My Long Socks
I’m smoking, and I just looked down at my feet, and I’m reminded of why I love my long socks
I had a lot of colorful and mismatched, and patterned, really short ankle socks growing up. And they were great, I loved them a lot, but something always felt off about them. And getting more different colors wasn’t the fix, or trying different fabrics
Then I’d see the boys and their long socks. They got to play, and run, and rough house, and be free with their bodies, and for some reason I believed that meant through clothes, it was the only way, I’d unlock that freedom
When my parents realized I wasn’t fucking with skirts or dresses and stockings, and any shiny thing in my ears would come up missing at the end of the day, they were obliged to pivot
Of course, these are straight people, so there’s limitations in the kinds of clothing they felt would be “boy” enough to suit my “non-girl-ish” behaviors, but was still “girl” enough so that I could be gendered as girl, and raised as girl, and conditioned as girl — seen as girl
My mother didn’t really care for “fashion”. Not at least in an aesthetic sense. She could appreciate a nice outfit, but it wasn’t one of her “necessities”, and was therefore redeemed redundant. The time that could be spent shopping she chose to use on more “meaningful” things
Alternatively, my dad’s solution, ironically enough, was to dress me life himself: beige kaki’s and an assortment of different colored and patterned polo shirts. But this sufficed. This was empowering for me. I was still “presentable”, “well-kept”, and “colorful” enough to be “girl”, but now I could play four square with the boys without feeling out of place. A wonderful compromise at the time
But this, as as I began to grow older, to perceive my own girl-ness, became too much of a contrast with an identity of myself that I held, but those around me did not
I recognized my “girl-ness”, even under the layers of clothing that many associated with “boy” or “man”. But I also believed that the kind of “gendering” I was experiencing, my “boy-ness”, was a liberation of my body — until I realized it was an imprisonment. These clothes became a container of hypermasculinization, mysoginoir, coded homophobia, adultification, and overwhelming anti-blackness. I know these may sound like “buzz words” to you, but this was my life, this is my life. These clothes, on my skin, on my body, rendered my “girl-ness” redundant. Revoked
So, I didn’t want to wear kaki and polo uniforms, I wanted to be wanted the same way other girls were. I wanted to be desirable. Maybe a dress would afford me the same appreciation the other girls were given? Maybe a skirt would give me back my femininity? But between my muscular physique, angular features, dark skin, 4c hair, and awkward overall being, dresses and skirts still felt out of place. I’d become conditioned to reject these pieces because of the prescribed, heteronormative masculinity I was forced into
A peril ensues: I did not know how to dress. I didn’t know what to put on that would make me feel better — to feel and exist as a mode of gender that wasn’t restricted to these harsh binaries
Trial after trial, and tribulation after tribulation, throughout the course of a little under a decade. Recognizing that this “out-of-place-ness” wasn’t only due to the clothes I was wearing, or how shy and awkward I was, or how outspoken I could be, the issue is that I am dark, a woman, and very obviously (to many but myself as a child) queer. Their issue was who I was, not what I wore
So I began to detach myself from their expectations of who I should be, and I began at a tabula rasa: A blank slate. What does it mean to be woman? What does it mean to be femme? What does it mean to be man? To be masculine? To be non-man or non-woman? I rebuke the heteronormative and patriarchal denigration of womanhood that was forced upon me. I rebuke the forced toxic masculinity I was made to carry
Now I get to tell that story, my gender, my way
Large clothing: baggy jeans, baggy shirts, large button ups, large sweaters, chunky shoes. Lots of accessories: gold, silver, green, red, yellow, black, ties, glasses upon glasses, hats, beanies, buckets, on my fingers, my head, my neck, my waist, everywhere, and I want it all. Other kinds of shoes too: flats, kittens, sandals, slides, sneakersssss. I’m a maximalist at its finest, because my clothing is my armor, and the more the better, the stronger
You’ll never get access to my figure unless I allow it. A peak of stomach or waist when I wear crops or low-waisteds. A hint of shoulder, a peak at my breast, a glimpse of my lower back. I control the narrative now. I control what you see of me, and who you see
My underwear: My bras — lace, wire, padded, thin, and thick, my pasties, silicon or tape — or my lack thereof, my thongs, Calvin’s, my boxers, loose and form fitting
These are the symbols of strength that I adorn my body with. I give new meaning to my clothing through how I choose to wear them (very pragmatist of me, James would be proud). My truth is defined by myself
However, to bring this full circle, I think the most interesting of the clothing pieces I love: my pile of long, white(-ish), mid-calf-length socks. Symbols once only given to elementary boys, to be mobile, rough and free, now I can wear them too. I don’t restrict myself to what the mainstream has defined as “girl”, I’m not that kind of woman. Not the one with all the rules and confines. My woman explodes this notion, outward, forward, even behind. It’s a redefining of time and history, because now I’m in charge of the narrative: I am the victor in charge of telling (t)history
So as I look down at my long socks, socks that are just “boy” enough to give me gender euphoria. Just “boy” enough that I can still be playful, and live life on the edge. Just “boy” enough to subvert a heteronormative notion of “girl-ness”, of what a woman should be. I’m also reminded that I’m exploding this notion of what it means to be “boy”, of what masculinity can look like, and who can possess it. I am everything and all that I want to be. I choose what is masculine and feminine, I define these lines and how they blur
My long socks are a peculiar reminder of my growth, of my “coming out” to freedom; of my “coming in” to myself and queerness and identity and womanhood. Of the time I’ve reflected, and reconstructed, and destructured notions, and exploded into something entirely [k]new (oh how very Marx of me)
My gender is overwhelming, it constantly extends out from itself and is ever-changing and becoming — my being always coming into itself and out of itself
Anyways, I digress. All of this is to say,
I really loveeeeeeeeeeeeee my long socks
