{"id":25687,"date":"2023-10-19T10:58:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T05:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/?p=25687"},"modified":"2024-01-04T14:04:52","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T08:34:52","slug":"my-fashion-and-gender-journey-how-i-discovered-they-are-both-fluid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/my-fashion-and-gender-journey-how-i-discovered-they-are-both-fluid\/","title":{"rendered":"My Fashion and Gender Journey: How I discovered they are both fluid"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The year was 2021. After a lot of deliberation, psychiatrist appointments and therapy, I realised that I am not cisgender. At age 31!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, for me, even being trans seemed to offer only binary options: be more \u2018masculine\u2019 in the way I present myself externally, or be as \u2018feminine\u2019 as usual. Having rejected womanhood and making use of only he\/him pronouns, I labelled myself transmasculine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My fashion choices were heavily determined by what could help me look transmasculine. All my clothes were picked to reflect this identity. How else would I \u2018look trans\u2019? I thought I needed to look \u2018masculine\u2019, so I had to dress the exact opposite of how I had dressed as a \u2018cisgender woman\u2019. I took inspiration from what I thought \u2018real men\u2019 would look like, based on the heteronormative society we live in. Social media confirmed my analysis and I spent all winter in oversized shirts and sweaters, baggy pants and a rather shapeless coat as they helped me pass as male. Each time I slipped unnoticed into a men\u2019s line at the entry to my local mall or in the queue for changing rooms, I felt ecstatic that there were people who thought I didn\u2019t \u2018look like a woman\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few months later, in the summer, my heart gravitated towards soft \u2018girly clothes\u2019 like dresses and skirts. I wanted fitted clothes that I could twirl around in. The irony wasn’t lost on me; I had once abandoned traditional \u2018femininity\u2019, only to now crave to embrace it once again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was worried every day. If I didn\u2019t look \u2018masculine\u2019, was I still \u2018trans\u2019? Why could I not fit neatly into one gender identity and one style of gender presentation instead of going back and forth? I felt like my gender identity of transmasculine was slipping away and that scared me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In deep need of advice, I reached out to support groups on the Internet. What a letdown that experience was! The first support group I joined got upset that I was wearing lipstick: \u201cYou don\u2019t look trans. You look happy and comfortable.\u201d and, \u201cTrans men don\u2019t wear lipstick!\u201d The second group had members who were appalled that I didn\u2019t want gender-affirming surgery. \u201cYou have to start saving for top surgery!\u201d and \u201cWhy do you still want to look like a woman?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Who makes these rules? Why did I need to \u2018look like a man\u2019 to be transgender? It is primarily a product of society\u2019s image of masculinity which rejects certain kinds of clothing, accessories, and makeup \u2013 the ones regarded as \u2018feminine\u2019. Because I did not want to identify as a woman, I was expected to \u2018look like a man\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seemed like no one took me seriously because of how my body looks. I felt like an imposter, someone desperately pretending to be trans. How could I be trans if I didn\u2019t tick off all the correct checkboxes demanded by politics, law, society and even the transgender community itself? As someone who has mental health issues, this gave me a lot of anxiety attacks about whether I looked masculine and not like the cisgender woman I was born and perceived as. One day, I would feel like I was \u2018really\u2019 transgender because I felt and dressed masc. The next day, I would panic because I wanted to wear earrings and wondered if maybe I\u2019m not really transgender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was then that I heard of the term \u201cgenderfluid\u201d. With time, I decided to adopt that label, refusing to fit anyone\u2019s idea of transgender. It took me over a year to learn that my sense of style and presentation has nothing to do with my gender and I became unconcerned about how I looked or was perceived as.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gender is a social construct anyway, so why was I trying to fit myself into a box? Dresses, skirts, oversized shirts, baggy pants, skinny jeans, shoes, earrings, and lipstick \u2013 all the things I stressed about are not intrinsically gendered; I was perceiving them that way!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It doesn’t matter how I look \u2013 if I don\u2019t identify with being assigned female at birth, I don\u2019t have to go the polar opposite and become a cis-passing man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My gender identity has remained fluid and is reflected in my fashion choices. It shows how I feel on a given day. It is a way to communicate my identity, and how I want to be perceived by my friends, peers, and community. My sense of style helps me look like myself, no matter where on the gender spectrum I find myself or how I feel on a certain day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a queer and genderfluid person, I feel happiest when I look most like \u201cme\u201d, outside of any binaries and boundaries. At 33, two years from where I started my journey, I stand as a testament to the power of fluidity, both in identity and in fashion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I still come under the trans umbrella. I am transgender, just on the genderfluid side! I use both she and he pronouns now and I find myself comfortable with both. I wear only what I want to, changing my appearance based on how I feel. Best of all, I don\u2019t feel like an imposter anymore. I feel comfortable in my own skin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cover Image<\/em>: Photo by Pawel Czerwinski<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How could I be trans if I didn\u2019t tick off all the correct checkboxes demanded by politics, law, society and even the transgender community itself?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":495,"featured_media":25700,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4211,6],"tags":[4334,692,3536,794,121,26,1200,837,367,261,25,1105],"class_list":{"0":"post-25687","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-categories","8":"category-fashion-and-sexuality","9":"category-theicolumn","10":"tag-clothes","11":"tag-clothing","12":"tag-expression","13":"tag-fashion","14":"tag-feminism","15":"tag-gender","16":"tag-gender-norms","17":"tag-gender-roles","18":"tag-identity","19":"tag-queerness","20":"tag-sexualities","21":"tag-trans"},"menu_order":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/495"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25687"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26104,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25687\/revisions\/26104"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}