I receive hate mail every day for living beyond the gender binary but this one takes the cake. A concerned gentleman offered to send me “men’s clothes” + a “shaving kit” to fix my “non-binary mental illness” + make me look like a “real man.”
The gender binary + masculinity is so fragile that it can’t bear to even look at people like me — it has to disappear us. Masculinity maintains its power through control — disciplining people into one uniform look.
But here’s the thing: we don’t need to be fixed, society’s obsession with gendering arbitrary objects needs to be fixed. Dresses have no inherent gender, they are gendered as part of a political project to create gender binary.
Seems like a good time to remind people that in NYC up until the 1970s police would arrest people for looking visibly gender non-conforming in public. Our community referred to this as the “three article law” meaning they had to wear at least three articles of clothing of their assigned gender, otherwise risk arrest. Police would forcibly strip search gender non-conforming people to confirm their “real” gender. People who they read as “women” wearing slacks + shirts would be criminalized + people who they read as “men” wearing dresses + makeup would be criminalized.
While so much cultural, aesthetic, + political work has gone into making pants + shirts more gender neutral, dresses still remain associated with womanhood + femininity. But dresses can be feminine for some people, masculine for some people + mean whatever they want for anyone. Everyone should be able to wear what they want without fear of persecution or harassment.
