I tried on a dress...

 

Well, sort of. 

As an experiment.

A demonstration for myself and for others.

Let me explain:

As a sociologist, we are constantly searching to understand the societal constructs that make up the world. This means going beyond research on paper and diving into the real world, often making yourself part of the experiment. If you are a good sociologist, that is.

I'm a 47 year old man, cisgendered, and 100% straight. But one day, I was listening to a podcast by a woman who was transgender. She had been born male, but now was living as female. It took her 24 years to come out and begin living as a woman. She had grown up in a conservative home with parents who had no idea she was trans. She would steal clothes from her older sister and hide them in a box in the basement, venturing down there to try them on and wear them for a few hours here and there while she was home alone.

The few times she had hinted about buying clothes that weren't blatantly masculine (or neutral) as she grew up, she had been given a sharp rebuff. "Guys don't wear pink." or "Those shoes look too girly." So she gave up on this until she could buy her own clothes, usually from Goodwill, because they charged by the piece and didn't examine each item as it went into the bag.

She said--

"For those who don't understand what it's like to be forced to wear clothes that don't match your gender, and yes, I am primarily aiming this toward straight men, I want you to do something for me. Go to Goodwill, find a dress that will fit you, and go into the dressing room and try it on. Make sure you take off everything but your boxers before you do. Cinch it up or jerk it down so that it will fit as it should. Now, look at yourself in the mirror, and don't look away for a full 30 seconds. If the feeling you get when you do that is one of embarrassment, horror, extreme awkwardness, and the desire to get that thing off as quickly as possible, you have just been given a small taste of what trans people endure every day prior to coming out to the world. Also, so you can relate to trans people like myself who waited until I was an adult to make this change, imagine not changing out of it, and instead stepping outside the dressing room wearing it, and continuing to shop. If the idea of doing that fills you with terror, you are experiencing a micro-slice of what it felt like the day I finally had the courage to wear the clothes that matched my gender out in public. I had been told my entire life that the clothing I secretly wanted to wear was not what "real" guys wore, and so I developed an aversion to my own body's identity. A reverse-body-dysphoria. Not hating my body, but hating what my body needed and wanted. That was how I lived every day until my coming out, and a picture of the identity complex I had to overcome once I did."

And--

"Imagine being a woman who was in an abusive marriage where the husband made her believe that only women who are whores experience pleasure from sex. So you spend your entire life trying to not enjoy it, until one day, the asshole leaves you for another woman. Then, years later, you meet a good man. A man who wants you to enjoy it, and when you are with him, you do. But you have been made to believe that to enjoy it is bad, so you feel bad for enjoying it, and when you climax, you feel like a piece of trash. You've been made to believe that what was natural to you was unnatural, and now you have to relearn how to experience this, all while shutting out the damage inflicted by the person before. That's what this is like."

So, as I mentioned before, I tried on a dress. Well, I cheated, and only held it up against me after getting out of the shower, but as I looked at myself in the mirror, I felt the horror she mentioned. I looked like a man in a dress. A big, fat, hairy man holding up a woman's sundress against his body. I imagined what it would be like if I actually put it on and went to the store. I shuddered at the thought. I would want to wear a bag over my head and get the hell out of there as quickly as possible. 

Then I tried to imagine what it would be like, if in my heart, that was what I really wanted to wear. All my life I have been trained to believe that men dress like men, and that a man in a dress just looks...wrong. I'm lucky, so lucky that I don't have a desire to wear a dress...because my brain would not be okay with it. 

And as I type this, I think, "The people who need to read this have probably already unfollowed or blocked me, so why am I even writing this?" Maybe it's in the hopes that there is a dad (or mom) out there who needs to read it who hasn't hidden me from their feed. Maybe their child is trans, and would benefit from their parents understanding this one aspect of it.

I tried on a dress.

I challenge other men who have never done so (outside of wearing one as a joke or on halloween) to do this as well. Stand there for a moment wearing it, and try to feel beautiful. This is what that trans person has been trying to do all their life.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.