Clothes Again, Clothes Again, Jiggity-jig

clothes are clothes

I’ve been thinking a lot about clothes lately.

Ooh, shocker! A trans woman thinking about clothes! I’ll forgive your eye roll.

It’s funny, though, when you are trans, and not yet out, clothes are talismans. They were for me, anyway. And what I’ve realized lately is that before I began transitioning, they were my only connection to my female self. The clothes spoke for who I was rather than me speaking for myself.

But almost immediately after I came out and started pursuing physical transition, women’s clothes lost their bewitching allure and became just clothes.

And the further along I got, the more I thought that I could look however I damn well pleased and still be just as legitimately trans as someone decked out in female finery from head to toe (though that’s awesome too).

Isn’t it messed up that I’d even think “legitimately trans,” let alone type it?

That’s reality, though.

We gauge ourselves by standing next to others or others like us. We compare and analyze. Maybe I’m just too old for all of that.

But I don’t really think it’s age; it’s just realization. It’s the dawning of the idea of independence, of autonomy. Of not waiting for the world to legitimize me or my existence. Of not looking to the world for approval or letting the world – or anyone in it – dictate what makes me feel good. Believing that I’m entitled to feel whatever I feel and be whoever I want to be.

No justification beyond being human is required.

WRITTEN BY A HUMAN

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