my experience getting into men's clothes as a t-boy (an anecdote)
the starting points are...simple, if you're small enough. sports bras and/or binders. unisex tees. vigorously taking measurements to make sure you fit in men's dress shirts because you just learned that button-downs button on opposing sides because society has to gender everything. desperately clearing out every trace of your starting wardrobe in a fit of dysphoria. realizing that vanity sizing in men's clothes is just as bad if not worse than it is in women's clothes as you hold that jacket in your hands and realize it fits you like your father's coat.
desperately trying on every possible fit of men's pants because estrogen sends a lot of your fat to your ass and your hips, and most of them cling to your hips the way women's do. finally finding what a relaxed fit feels like and discovering that it's the best you'll get.
"it'll do," you say, getting a belt because there's still a pesky inch-deep gap between your spine and the pant-waist. and then two. and a third. realizing belts are an accessory too, actually, and suddenly they're just as much fun to play with as mom's jewelry box was.
sitting down with a brannock device and paling as you discover your feet are so small most men's shoe brands don't make them in your size. or your width. you can't tell if it's a good thing or not that it's still easy to find a nice pair of loafers in the size bracket you grew up wearing, but oxfords aren't.
and then it gets weird. the fetters of assigned gender fall away, and as the part of you you're making manifest rises into its own, pressures to be "hyper-masculine" start fading. those fun frilly sleeves you were missing inch their way back into your wardrobe. a pair of heels slips back onto your shoe rack before you realize they're there. but it's okay this time, because now they're not wearing you anymore. you realize they'd been sitting in your maybe pile for months now. aren't you glad you kept them?
jewelry that's more ornamental than chains or leather strapped to your wrist worms its way back into your life. silly things. pearls and pins and brooches and flowers and lace. except now it feels like it's yours.
skirts come crawling back too, in some limited capacity, because suddenly you can have fun with them and not feel like they're controlling what you look like to everyone else. people in your life still call you masculine terms while you're wearing these "traditionally feminine" things and it feels weird and foreign.
and perfect. the man you feel yourself growing into smiles back at you in the mirror, and maybe, just maybe, this is the start of something great.
20 Replies
this was so nice to read
gender dysphoria wardrobe purging is so real 😭
i've been meaning to write smthn like this for ages but i had no idea how to go about it. so appreciate u writing this up, so well-written and close to home
thank you for sharing this; i've been having similar thoughts about coming back to certain things i pushed so far away. this has helped clarify some feelings for me. glad i'm not alone in these feelings 💚
I love this -- I've been going back and forth on reintroducing some more feminine (or feminine in my dysphoria brain) into my wardrobe. I was more comfortable with it in my old job, where I felt like people Saw Me better, and I'm once again struggling with balancing between "what people see" vs "what I want"
Hello, I am going to ignore the feelings and just offer some info I have on shoes because shoe shopping sucks and I have a list of brands ive slowly compiled to help my NB/Genderfluid and FTM friends online.
It might be helpful, or might not but I posted it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/TransMasc/comments/1kbu53t/advice_on_shoes/mrtpzqt/
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Second link (included in first, but more specific if older): https://www.reddit.com/r/lesbianfashionadvice/comments/1bmzoxm/what_shoes_are_the_lesbians_wearing_these_days/
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My info isn't a 1-to-1 match since my feet are men's 6.5EE while I expect your feet are not mens double wide, but yknow, solidarity. Best of luck out there.
yeah i’m big on the skaterboy vibes so i can get away with a rack full of vans/cons
Ugh I'm kinda midway there
I realize I like feminine-coded clothes but T hasn't kicked yet and I'll get even more misgendered with them on
So... They're sitting on the wardrobe, waiting their time to come out the closet too
I discovered I was trans at age 19 yet I never performed the fake gender very well before this so I didn't have the feminine things before. I had no heels, no skirts, no frills. Actually I had some because my family had many friends in town and every now or then I got family pressured into them for dinners, but it was not a thing out of my own will. So they stood forgotten in the rackets and I hated them with a passion, ignoring them in the day-to-day life.
Now I like them and wish I could pull it off, oh well
it’s coming though, slowly but surely
i haven’t even started T myself. the people who know who you are will see you for yourself
that’s what really matters
i'm not on T and don't plan to be, at least near-term, so i feel this really hard. i also moved to a job that's less, idk, knowledgable about trans stuff, so i feel less seen and less willing to experiment
I’m glad this resurfaced. This perspective was/ is so encouraging and has helped me move towards that which I used to fear most. I wanted to say thank you again Lyon. It’s only been a few months but I feel so much less judgmental of myself
I’m not sure if this will make sense to anyone else, but I said to Lys the other day that I feel like I’m now exploring femininity for women as opposed to the way I was forced to grow up and perform femininity for men.
Do people generally clock shirts as fem/masc immediately by the orientation of the buttons? I think my perception is skewed since i wear a mix of mens/womens clothes and i dont remember off the top of my head which side is which 🫣
Like if you see someone on the street u go "thats a mans shirt" ❓
In my experience in the American south and midwest, no. People generally aren't paying attention to details that small, or if they do notice they aren't commenting on it. When I get in my head about details like this I ask myself if I have ever noticed this about another person and often times the answer is no which is a relief
I doubt anyone is noticing. I wear men’s shirts 95% of the time and I still often ended up double checking on the shirt I am wearing which sides the buttons are on.
yeah, it's not super apparent from the buttons or anything. my experience is that overall shape/silhouette tends to be what people notice first
a lot of people don't even realize men's and women's clothes are different with button/zipper side stuff
no but i'm the kind of weirdo who once i know, i know and it fucks with me forever
again this is anecdotal
(it is in the title)
I understand that, i was just curious how common it was 🫡
I have shirts that are buttoned both ways
I dont think its a real thing
same