often people mistake our calls for “degendering” to be equivalent to erasing their right to be men + women. gender neutrality is not the same thing as requiring everyone to be non-binary. gender neutrality is an inclusive frame for all genders (men + women, too).
this is not about erasure, it’s about entitlement. cis people are used to being the universal. losing the power to control a narrative is not equivalent to the material violence that gender non-conforming people face. we aren’t calling for genderless fashion for “political correctness,” but rather because our safety depends on it. if you think us not being bashed is “political correctness,” then you need to get it together.
let me explain. i got this fabric in a market abroad while everyone was staring at me, laughing at me, + pointing at me simply because i had a nose ring + my hair in a bun (randomly associated with femininity). ultimately my friends + i decided to leave because it wasn’t safe + we were worried things would escalate to physical violence. the entire trip i had to be escorted everywhere because my hosts feared that i would be attacked simply for existing as gender non-conforming in public.
people like me live in constant fear because society — including the fashion + beauty industries — holds up toxic + monolithic images of what a “man” + a “woman” are supposed to look like. it’s not that we are failing to be real, it’s that we are failing to be what these industries have helped design. degendering fashion will proliferate more images of people like me so i won’t have to be the first that people encounter, will create more expansive images of masculinity + femininity such that we aren’t read as incongruous, just another way to be.
sure it is not the end all be all of ending our harassment, but it is a necessary move + should be understood as an anti-violence imperative. @adriannekeishingofficial + i designed this dress with the fabric i got while harassed to embody what i do: turn other people’s hate into my healing. their repression into my self-expression. wearing it on the #bofvoices stage i was able to speak with conviction: the time has come to reclaim what is rightfully ours.
