Clothes make me who I am, I think it makes most people who they are. It is the first thing people see when they look which makes it a big deal, they get to judge you even before you open your mouth.
I have always worn more "masculine" clothes, only wearing dresses and skirts when I felt like I was forced to. But back then, it felt more of a way of just not trying to fit in with the other girls who wore more feminine clothing and make up. Kind of in a “I’m not like other girls” way but also in a “I’m scared of putting in effort in to my clothes and presentation because if I put so much effort and still remain ugly then it will be really pathetic instead of just looking ugly because I don’t care about my clothes” way, so I had like 4 shirts and 3 shorts that I wore in a rotation. I just kept wearing the same outfit over and over not letting anyone say anything about my style other than the fact that it was repetitive. I started getting into fashion later as I grew up as I started exploring my identity as one does when growing up. I came out as a lesbian to myself after a long phase of denial and started presenting more masculine in general, wearing button-up shirts and cutting my hair shorter and shorter. I still felt like I never looked right, everything I wore was cool on the internet on other people but when I wore the same things I would get insecure. Experimenting with fashion was a struggle for me. Trying out different styles, even going out to buy makeup and only putting it on at night because I was embarrassed, I was never content with the way I looked.
I grew up hating myself, everything about myself: my hair, my face, my body, my personality, the way I acted, pretty much everything. These also contributed to my revolutionary style that consisted of wearing 3 outfits for 15 years of my life, I was scared of being noticed. I didn’t want to stand out, I only wanted to wear my basic outfit and just slowly disintegrate within the crowd. Finding my own style was a challenge for me, it was more than a challenge, it was a fight with myself. I knew I wanted to look a certain way but it seemed unreachable both because I didn’t know exactly what I wanted and also because I knew exactly what society wanted me to look like.
During the pandemic, I became obsessed with the idea of finding who I was. I kept looking for different outfits and different styles to rediscover my identity. Things took a harsh turn at a certain point as I started questioning my gender, I even bought myself a binder and started taking am I trans quizzes online. I remember hiding that binder from my mom religiously as I was deathly afraid of what would happen if anyone found out that I was doing shit like this. I would only wear my binder when everyone in the house was asleep and I would look forward to wearing it every night and putting on an outfit. I would admire myself for 30 minutes and then take it off and fall asleep. I was confused, because it would feel right when I had the binder on but I was so deathly afraid of being trans so I pushed it down. Being trans never felt like a possibility for me, I knew no one in my family would understand and I didn’t want them to carry the burden of having a freak like me as their child. I was already gay and was successfully hiding it from them but being trans was not something I could hide as easily, so I wasn’t trans, I couldn’t be trans. My clothes at this point started to feel too feminine for me, it was just oversized shirts with shorts or pants. The way clothes looked on men started making me feel jealous more and more.
I started browsing the internet more, looking at more masculine clothing and experimenting with them and finally found something that was right for me at the time. I was now hyper fixated on corduroy pants. The way my shirts would fit when I wore my corduroy pants slightly loose on my lower hips rather than my waist was heavenly for me. Now I was more confident, still struggling but more confident. This was the first style that I saw myself in, and I have upgraded it since. I cut my hair even shorter and presented more masculine and it sometimes still didn’t feel right but it was okay this time. At times I was even feeling the pain of the divulge between me and other girls, I was never considered pretty like them, I never dressed like them, I never acted like them. My experience at times felt like it didn’t resemble that of a woman’s and I felt like the freak of the friend group. But I felt happier and happier with the way I looked as I started to finally enjoy putting on outfits and styling my hair, picking out rings that would match my necklaces and sometimes even getting a compliment or two.
Now I find myself getting caught up in more societal debates within myself and trying to dismantle expectations that I have inadvertently put in my own brain and how I want to present myself to the world. The struggle is still there, in my heart, when clothes don’t fit right or when I look too feminine or when I feel like I need to be more masculine because now I have created an expectation for myself or when I feel like if I wore a skirt now everyone would be shocked and the judgment I have feared will find me again or when I feel like I was prettier before, but everything is different now. I have now become way more confident than I was when I started my experimentation journey with fashion, I am also way more passionate and invested in it now. I have an image of what I want to look like and can now wear the clothes I dreamt about wearing while going out in public even though I know people might stare at me or judge me. I am not looking to dissolve into the crowd anymore, I can stand out and present myself the way I want to. However, unfortunately it’s not all sunshine and rainbows because it’s still a huge struggle for me at times. I still am too afraid to wear that binder I bought years ago. I am still afraid of telling people about my identity or my pronouns. I still feel judged, I still feel the burden of expectations on my shoulder and I fear that I will never get to live my truth. I also fear that it's just a phase that will pass anytime now and I'll have to rediscover who I am all over again. Sometimes I dream about a reality where I was born a man and my clothes had always fit me the way I wanted them to.
