Yas’s Test Shoot, Palmers Green, London, Oct 2016
1. What is the significance of your top 5 clothing choices?
Clothes are really important to me. I know I identify a certain way on the inside, but people often don't see me the way I see myself. Clothes help me show who I am to the world. When I look in the mirror, I see a person of no gender, someone I perceive as more masculine but not male, less feminine, but not entirely separated from being assigned female at birth. I know that when most people look at me, they see a girl. But I don't feel like a girl. Through my decision to wear men's clothing I am often misgendered as a man, but I don't see myself as a man either. However a part of me gets excited when people mistake me for a man because it makes me feel more androgynous - like I'm moving away from "womanness" - the way I have always been associated. I identify more with masculinity than femininity, especially through my gender expression. Wearing "men's" clothes is an important part of who I am. From a very young age I shopped in the "boy's" section because I just preferred the clothes. I hated wearing pink and I hated that "girl's" jeans were always covered in butterflies or flowers, whilst "boy's" were just plain. It wasn't a conscious decision, I was just choosing the colours I liked and the clothing I felt fit me best. I was also a really active kid, really into sports and climbing, which is probably why I never wore skirts or dresses - they just felt less practical than khaki trousers.
When I got to secondary school, I started shopping in the girls section. I guess I felt a lot of pressure to do that. My family wanted me to, and I thought kids at school would laugh at me. So I started wearing things for other people - that wasn't me. In my late teens I started buying from the "men's" section again. I started wearing boxers, and recently I've started wearing sports bras to flatten my breasts. It's hard though because I'm really short - like 5'1'' - and they don't always make clothes in the right sizes. Usually they come up baggy, which I actually prefer because it covers the shape of my body more. But sometimes they just look really silly and oversized. I would say I identify as masculine of centre. I want people to look at me and wonder what gender I am, or think I'm a boy, even though I don't identify with that. These outfits have helped me feel more myself, and more confident in my identity. Mostly they just make me feel comfortable, and like I'm dressing for myself, not to please other people. I think that's the most important thing.
2. How do you identify your own gender identity/transmasculinity?
I would say I'm non-binary, masculine of centre. I don't really know though, it's hard to put labels on it. My gender feels really fluid, like it changes over time, even from day to day. I've always felt more connected to masculinity than femininity, but there are some feminine parts of myself that I really enjoy. I feel genderless most the time, at others I feel like a woman. I've only rarely felt like a man. I want to look "like a man" though, whatever that means. Masculine appearance is a big part of my identity. I do drag too, which I think helps. It's all about performance of masculinity, but it helps me explore masculinity in my daily life too. I love to see my cheekbones more defined, and my chest flatter, and I love to paint on facial hair in different styles. In the past I used "butch" to describe myself, but I feel like that doesn't fit so well anymore. Nothing really fits. I don't know who I am, what gender I am. It's hard enough to understand myself, let alone write it down or explain it to other people. I use they/them pronouns, but I'm not out to most people at home. It's a scary thought having to tell people.
3. What do you want to communicate through your choices?
I just want to be myself, in a world that's constantly trying to fit me into a box. I think being who we are is one of the most radical acts of resistance there is. I used to really care about what other people said/thought about me. And I still do sometimes. But I also know that they're wrong. That wearing what I want is okay. That expressing who I am is okay. I'm not hurting anyone. And clothing is just bits of fabric, if you look at it really simply. Why are we told to wear fabric cut or coloured in certain ways, but not others? I think it all links back to the bullshit idea of gender binaries. I'm just going to wear what I want, binaries have never suited me anyway.
4. How has your style/fashion evolved?
I always identified as a butch woman up until recently. As I'm slowly detaching myself from "womanhood" and realising that I'm more androgynous, I've started to wear baggier clothes. I've also been working out more. I'm trying to make my body appear less "feminine", and I'm no longer comfortable with clothes that hug close to my body. It's been great to explore that, to experiment with dressing in ways that are more and more "masculine". I'm also wearing boxers now - that was a big move for me. I don't wear "girl boxers" either, I get them from the men's section. Sometimes they're a little bit big! But I don't mind - I quite like that they make the area around my genitals more ambiguous, that they don't hug so close. I still live with my parents and I'm not out as non-binary at home, so I have to wash and dry my underwear in secret, when everyone else is out. Even though no one else ever really sees my underwear, I feel like it's still an important part of my style because it's what I want for myself.
I'm really into shirts now too - maybe it's because I'm trying my hardest to be a queer stereotype. I've already got the obsession with cats thing nailed, I just need to wear more and more checked shirts! I also got this black bomber jacket recently, which I absolutely adore - makes me feel like a 30s boy or something. I was watching a film at the RVT in London, and me and my friend accidentally dropped a candle and spilt wax all over it. Luckily that was the worst of the damage - I would have cried if we'd set the RVT on fire. It's such a beautiful place, somewhere that's seen many of my fashion evolutions.
5. How would you describe your relationship to clothes?
My relationship to clothes is mostly positive. I love that they can transform me from my naked self into someone more comfortable and confident with their body. Clothes allow me to go from a place of dysphoria to a place of positive expression. Sometimes, if I'm wearing a particularly great outfit, I look at myself, and think, I actually look quite good. I think I struggle to do that naked - I'm just always so confused about my body and how I want it to look. I think clothes have helped me be more confident in who I am, but they're also limiting. After all, when they come off, I'm back to feeling inadequate. So maybe my relationship with clothes is complicated. I think I have a lot of power over what I chose to wear, but also my clothes have a lot of power over me. They define how I see myself, how other people see me, how comfortable I feel to move in this world. But they also have to come off sometimes. And when I'm naked, I feel like maybe I'm too dependent on these external bits of fabric to make myself feel good about who I am and how I look. It's all a bit confusing.