Clothes are hard

[CW: discussion of gender dysphoria]

You know when you’re sitting on your bedroom floor because the bed is covered with clothes you’ve tried on and discarded over the last twenty minutes? You feel like you have nothing to wear, even though you can literally see your clothes hanging in your wardrobe. Your skin feels tight and itchy; you don’t understand how getting dressed is so overwhelming, so distressing.

All your clothes feel wrong; you feel wrong.

I know I’m not alone in this, but I definitely feel alone when I’m shivering from the cold and unable to put together an outfit that doesn’t make me want to scream or cry or tear my skin off. I feel like getting dressed shouldn’t be this hard; I feel like there’s something fundamentally wrong with me. There’s not, of course. I’m just trans and autistic. 

(Of course, there exist people who would tell me that one or both of those are wrong, and that I am fundamentally broken. The fact they’re wrong doesn’t make it easier.) 

I have always found clothes hard. For years, they were something I felt I was supposed to care about, supposed to understand. I didn’t. I didn’t care, and when I started to notice that I was expected to, I still didn’t get clothes. I felt awkward and weird and uncomfortable. I was deeply dysphoric about my body and how I dressed, but I didn’t have the language to understand that. I worried that I was failing at being a girl, long before I realised I wasn’t one. So I dissociated, not realising how unhappy or uncomfortable I really was. 

When I figured out that I was queer, I began to understand why clothes were so important. I understood that clothes could signal queerness and were important to identity, but I didn’t necessarily understand my own style. I looked in awe at butch women, wanting to be like them – yet when I tried to copy their outfits I still felt wrong. 

I was twenty-two before I realised why I was drawn to butchness. I am not butch, but for years it was the closest to what I was yearning for that I could understand. The possibility that I wasn’t a cis woman wasn’t one I could contemplate, so butchness was the only kind of masculinity I could see for myself. It’s only when I stepped into my gender that I finally understood that I didn’t necessarily want to dress butch, I wanted to be masculine. I wanted to be a man. 

But after years of trying to perform womanhood, it’s hard to work out what my actual style is – even now I’ve figured out my gender. 

I recently remembered that I started wearing men’s boxers even before I realised I was trans. I recently came across a photo of myself from 2018 – the year before I broke down during a spanking scene when my girlfriend said “good boy” to me and I was forced to admit that I might not be cis. In it, I’m wearing jeans and a checked shirt over my Pits and Perverts t-shirt, and I’m grabbing my crotch. I do not look cis. 

I’m not interested in looking cis, but I do want to figure out how to look like me. Shaving my head helped – as do the sideburns and beard from two and a half years of being on testosterone. I mostly stick to jeans and a pair of dark-green chinos, alternating plain long-sleeved tops with slogan t-shirts, and occasionally switching out my fleeces or jumpers for a yellow cord jacket. I have a few shirts, several pairs of Doc Martens, and a ‘piss slut’ carabiner. When I graduated in October I wore the black leather tie that I bought when I was my girlfriend’s Best Man in their wedding last summer. 

I don’t bind as much as I did two years ago – the euphoria of a flat (or, more accurately, flatter) chest isn’t worth the discomfort and autistic overwhelm of wearing a binder most of the time. The dysphoria about my chest doesn’t go away, but it does sometimes fade even on days when I’m not binding if I focus on my shoulders or my smile. (I smile so much more these days.)

Clothes are still hard, but I know now how I want to feel when I put them on. I want to feel strong and masculine and present in my body in a way I wasn’t for more than a decade. I’m slowly building up a wardrobe of clothes that make me feel good, slowly figuring out how to put together outfits that make me feel like myself. Clothes are hard, but I’m no longer wearing what I feel I “should” be wearing – instead I’m trying to meet my own needs. 

Nowadays, I understand that when everything I put on feels wrong, I need to pick out the clothes that will feel the softest against my skin. Because if I can’t escape my dysphoria, I need to focus on making myself as comfortable as possible in terms of my autism. There are days still I crawl, undressed, back under the covers to hide from the world. But there are also days when I look in the mirror and can’t help but smile at the person looking back at me. 

He looks like me.

• For the October issue of Gay Times, I asked if anyone is still using dental dams in 2024 – and whether we should be. (I love assignments where I get to be a massive nerd about sexual health.) "Perhaps that should still be the role of dental dams in our safer sex practices: a way to facilitate conversations that can be awkward or clunky or embarrassing or not-at-all-sexy – all ways people could just as easily describe talking about safer sex practices as using dental dams."
• I was delighted to be asked to recommend a sex toy for an update to Cosmopolitan's guide to the best sex toys for queer people. Ever on brand, I obviously talked about how much I love anal sex and recommended the Godemiche Ambit* – by far my favourite dildo when I'm bottoming and the only one I own in multiple sizes.
• As an unapologetic Frankie de la Cretaz fanboy, I obviously think you should read all of their work, but I'm going to specifically suggest their 'the WNBA players' unprecedented stand against 'biased' reporting' article today. I learn so much from their writing not just about sports, but also about media ethics and the kind of journalist I want to be. "Having a platform and being a journalist comes with a great deal of responsibility. It requires understanding systems of power and oppression."
• Jem Collins wrote about her experience at Pride Swim – an alcohol-free event aiming to prioritise connection and queer people's mental health – for Stylist. "I’m relieved by the smaller crowd; it makes the task of chatting to strangers seem much less daunting. In just a few hours, I chat with more new people than I’ve ever managed across my years of attending Pride parades."
• Press Play, Turn On – a podcast exploring how inclusive, ethical, and accessible audio porn is that I was honoured to be interviewed for – won Podcast of the Year AND Best Sex & Relationships podcast at the 2024 British Podcast Awards! Massive congrats to host Amelia Lander-Cavallo and co-producers Adam Zmith and Leeanne Coyle.
• Back in August, I got to see Sofie Hagen talk about their new book – Will I Ever Have Sex Again? – as part of the Book Fringe at Lighthouse Books. It felt magical to sit in the sun-filled garden behind the bookshop and listen to Sophie talk about sex and trauma and queerness and gender. (And because Lighthouse are brilliant and committed to making their events accessible, you can watch a recording here.)
• Speaking of books, I fell completely in love with No I.D.* by Tatenda Shamiso – it's raw and heartbreaking and beautiful and I cried in public while reading it. "Being a boy is busy work! I am raising my own new masculine pubescent self. [...] I’ve at least found you get taught that you don’t just get to be a man. You sort of have to earn manhood."
• You will definitely not regret watching this Instagram reel of the incredible Ellen Jones teaching a cat the HOT TO GO dance. (Also, Ellen has written a book! Outrage: Why the Fight for LGBTQ+ Equality Is Not Yet Won and What We Can Do About It is out in January 2025 and you should go pre-order it now.)
• Finally, Louie Läuger's art is so gorgeous and brings me so much joy, but their Trans Day of Remembrance post did make me cry. (This is your reminder to hug your trans friends and tell them that you love them.)