I personally don’t identify fully with gender. To me, gender is a social construct and I don’t feel I am, or should be defined by it. In terms of labels, I guess the closest is ‘agender’ or ‘non-binary’, which I use for the sake of ease.

I wore a Dress for the first time in years and I felt like I should feel uncomfortable about it. The dress was a midi, button up, flowy black dress that left my arms and shoulders mostly exposed. It was beautiful, comfortable, and my pinterest and instagram saved feed were both filled with similar silhouettes and styles. I loved the dress, but even though I was fully covered, I felt naked and bare, and couldn’t stop questioning those around me if it looked ‘right’. When I asked for confirmation though, I wasn’t asking if it looked nice. I was asking if it suited me, not in a flattering way, but in a ‘am I still valid as a non-gender-conforming person in this outfit even though everyone who sees me in this will assume I’m cis?’

I don’t know why this one particular item of clothing had me spiralling in a self doubt, identity crisis frenzy. Makeup is something I love and play around with often, I still have long hair, I paint my nails and love so many things that would be considered ‘traditionally feminine’, and yet, for the past 2-3 years, I’d never questioned if I was still valid. So why did something as basic as a dress make me feel like I should be questioning my identity, and like, in a way, I’d betrayed ‘being who I really am’?

The standard aesthetic, or ‘look’ for those who identify similarly to me is usually extremely androgynous. A tweet I saw summed it up perfectly, describing non binary representation as ‘masc white person with a flat chest, short hair and flannel’. This idea that to be valid, to be truly non binary meant that I had to rebel against Femininity, because otherwise I would just be cis, right?

Expression and identity can intersect, there are cis women who dress femininely, and cis men who dress more masculine, but this isn’t always the case. It’s kind of common sense now that cis women and men don’t have to be completely boxed in to traditional stereotypes (girls like pink, wear dresses, play with dolls, boys like blue, wear shorts and tshirts, and play with action figures) anymore. I mean, women have been wearing pants in mainstream media and everyday life for decades. Men being free to wear skirts and dresses, and engage in more traditionally feminine interests, however, is a whole other can of worms I’m not going to expand too much on here, but similarly, trans and non binary people are more socially restricted to particular ways of gender expression to be deemed ‘valid’ or ‘acceptable’.

In this desire to express my ‘true self’, I found that I was actually losing my self expression

Since I’m not trans, I can’t comment from a place of full understanding and experience on the societal pressures to ‘pass’, but I can comment on my own experiences trying to live up to this new stereotype of what being non binary looks like within the LGBT+ community. When I first started exploring my gender and coming to terms with the fact that it just wasn’t something I felt bound to, I believed I had to be the standard androgynous being. I toyed with the idea of cutting my hair so I could ‘really be me’, but hated the idea of having hair so short. I went out in search for ‘more boy-ish/neutral clothes’, but hated how boring boxed tshirts and low waist pants were. In this desire to express my ‘true self’, I found that I was actually  losing my self expression.

That dress took me back to feeling like I wasn’t valid because I wasn’t androgynous, but femininity is something I want to be free to embrace, even if I don’t identify as a ‘girl’. Just like cis people, I’m not restricted to traditional gender roles, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not free to like whatever I like. My entire view on gender, at the core, is that it’s a social construct, it doesn’t really exist so it shouldn’t matter how people express themselves or dress.

Being non binary is femininity, masculinity, both, neither, something in between. It’s being free to express yourself however you want to, as trans and cis people should also be able to. Embracing my femininity doesn’t change who I am, or how I feel. I’m not suddenly cis because I’m in a dress, I’m just me, wearing a fucking cute dress that I got on sale.