Letter of Recommendation: Women’s Clothing

I'm mid 20's and male-to-female transgender for about 6 years now. In good shape, average height, average sizes. Obviously fat has migrated over that time to give me a more feminine shape. I migrated entirely to Women's clothing like jeans and t-shirts a few years ago, I have dresses, skirts, etc, but most of it is really bland casual clothing for lounging around or going to work (no dress code at all), however I have way more options, all kinds of colors, all kinds of textures, all kinds of cuts, all kinds of patterns, everything feels absolutely amazing. I am so comfy in jeans now that I can sleep in them with no issues. I don't really pass well, but nobody has ever said anything to me negatively wearing a flowery women's cut long sleeve shirt and tight women's jeans that make my butt look wonderful. If anything, I feel much more stylish and totally physically comfortable now. Even bras aren't bad and I don't understand why they're always hurting women so much :D

Regarding pockets, I just carry a backpack with my laptop now. Phone in back pocket, tiny wallet for cards that fits in my front pocket. I will never buy women's jeans with really tiny pockets, but I feel like most retailers have figured out an acceptable size. Who even likes heavy jeans carrying around so much?

Mens clothes may have changed by now, but I remember them being stiff, feeling bad unless you paid a lot of money (not a problem for women's clothing!), having limited neutral colors with no patterns except thin stripes.

I'm so happy we're coming to a point where we can get rid of gender standards for what fabric people are allowed to wear on their bodies enforced by society.

"I came out at 18, in Helsinki, then moved to New York at 23, and I’d steadily grown more aware of the possibility to wear whatever I wanted

THis article doesnt have any pics - but if youre not familiar with FInnish Street Wear Style (or whatever name they are going by these days) - check it out, but although they feel themselves to be daring on the fashion scale - I just do not think that Helsinki fashion is flattering.

https://www.hel-looks.com/

I wear women's clothing, and most people have no idea.

Womens 311 shaping skinny jeans were my standard for a long time: I only have a phone (these fit lengthways in a women's pocket) and a card carrier so I don't need giant pockets, jeans look cleaner without them. I know a bunch of (good looking) male dancers who wear them too: https://instagram.com/p/BUME5JpFhja/

Women's slogan shirts tend to be more upbeat, interesting and aggressive than men's. Get plus size / curve brands so they actually fit: https://instagram.com/p/BQ5VkrAArJ7 Watch out for super wide necks! These are common and won't look good on a guy.

Hair sucks, but t shirt is Forever 21 curve label: https://instagram.com/p/BTs5T27Fwok/

Women's tanks are basically the same - look at reebok's womens range (WITTY THING HERE) versus mens (I LIKE DOING THE THING) https://instagram.com/p/BOXHnC5g_S7/

I have a rocking set of petrol blue sparkly converse in men's sizes - if you like color, nearly all 'womens' chucks can be found in men's sizes.

After realizing my genderfluidity and letting go of caring about social constructs in general, I started playing with fashion. I've never had such comfortable clothes, nor have I dressed better or more colorful. Gender conforming fashion quickly became very boring and uninspired to me. I now play with combining all kinds of shapes of clothes and patterns in layers to come up with outfits. A common compliment is "I don't know how you pull this stuff off! None of this is supposed to go together!"

In short: innovate your own personal fashion style to expand your creative side by abandoning fashion rules.

My favorite silk sleeveless t-shirts are actually sold as women's tops. They're less tight around the neck. And in the summer, I wear women's raw silk yoga pants, bought extra large, with the bottoms hemmed. It's hard to find men's pants like that.

As a nonbinary person, I love seeing this in the NY Times. But I also have seen this question asked over and over again. (See the 90s where Utilikilts made a big splash over 'skirts'.)

The phenomena goes beyond just clothes, and includes makeup and grooming as well. There's a whole library of things that are available for managing your personal appearance, but men typically feel ashamed to try them out.

For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWyuB-Qyqu8

But that stuff is labelled 'girls stuff' and pretty aggressively mocked, yet we are much more comfortable when women are 'just one of the guys'. We're going to need more than just the occasional NY Times article to change that deeply held value.

I’ve often wondered why it’s so socially taboo for men to wear anything that’s typically worn by women. As a guy, I wear a plain silver toe ring because I think it looks cool, but I get more than enough strange looks for that (more so on the east coast than the west coast).

Do these clothes cut for men actually look flattering on the female form? If my wife wears a men’s sweater it looks fairly frumpy.

A really attractive person might still look good in an ill fitting piece, but they’d probably look even better in something that fit well.

I think men wearing 'women's clothes' changes by culture, period of history and status in society.

When the church ruled the roost the important people in the church would be wearing clothes that we recognise as robes but are essentially women's clothes.

Men have cars and watches to show their wealth, in previous times garments would be more decorative for 'high value' males, with wealth to flaunt. So again 'crossing over' was possible but different.

I can't think of an era where wearing women's clothes was desirable for straight male peasants though. But, for high status males, women's clothing seems to be a common thread in history and across lots of different cultures.

A lot of big stars, especially in music, fail to conform to gendered expectations. Very "manly" rock stars often have quite long hair. There's a great song that's a send up of such expectations called "Get a haircut (and get a real job)". Punchline: The long-haired rock star makes more money than the older brother he was always negatively compared to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnOVKtBxSv0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su3HiXOjrfA

Prince had long hair and wore more colorful, feminine clothing. Madonna wore a mix of masculine and feminine stuff. There are probably lots of other examples.

A lot of big stars actually end up admired and even emulated to some degree. They do this and typically make it look good.

That observation plus firsthand experience suggests that doing it and making it look good goes a long ways towards other people being okay with it. So get an education in design. Learn a little something about working with color and that sort of thing and go to town to your heart's content, just take a look in the mirror and try to be something someone envies and most people won't care that you cross-shop.

If you are fit, toned and not too tall, the female tailored cuts can be far more flattering than the regular dad bod covers.

Not talking dresses and stiletto heals, just jeans and T's

I don't know if this'll get me to shop in the women's section the next time I need something (because that's when I go shopping for clothes: out of _need_), BUT:

I do think women have fare more variety and selection at their hands when going shopping. I wish we had all these options as men too.

Shortly after we got engaged my wife and I happened to be in Macy's. We realized that all of the men's clothing was either blue black or grey. If I was a bit more adventurous I certainly would have started shopping in the women's section just for a better color selection!

Women's clothing is terrible; it's flimsy, often meant to be worn very tightly, the sleeves, legs, and tops in general are too short, the collars are too open. Also, tops are cut with darts for tits, which, no matter how it's done, always burns a large number of women unless they wear a padded prosthesis or avoid many types altogether depending on how much and which way they fall out of an (mythical) average or the woman that particular designer has in mind. Same for pants being cut for hips. Gender may be a construct, but darts aren't.

Sounds like this guy just found a tight shirt. If you're wearing stretchy baby tees and extremely tight jeans, I don't think shape is an issue. You might as well be wearing saran wrap or a bodysuit.

It’s more of a sizing / build shape thing that keeps some amount of separation in product lines. I wonder if we can come up with better, non-gendered names for common body builds.

"Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short Wear shirts and boots 'cause it's okay to be a boy But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading 'Cause you think that being a girl is degrading" -- Madonna, "What it feels like for a girl"