#I used to want to look like Louise Brooks but these days I'm aiming more for Conrad Veidt

[poisonandpages]

Gender and style ramblings ahoy!

Growing up I was never really "girly", and by that I mean I love pretty things, elegant things, stereo-typically "feminine" things, but more...more as a bystander than a participant, if that makes any sense? So in my teens while I was figuring out what I liked, I preferred sort of masculine-androgynous styles... and I was made to feel like absolute crap about it. Constantly facing sneers and frowns even from people I loved and trusted, and the pressure to change got 10x worse when I started working and suddenly found myself meeting hundreds of strangers daily.

It was weird because I grew up in a fairly progressive place with relatively progressive people and saw loads of women one might describe as "butch", so I never really understood why they could get to be themselves but I was heavily discouraged from the same. So I guess I rationalised it in my head by thinking that butch was a style for women who were either very handsome or very confident and capable, and neither of those described me. I wasn't "good enough" to be masc so I'd instead have to put in a lot of work to be more feminine (something I'd never say about another person, but I've always been much more cruel to myself than I am to others).

I think in part this was to do with my undiagnosed autism as well - maybe people thought that if I looked more like their idea of a woman I'd stick out less as a weirdo.

So for the past decade or so I've tried to fit myself into a shape that prioritised what other people would like to see instead of who I'd like to be. And I thought "ok, if I can be feminine but kind of edgy, everybody wins! Funky haircuts and punk or retro clothing but with a shedload of makeup and holding myself in a way that makes me look smaller, that'll do, right?" I trimmed myself down and covered myself up until I could be palatable to those around me.

But over this past year or so I've learned a lot of things about myself, and I've been deconstructing a lot of things about the way I view myself that I had already dealt with years ago about how I view others, and I came to the conclusion that all that wasn't making me happy. There were elements that I liked, I still love my dangly kooky earrings and sometimes playing around with makeup can be fun, but altogether the femme identity started to feel like a jacket that fit me really badly to begin with and was getting worse with each passing year, to the point it was squishing in my ribcage and giving me breathing problems.

In recent months I've been experimenting with more masculine/neutral clothing, wearing makeup way less, and had a barber cut my hair shorter than it's ever been before (which was a whole revelation because previously I've paid upward of £35 to have hairdressers ignore my instructions, and this lad did a perfect job for £12 in my living room). I was so scared that I'd look ugly or stupid but instead, I'm happier than I've ever been. I'm still 90-something percent sure that I'm cis, but as an autistic lesbian I feel like I have a more unique relationship with gender as a concept and it feels so freeing to now be able to express it. I'm getting much more comfortable with my natural face (not completely as you can see, I am still a recovering victim of 90s eyebrow trends, but we'll get there.) I accentuate my naturally broad shoulders and square jaw instead of trying to hide them. I wear shirts bought from the men's section of thrift shops. And when I look in the mirror I see me, and not the masquerade version of myself that others might want me to be.

I'm really happy, but I wish I had figured out all this sooner.