to me at all. I never really cared about people’s opinions, even though I realize that even I was maybe unconsciously somewhat biased.

I still like wearing suits, but that is not the only item I like to wear. It’s not even the item I like wearing the most, more of what I prefer wearing in corporate settings. Ultimately , I am a creative first and foremost and the intricacies of tailoring truly fulfill me.

TLDR: I like wearing suits but also miniskirts and I like lipstick and it doesn’t make me any less agender just leave me alone.