Fashion Policing The Double Standards Of Gender Expression
hello
no i didn’t get dressed up especially
for this occasion
this is just my monday ball gown
i wear it because of how it makes me
feel
when i first started dressing up for
everyday outings i didn’t expect the
amount of interaction that my outfits
would prompt from strangers
the number one question that i get asked
is are you going to a wedding
followed by you look wonderful i get
lots of nods
smiles waves sometimes even car honks
when i walk around
looking as i do i dress this way
for myself but sometimes people tell me
that it makes them feel happy too
as i began to notice and explore the
reactions that other people had to my
outfits
i came to realize that fashion is a type
of visual language
the clothing that we wear tells the
world how we want to be seen
this works for me i guess i want to be
seen as an eccentric attention seeker
but it also works for children
particularly
trans children we live in a gendered
society at the moment
with everything from clothes to toys
being heavily segregated by gender
gender is something that we all have and
we all identify with
but it’s also something that for most of
us is given to us by someone else
i’d like to ask you all a question how
old were you
when you first realized what gender you
were
how we know what gender we are isn’t a
question that’s asked much
but what most of us are very certain of
is how we want the world to experience
us and our gender some people
even get offended if they’re mistaken
for being the wrong gender
even if it’s something that we don’t
think about much as
adults we know the importance of being
seen as our preferred gender
children are no different they want to
fit in
and they want to be experienced by the
world in an authentic way
if you’re a child who is trans and
you’re four or five
it makes sense that you want the world
to see you as you see you
children of this age don’t have the
nuance of language to express their
transness
in subtle ways so they do so through
their
appearance
when my daughter first told me aged five
that she wasn’t the boy i thought she
was but she was in fact a girl
the first thing she asked for was a
dress
at the time i didn’t think much of her
announcement
i i told her yeah no problem we can get
you a dress
her eyes lit up now she asked
it was night time and the shops were
closed i had a floral sheet at the house
that i cut up and i hand sewed her a
dress
it took me four hours to make i’m not a
very good sewer
but i did it because i could see how
much it meant to her
when she put that dress on her shoulders
dropped
she looked at ease comfortable and
content
she looked different she asked if she
could grow her hair
and she chose a new name for herself a
girl name
by doing these things my daughter wasn’t
trying to reinforce gendered stereotypes
about femininity or how girls should
look
she was just using the coded language of
fashion that already exists
what was most important to her was that
the world saw her
as she saw herself
knowing how important it was to my
daughter that she be seen as a girl
each time we went out in public i was on
tenterhooks
one day in a charity shop my daughter
saw a dress that she liked on the rack
and she pulled it out
and held it against herself the man in
the shop
looked her up and down and laughed
rudely
her face crumpled she put the dress back
and she asked if we could leave
my little girl was crushed
she stood outside the shop crying
i was livid
a grown man making fun of a small
child and her obvious joy in a dress
why did he think he could treat her this
way was it because he thought that she
was a boy
and that boys shouldn’t wear dresses up
until 100 years ago
boys wearing dresses was the norm
when we think of gendered stereotypes
like pink for girls and blue for boys
we often make the mistake of thinking
that these ideas are ancient
when around 100 years ago blue was
considered a feminine color
and pink manly and strong
my daughter was just trying to get the
world to see her as a girl
because of everything she had
experienced in our society
in her head pink and dresses meant girl
so she chose to use this language of
clothing to tell the world
how to treat her the only problem is
in those early days before she grew her
hair
she often didn’t get the response she
hoped for
while my outlandish outfits
were provoking delight in strangers
my small child wearing dresses
was provoking cruel comments mean
laughter
and rude stairs
going out with my daughter forced me to
become hyper aware of the expectations
that other people have around gender and
appearance
i came face to face with my own
cisgender privilege
cisgender or cis is the name given for
people who identify with the gender that
other people
assign them at birth i am a cisgender
person
being cis carries a lot of privilege
like when i go out
i just put on a dress that makes me feel
good
i’ve never felt terrified putting on a
dress
wondering if i will pass enough not to
be abused
beaten or in some cases killed
for trans women wearing a dress
can be a matter of life and death
the stakes for trans people particularly
trans women and girls
are so much higher than they are for
assessed people
it’s a really frightening thing
being the parent of a trans child the
world can be a very
unfriendly place when you’re trans a
2016 study by the university of
greenwich
found that 83 percent of trans youth in
england
had experienced verbal abuse and more
than a third
had experienced physical assault
and why why are trans people treated
so badly by society
in my daughter’s case it seemed to be
because
people saw her as a boy wearing girl’s
clothing
and they felt this justified being
openly mean to her
and this this is a bit that i really
struggle with
i mean i get that each of us places
importance on our own gender identity
but i do not understand why we feel the
need
for others to perform gender in certain
ways for us
i find it startling the people
care more about being able to publicly
express their displeasure
than they care for the feelings of a
five-year-old child
there is no guidebook on how to raise a
child who is trans
who estimate that there are 25 million
trans people in the world
all of them were children at some point
some still are and yet there is very
little information
about trans children or how to parent
them
we do know from research on trans kids
that children who are supported in their
gender identity have better outcomes
a 2020 study published in the journal of
counseling psychology
found that parents who do not support
their child’s gender identity
contribute to a range of adverse issues
from depression to suicidal ideation
while supportive parental behavior
increases trans children’s well-being
luckily
for most of us loving and supporting our
children
is not a big ask i’m now
several years into knowingly parenting a
trans child
and i’ve noticed something interesting
once my daughter grew her hair longer
and was accepted by her peers as a girl
she suddenly stopped wanting to wear
pink and dresses all the time
it was almost as if after being accepted
in her gender identity
she could relax out of performing
girlness
and embrace her own sense of style
one that was as unique as she is
clothing is a language of expression
and being brave enough to express
yourself in public
is an act of incredible vulnerability
so i’m going to leave you with a request
the next time that you’re out in public
and you see someone who is wearing
something that you find strange or
different
please think of my daughter and consider
taking a moment
to honor that beautiful demonstration of
self-expression
and vulnerability thank you
you