The Impossibility of Dressing Genderless

I’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 –

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 it begs the question if it’s merely to follow a trend they believe gender queerness to be. As it often is with huge, capitalistic industries like this, they promote inclusivity without attempting to make real, lasting change. As depressing as it sounds (because it is indeed depressing), non-binary people are viewed by this industry as a niche to profit off, without catering to the very real needs we have. Another issue that causes this strain of dysphoria, I think, is that we attempt to change and bend these ingrained rules of gender within a gendered society that thrives off being one or the other. This is pretty evident in how the fashion industry generally runs. Instead of removing gender from genderless items, brands profit off this rise of gender-neutral fashion, while still placing them in gendered categories. This comes down to the lack of size and shape variety in brands, so everyone ends up being expected to fit the ‘female’ or ‘male’ clothing. This obviously leaves very little wiggle room for those who don’t feel comfortable wearing what brands deem appropriate for their body, increasing dysphoria to always be placed in one of these two boxes. Is it so bizarre or unrealistic to picture a time where there’s no ‘menswear’ or ‘womenswear’, where clothes are organized by item and not the gender they were designed for?

Because this fabricated time doesn’t exist, there really isn’t a place for non-binary people in mainstream fashion. With everything divided into two fixed genders there is no way to exist in these spaces without experiencing some form of dysphoria. For me, both feel slightly strange. In the women’s section I’m a fraud, since I only dabble in femininity; it’s a reminder that my life is so different now. But in the men’s section, I feel like an even bigger fraud; I get paranoid that everyone is thinking ‘there’s another lesbian dressing like a man.’ We are usually shoved into following these expectations, where people assigned female at birth should dress masculine and those assigned male at birth should dress feminine. It’s as if this balances our gender out, when the purpose of not conforming is that our identity goes far beyond appearance. The stereotypes that exist for women and men exist for non-binary people too, so it’s natural that we internalise it. Something that comes to mind, that really made me consider this subject seriously, was a recent purchase of a corset. This wasn’t an exceptional thing to happen, I highly doubt anyone around me gave that a second thought, but I hadn’t bought any ‘feminine’ clothing in so long it felt against the laws of nature.

It also felt freeing, and I went out looking cool and wonderful to be honest, however walking around I felt so disconnected from my appearance and body. In my mind I was lying to myself and everyone. Then I questioned if it was the clothes itself that made me uncomfortable or was it the assumption that it wasn’t what people expected or wanted from me.

There is no clear conclusion here, this issue has so many layers to it that I can’t even figure out. This box non-binary people are supposed to live in wasn’t meant to exist, and it shouldn’t. The fashion industry has a long way to go in terms of gender inclusivity. Tokens of appreciation cannot fix the discomfort so many of us feel when shopping or wearing clothes. In trying to prove our identity to others we suppress parts of it. In a podcast, Say it With Your Chest, Joss Jaycoff beautifully spoke on the subject, saying ‘I think again the biggest misconception is trying to put a look on us… non binary is about the opposite, it’s about existing outside those standards, existing outside those gender roles that have oppressed us all.’ I think we need to focus on what clothes mean to us and not how it makes people perceive us, we know too well that we have no control over

WORDS by Bo Kilroy

IF I DRESS IN ‘FEMININE’ CLOTHING AND AM THEN MISGENDERED,

I SUBCONSCIOUSLY CRITICIZE MYSELF LIKE IT IS MY RESPONSIBILITY TO FOLLOW THESE ‘RULES’.