Presentation

I've been thinking about clothes a lot lately. For a while, I kind of scolded myself, saying that my level of fixation on clothing was too girly. But then I realized that it had to do with presentation - what I'm wearing tells the world a lot about me.

Here's what's going on: Two years ago at my office, there were two openly gay VP's and at least one gender-variant manager (I'm 99% sure she was lesbian, but I don't know if she was out). Now, all three of them have retired, and I'm not aware of any other gender-variant people in our roughly 600 person office. (That's not to say there aren't any at all, I'm just not aware of any.)

So I've been thinking: Maybe it's time for me to let myself show my gender-vibrance at work.

Then again, how do I do that? I mean, even before I identified as androgyne, I wasn't really very feminine. I haven't worn makeup or carried a purse in twenty years, and I've never owned a pair of heels or cute strappy sandals. But I have coworkers who don't do any of that stuff, either, and they're quite feminine. My body shape clearly marks me as female - at my size, there's no hiding that. And my penchant for wearing gypsy skirts marks me as female, even if I wear them more because they're easy and comfortable than because they're pretty.

I did wear trousers to work today (first time in three years). I couldn't stand the idea of wearing a skirt, so I wore khaki trousers, a blue T-shirt, and boat shoes. I'll be doing that more often . It felt really good not to be marking myself so clearly as female. Most people around the office know me, or at least have seen me around, so I seriously doubt I could pass for male even if I tried. But it was nice to be closer to the middle of the spectrum.

Maybe gender-vibrance means trousers and no makeup one day, then a dress and makeup the next. I don't know. Guess I'll figure it out. I would like to use my neutral name, Hadley, but for now that remains an online thing. And that's okay. I'll get a chance someday. :-)

For some odd reason, it crossed my mind today to come out to my mother and father. But I can only imagine how that would go. Mom would have a nervous breakdown, and Dad would somehow manage to find a stack of articles for me about why being gender-variant is "bad," especially for my son. Yeah...no thanks.

Anyway, off to bed with me. Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers,
Hadley