When I’m about eight years old, I’m invited to my first real overnight party and have to buy my first real pajamas – not of the oversized hand-me-down t-shirt variety, that is. This means spending about an hour in the girls’ clothing section, my mom’s personal hell, until she finally leads me to the boys’ department and encourages me to look around. I find it almost immediately: a fleecy, long-sleeved pajama set with photorealistic images of stars and planets littering its dark blue base. This somehow seems to fit, both literally and figuratively, better than anything I could find in the first hour. My mom buys it for me and laughs it off when I proudly tell the cashier and the rest of our family that my “space jammies” were made for boys. What’s the harm? I’m just a confused child.
Three or four years later I stand between clothing racks in Walmart again, this time with a friend instead of my mom, this time in the juniors’ section – clothes for girls who are too old to be called such but too young for the women’s aisle – and I remember with a hint of chagrin that particular anecdote from my childhood. Surrounded by cheap tulle and denim and a disproportionate amount of animal print, I don’t exactly feel the comfort and happiness of the “space jammies” I outgrew long ago; but I at least feel normal, and no one who has ever been a preteen can blame me for wanting to hold onto that rarity. I stick to pink cotton skirts and mesh v-necks and Miley Cyrus’s 2012 line for Walmart. Other girls wear baggy jeans and sweatpants and basketball shorts to school, but that feels too risky for me. In this world of leggings and zebra print, no one can mistake me for the type of kid who feels better shopping in the “wrong” section of the store. No one can mistake me for the type of kid who’s deviant, for the type of kid who’s confused. And what’s the harm in hiding it?
Flash forward another three years, and I’ve joined marching band and found comfort in the anonymity of our boxy uniforms. I’ve started wearing basketball shorts to school again, under the pretense of not wanting to have to change before practice. I have a lot of older friends now, ones I want to impress. I have a girlfriend for the first time, and even when I start wearing mascara, our friends joke that I’m the “man in the relationship.” I wonder why I take so much pride in this obviously homophobic figure of speech. I wonder why I’m thinking about it so much. I’m a little scared when my band director asks me to join the winter guard to expand my comfort zone a bit from music and marching, but I agree without much convincing. For some reason I want to quit every time our instructor refers to us as “ladies” or “the guard girls,” but I love our uniforms. The rough spandex and polyester is tight against my skin, but I think I look okay in it. The skirt whips around me when I spin, and my flag does the same. I like learning to dance for the first time since childhood, but something still feels wrong. I ignore it and take mirror selfies in my glittery makeup even though I don’t really recognize myself in the pictures. What’s the harm? I like the girl in the pictures better anyway.
When I begin to actively question my gender instead of just lamenting it aimlessly and internally for days on end, when I discover the beautiful word nonbinary and finally accept it as a part of my identity, the shame increases every time I put on a dress or allow my sister to do my hair or makeup. I’m not out at this point, but I feel invalid nonetheless in the women’s aisles of clothing stores or even in the beautiful $40 vintage dress I wear to my senior prom. And when I do come out I never go back. My best friend and I take a day-long road trip for a haircut and to buy some masculine clothing. I want to throw away the rest of my wardrobe, even the items I genuinely like. I don’t want anyone to assume my gender ever again. It’s an unrealistic goal – an impossible one, really, considering how popular androgynous styles have become – and I know that, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling like I’ve taken a punch to the gut every time I’m called “ma’am” or directed toward a women’s bathroom without question. My clothing was made for men, just like my pajamas all those years ago were made for boys. I’ve forced myself away from so many things I love for the shame of being perceived as feminine, and it’s amounted to nothing. I’m underground, buried beneath the pressures of typical masculinity, and I can’t do anything but dig myself deeper.
But what’s the harm? I’m just a confused queer millennial.
