FASHION
I
The Impossibility of Dressing Genderless
’ve been going by ‘they’ for over two years now, but it hasn’t been that long since I felt valid in my gender identity. I always felt a little disconnected from my feminine appearance, but I didn’t think masculinity was an option for me. Looking back at photos from even just a year ago fills me with a disconcerting sense of nostalgia, and it’s a bit in my friend group to compare me at 17, the typical South Dublin girl with a makeup page, to me now. It wasn’t until I chopped my hair off and dressed more in classic Adam Sandler-lesbian attire that I felt deserving of being referred to as ‘they’. Femininity became my enemy, as if it were the boundary between being perceived as how I identify and being viewed as a woman. This past year was both euphoric and dysphoric in how I presented myself. With a closet of 90% ‘feminine’ clothing, it became a daily battle of trying to prove my gender to everyone. While I used to fear being viewed as butch, now I am unsettled at being anything else. I recently gave away years’ worth of dresses, skirts, anything seen as stereotypically ‘girly’, and it gave me this sense of freedom and euphoria. At the same time, it leaves me grieving a part of me. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy wearing masculine clothing and feel most authentic in them –
‘but in trying to escape one rigid gender I have, metaphorically, trapped myself in another one, in here lies the problem with ‘nonbinary fashion’.
There is an expectation, whether internalised or from others, that people who are gender-nonconforming should dress and appear as completely androgynous – to be ambiguous and separated from the gender they were assigned at birth. It becomes an obligation, which is as constrictive as it is to expect femininity from women and masculinity from men. If I dress in ‘feminine’ clothing and am then misgendered, I subconsciously criticize myself like it is my responsibility to follow these ‘rules’. This seems to be a recurrent issue from gender-nonconforming people. Faye, a fellow Trinity student, has said that “...even if I want to dress more ‘feminine’ I feel like because of the implications of other people’s perception of me it makes gender expression more difficult.” These restrictive ideas increase gender dysphoria, as it is unrealistic, and usually unattainable, for every non-binary person to emulate this assumed androgyny. Because of this, it’s not shocking that although we escape the rigidity of gender to a certain degree, we abandon some part of our individuality for gender validation. Wearing clothes deemed ‘gender neutral’, or more masculine to mask femininity and vice versa, has turned into its own gender performance. Nonconforming people are being put in their own gendered box when not everyone will feel comfortable in the stereotyped clothes. Coco Goran, another Trinity peer, said in reference to adhering to the ‘rules’ of appearing non-binary that ‘...it didn’t free me or make me feel authentic in the way I thought it would…’.Both femininity and masculinity exist outside of gender, but this perception of what we should look like taints the enjoyment and freedom of self-expression. There are endless issues within the fashion industry, and with the rise of queer fashion in the past couple of decades there is this feigned inclusivity. It has been wonderful to see more diversity, but
