VI. Assumptions, Origin Stories, and the Stakes of "Just Wear Pants"

One assumption I don't want is for people to think or say that I am confused. Well, confused is an interesting term. It's typically used for underdeveloped minds because adults love to strip agency from children, especially using the excuse of the ‘underdeveloped mind.’ However, as an adult who has experienced a developing mind, I believe that I have made good and bad choices my whole life and learned from them. Guess which desire stuck around long enough for me to make it a life choice? Yeah, that's right, wearing skirts.

I have been interested in skirts ever since I played the Disney MMO RPG ToonTown, and was presented with a character creation menu. I had to select the game's ‘female’ option because the skirt clothing options were locked behind that selection. Lots of my friends wondered why I was playing as a girl-coded toon (it just added eyelashes and allowed for that selection of clothing articles), and my excuse back then wasn't fully informed of my desire to wear that clothing. It was something closer to a socially acceptable (but retrospectively infuriating) excuse that was clearly just a masking trait. I believe I said that I prefer to look at a girl character when gaming but I was like 10 and already conditioned in the heteronormative fallacy. No, turns out I've never been attracted to any gender, romantically or sexually. Either way, I had always desired to dress up in my preferred clothing, but I never had the funds for (just hand-me-downs from my two older brothers) or the bravery for challenging the social norm.

Being cisgender does not mean I have no stake in gendered dress-code constraints. I have a stake in the language surrounding dress-code. I'm an advocate of dressing up how you want. I can relate to those who feel constrained, even when the rules are unwritten and enforced by societal perception. I can relate to parts of people's experiences because of my own.

My comfort with he/him also does not mean I am comfortable with all masculine expectations. Oh no, I hate that. I hate the idea that masculinity is treated like a script with approved interests, approved emotional limits, approved relationship roles, and approved ways to exist in public. A lot of the things that feel natural to me either get treated as less masculine or as deviations from masculinity entirely, even though that framing is arbitrary and awful. I'm already disillusioned with expectations in romantic partners because I found that my aromanticism and personality type creates a very difficult dynamic with expectations (even if the partner doesn't expect them, I just feel like the expectations are so society-wide that I start thinking many steps ahead and assuming that things are being expected and thus don’t want to perform them). I also break a lot of the categories because I just so fully devote myself to my interests without consulting some "masculine" script. I found I like sewing, so I sew. I like watching cartoons made for children, so I throw on shows that entertain me (sort of tying in to that self-content moderation that I appreciate the values being taught by the shows so I devote more time to them. For more mature shows that are depicting values I dislike or in ways that I don't like, then I would only watch them for other reasons such as social watching).

I also don't want people to assume that because I can pass as conventionally male at a glance, the constraints do not affect me. The main thing is that people can very easily say "Oh, you can just dress up in pants and you'll be fine." Ah, so because it's not tied to my gender identity, then it's not a part of my identity at all? No. I feel better in skirts. Not because I get gender euphoria; the stakes are different from someone whose clothing is tied directly to gender affirmation, but different does not mean fake or disposable. Gender euphoria is not the only reason that others "allow" others to dress up how they want (or at least it shouldn't be the only permissible reason). Yes, I know it's a fashion preference of mine, and that feels easier to ignore temporarily for some situations. And I bear it. I'll certainly dress up in pants if I perceive that my safety would be in danger (let's say, for example, in certain parts of the city or different locations in the world). But if the reason I'm not allowed to dress up in my everyday attire is a silly reason, like discomfort with having a crossdresser in a group photo, then that deserves some self-reflection on how the photographer treats others. To me, that's a very clear sign that they disrespect who I am.

Even with that context, boiling me down to "just wear pants" rejects my years of suppressing, hiding, feeling guilty about, being ostracised over, and conflicted about crossdressing. My journey is one spanning nearly two decades of internal conflict, and I've reached such a wonderful point of success in my life that I can be open to express myself; every time I dress up in the morning is a sign that I have made it past it all. The statement is waving all of that away in a simple misunderstanding of what it means for me to be me. I know it's a misunderstanding, but don't feel like I'm photobombing or grabbing attention when I come exactly how I want to (to this hypothetical photo or event). It would be more direct for the photographer or event coordinator just to say that they don't want me in the photo, or me at the event.

Don't get me wrong, I have LOMO. I love missing out. I love finding an excuse to get out of going to things, because my agoraphobia thrives off of the idea that I just avoided social conflict, it loves that I look out for myself by getting out of something that I could have had a bad experience over. But that avoidance does not erase the stake I have in the issue. It just shows how often the safest or easiest response is to not go.