Pinks & Frills

I have a very complicated relationship with gender, particularly gender expression. In my adult years, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and analyzing myself in all kinds of ways, many different facets of my being, gender being one of them. When I was growing up, I was not given the chance to really sit and think about why I wanted to present myself in one way; I didn’t have the time and space to question such things about myself, when my brain was far too occupied with dissociation and just making it through another day. So, like with every other aspect of my selfhood and personality, I am just now able to really make sense of the kind of person I truly am, what the concept of gender means to me.

cute fit.

There is a lot to say about the drastic switch in my gender expression when I moved on from elementary to lower secondary. As a Kid, I loved dressing in pinks and feminine styles, bright and vibrant colors, skirts and knee-high socks. But around the age of 13, this suddenly changed. For years, I haven’t understood why this happened, because it was never a conscious decision on my part, but it wasn’t forced on me completely, either. I didn’t choose to abandon the cutesy fashion because it was “cringe” or “childish”; I didn’t choose to go for black and skinny jeans because it was “the cool thing to wear” or because I was “in my emo phase”. I don’t think “phases” are supposed to last for almost 15 years. 

In any case, the jump from kawaii to edgy was an authentic one, something I genuinely wanted out of my free will. But still, I couldn’t quite understand why my attraction toward feminine attire had died oh so suddenly. In about a decade’s time, however, I would finally be able to see it for what it was. 

My way of dressing was one of the countless of things my Friends liked to target me for. I’ve heard every insult, every joke in the book that you can make about someone dressing in cutesy clothes. At the time, it didn’t affect the way in which I wanted to present myself, mostly due to dissociation and my inability to internalize any of the abuse at the time it was happening. My brain had compartmentalized it somewhere else, a nook I wouldn’t have to explore for another ten to twelve years. But the effects of the abuse started to come out earlier, when I was finally removed from the most abusive environment and social group I had been in, and I started lower secondary. 

Despite everything, I never developed the aversion toward the color pink and everything “girly”, like what a lot of other girls go through. It was more like I was scared away from it. It was more about me not even daring to look, whatever it might have been: other girls, their feminine appearance, their cutesy fashion styles. The curiosity was always there, it never left me – I just tried to pretend as if it had. At least then, I wouldn’t do, say, think, or feel something disgusting, something wrong.

So I dressed in my band tees and studded belts, trying to convince myself that I didn’t like anime and manga anymore, that I didn’t like wearing skirts and the color pink. That all of that was gone, it was The Past Me, The Kid who would never return. 

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Now, as an adult, I have come to the conclusion that me running away from the feminine as a teenager was a result of trauma. For years, I felt deeply uncomfortable in explicitly feminine clothing, even in cosplays (which is why I shifted to cosplaying male characters at the time). It was the result of my Friends teaching me that the feminine was embarrassing, bad, and disgusting, and that if I were to present myself in such a way, they would violate me and my body for it. They would invade my personal space and make comments about my body because I was wearing a pink bra underneath the pink sweater I’d gotten from my cousin. 

And above all, if I ever were to experience some type of attraction toward the feminine, it would make me filthier than all of my Friends ever were for the inappropriate things they did to me. Because the feminine is gross, childish, naive, aggravating, and lustful. 

It wasn’t until I realized I was a lesbian and came to terms with it that I felt comfortable in presenting myself in feminine ways again. I had to unlearn my internalized lesbophobia and homophobia before being able to look at the pink frills again without feeling gross about it. Becoming aware of the fact that I am a gender-nonconforming lesbian was also a big piece of the puzzle that was hidden away from me by my Friends. I had to go and search for it in the woods of my shattered self-image. 

I do still experience discomfort when I dress in cutesy clothes from time to time, but I’d like to say that now, it’s more about dysphoria rather than trauma-based fear of the feminine. Because, of course, this is not the whole story. We still have to talk about the other side of the same coin.

Going in make-up,

ichigonya