“I can’t be a woman without the right clothes. I’ve been on HRT a year by now, but I still haven’t been gendered correctly by a stranger. It’s a lot of things. I try not to think about bone structure, about shoulders and necks and foreheads.”
“The boots fit. They fit in every way I had never known that other clothing didn’t. They fit in the way that frilly, muddy dresses fit my sister; the way that a black cocktail dress fit Audrey Hepburn; the way that pillbox hats fit Jackie Onassis.”
“My favorite thing in the world is when people ask if it’s a mood ring so I can say yes.”
“It took me 14 years to recognize with certainty that I was a dyke. I wish I could say it was about the intellectual complexities of sexuality and gender, or that I was afraid of being different. Those were factors, but not nearly as pressing as this: I thought dykes had bad style.”
Midwestern lesbian fashion — flannel, Birkenstocks, baseball caps — is ignored at best and looked down upon at worst compared to urban, Shane-esque queer style. What happens when it’s given museum exhibit status?
“I was once a dancer, a synchronized swimmer, I played acrobat on thick, moss covered logs when I was at the lake, catching myself as I stumbled was a game. Now, I struggle to do eyeliner.”
“The guy I had a crush on made the shirt, and I hoped that the girl I had a crush on would notice me in it.”
Perhaps he would have loved me enough. I’ll never know, and my eschatology doesn’t include a heaven from which re-embodied souls watch over our earthly lives. All I have is speculation about how he might have reacted to his daughter’s bisexuality, and to his daughter not being precisely a daughter at all.
We’ve packed and unpacked these items through several apartments, hung them up with care, and regularly touch the sleeves contemplatively although today could be the day. Reader, it’s not going to be the day! The day is not coming. Yet we can’t let go of these garments. Why not!
“I shower. Get dressed. Read or listen to music until my hair is mostly dry and I can brush it. I don’t wear makeup and I don’t know how to do anything with my hair. No one wears the same size as me. I don’t know how to be a part of this ritual.”
“I’d actually never even seen a woman in a blazer before. Like a men’s cut blazer. It really was like Fun Home. Inside I really did feel like I KNOW YOU!”
Blobs explore what getting dressed feels like.
“I was unwilling to buy a binder. It seemed like a declaration, the kind I was nowhere near ready to make yet. But for that winter, I had the bag.”
“To understand my relationship with this symbol of masculinity, we’ll have to start with my journey of queerness I had no idea I had embarked upon until I was turning 28, the sleeves of my buba — the tailored Agbada shirt — all rolled up to my elbows and my fingers rubbing down on the clit of a girl I had only met a couple of times prior to that moment.”
Sometimes you just have to let out your inner Connecticut divorcée on a beach.
Also, watching “The L Word” multiple times makes you significantly more likely to have multiple tattoos. Don’t @ me, it’s math.
“I’m adult and I’ve never cried over a haircut before and I don’t usually call my mom when I’m sad or frustrated or mad. She asked to see a photo of it. I sent her one and she asked me if the man hated queers, because this was clearly a hate crime.”
Some pieces are easier to explain than others.
It’s true that queer women and non-binary people are more likely to let their body hair grow than straight cis women are — but a lot of us still take it off.
“I sat there staring at my laptop screen soaking in the news that my love of flirty summer dresses, brightly hued tights, wine-colored lipstick and smiling radiantly in photos made me invisible to those I wanted most to be seen by. I thought I had to make a choice between authenticity and visibility.”