Here, seven trans folks share their favorite piece of gender-affirming clothing that helps them access gender euphoria.
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This means my transition is toward a more masculine gender presentation.
I take testosterone, but Im not a man.
And when I came out in 2016, my first stop wasnt a consultation with health-care providers.
I went to the mall.
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I found an olive green bomber jacket that I loved.
In this bomber jacket, though, I felt the exact opposite.
I was presenting as myself, and that made it felt great.
This was my first taste of gender euphoria.
Alyse Ruriani, LPC
Transition looks different for every trans person.
Theres social transition and medical transition.
Some trans people are binary and some are not.
Butclothing is something we all have in common.
In many ways, it felt like building a closet from scratch.
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These days, a short-sleeve button down is the most gender-affirming thing I can wear.
I love buttoning it up to the top button, as if I were going to wear a tie.
Getting dressed can feel like a game of avoidance.
I recently asked seven other trans people about their most gender-affirming pieces of clothing.
Like me, many had memories and emotion tied up with their most affirming pieces of clothing.
Here are the pieces of clothing that they want to celebrate for generating gender euphoria:
1.
In addition to performing in drag, she also works as a community-outreach coordinator.
The heel is the emblem of performance, like the shield is the emblem of protection, she says.
When he tried out jeans again recently on a whim, he felt glad that he did.
Clothing is a necessity, so when an entire category of clothing makes someone dysphoric, its restrictive.
I started accumulating them.
Afterward, they paid a friend to tie-dye the overalls, transforming them from wedding white to rainbow.
Now, the overalls are a colorful Pride accessory and a tool for gender-affirming expression.
I guess its been that way since before I started hormones.
To [my ex], I wasnt [a woman], Black says.
And in that moment, as I started asking myself who I was and wanted to become.
I felt the urge to have some kind of totem that would remind me that I belonged to myself.
Thats when Black found her first collar.
Now she has a few collarssome for special occasions, some for daily use.
For her, they signal resilience.
Bren works as a graphic designer and also runsa queer research library.
Brens gender is queer, which they say is all anybody needs to know.
This hat is in all the photos from that trip because I wore it every day.
Their gender-affirming piece of clothing is a queer classic: a flannel.
For raum, the euphoria from the flannel isnt about the garment itself, but the memories it conjures.
This particular flannel was an early-pandemic purchase, but years later, it has staying power.
They tell me that they werent exploring gender identity when they received the hand-me-downat least, not consciously.
Now, years later, Kellys clothing choices arent about hiding.
And thats where I am, says Kelly.
The inside, the outside, its there.
You have no questions.
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