Hi! I have a new article for Pillow Talk, a new series I am doing with Xdress!
When I write Pillow Talk or Ask Hannah! articles, I try to break down the question into the root of what the person is asking. This question, like many others, kind of touches on what someone can, for lack of a better phrase, “get away with”. How feminine can your clothes be in male mode without someone noticing?
In most cases, not very.
A lot of items that most genders wear, such as jeans or t-shirts, are still very genderized. I have “boy” black t-shirts and “femme” black t-shirts and they are different in terms of length, sleeves, and neck opening. I don’t feel that there are a lot of “girl” clothes that I can wear in male mode without someone noticing.
Since I assume most people will NOTICE, the question pivots to whether or not I CARE.
If you are out in public, regardless of what you are wearing, people will NOTICE and register what you are wearing. If you wear a Beatles t-shirt, people will likely notice it. If you wear a floor length gown to a food court, people will likely notice it.
What you wear opens up the possibility that someone will react to it. Someone may come up to you and tell you that Rubber Soul is better than Let it Be or just flat out tell you that the Beatles were overrated. These are all opinions that have no impact on your life… Unless you choose otherwise. You can CHOOSE to debate the merits of the Beatles’ music or you can smile and nod and move on with your life.
OR you can mess with them and tell them that Mike Nesmith is your favorite Beatle or something.
If you wear a Green Bay Packers jersey to a Vikings game, you are opening yourself up to people saying something. It could be a welcome comment or the opposite.
No matter what you wear, people will see it. People will form an opinion. Most people will not react or engage with you.
People notice me and I assume that they will form an opinion or have a fleeting thought. These thoughts can be anything from “that person is transgender” or “that girl is TALL” or “how can she walk in those heels?” or a billion other thoughts, including some that are not very pleasant.
Fleeting is the key word here. We are constantly seeing and noticing things and our brain processes what we experience and almost all of the information we intake just flies away and is replaced by even MORE stimulus.
So, do I care about what that person is thinking for those few seconds? Of course not. Do I even KNOW what they are thinking? Of course not.
Almost every aspect of a non-binary person’s life comes down to not caring what other people THINK or NOTICE.
Wear what you want. Instead of spending your energy thinking whether or not they will NOTICE, start conditioning yourself to stop CARING.
Love, Hannah
Hannah McKnight 