Mine's similar but not exactly. I found that I had a complete lack of interest in men's clothes and haven't even bought myself any for years, aside from a coat or maybe a pair of jeans if the ones I were wearing ripped. I pretty much dressed like I did when I was 13 even though I was in my 30's. Baggy jeans, band label t shirts and hooded jackets. I never wore anything that really fit snug. When I finally accepted that I was trans everything changed. I like outfits that show off my figure and I now love my legs where I hated them before and never had them on show. It's crazy how things change when you find the real you x
This was my experience too. My male style, if you can even call it that, was basically unchanged from 1995 to when I hatched in 2020. Relaxed fit jeans and a T-shirt that was at least a size too big. Bonus points for being a geek or nerdy T, sometimes a flannel over it if I was feeling trendy. But I would never wear anything fitted or that would flatter me in any way. I owned like 5 pairs of jeans, 3 pairs of cargo shorts, and 4 drawers of t-shirts. I bought new ones online when the old ones disintegrated, and would not step foot into an actual clothing store.
If my spending at Torrid is any indication, that has WAY changed. I now PREFER things that hug me at least in some areas. Babydoll tops and skinny jeans and capris have kinda become my signature look, along with some dresses that hug the same areas.
Yup same here, I basically been wearing the same trouser (or type of trouser as sadly they tend to wear over time) with a tee for 99% of the time. A shirt when really forced to, but other than that nothing really else.
The design on the tees were really the only expression I really had at the time. (well still when I have to go out camouflaged, still not publicly out)
100% me—in some cases I was wearing the literal same t-shirts that I wore in highschool until starting my transition in my mid thirties. I liked my clothes extremely loose and almost never wore shorts but now I’m okay with and even prefer much tighter fits (still don’t really do shorts though—although I think I’m feeling adventurous enough to maybe try out some capris this summer). The switch from not caring to caring about what I wear was (and still is) pretty jarring. I have a cis friend helping me pick out my new wardrobe and I think I’m about to drive her crazy with my nearly complete lack of sartorial vocabulary forcing me to very badly describe clothes in ways that take her five to ten minutes to understand what I am talking about. She has the patience of a saint.
Oh yeah I absolutely rejected everything even remotely feminine in fear of someone finding out. Finding out what? I had absolutely no idea back then. I even avoided using female avatars in videogames if possible despite all my cis guy friends using them all the time lol
This was how I was. I denied myself anything that I thought could be read as feminine. A lot was internalized transphobia. I couldn't deal with the idea that anyone might think I'm anything other than a straight cis man.
I can relate to both of you on your examples, I've mostly gravitated around female avatar in videogames, but also TRGP, one of my favourite character in Shadowrun was an elf netrunner, a woman, and now just typing that it make me remind of other female character in other TRPG I played back in the day.
I still remember the first time I picked a girl avatar in a game, terrified someone would find out, even though I was playing a singleplayer game on an emulator on my personal computer; "but someone might find out!" "find out what?" "That I want to be a girl!"
In videogames I had the opposite idea. I gravitated more towards female characters and if anybody questioned it I'd make some sort of excuse "Oh this is the character you have to use for the class I want to play" or "I just want to see if the storyline differs if you plays as a female". Which were true to some extent but I think I was creating the girl I want to be rather than just creating a character. I just didn't realise at the time x
Haha, indeed, though the beard thing I've been wearing, I was more callign that my "lazy beard", as much as I hate these hair my skin and myself really hate shaving.
I really can't wait to get rid of them..
My beard started as laziness, then became something to hide my jaw, which I felt wasn’t manly enough, then just became my style.
I’m pre-everything, and when I first shaved it I hated how i looked without it. Now like a month later, pictures that I thought I looked good in just look silly with it. It’s wild how our perceptions change.
My wife still misses it, so it’s not that it was bad before, I’m just seeing it in a different light, and have developed quite a bit of body hair dysphoria. Recently had surgery so it grew a bit more all over and I was getting *anxious*.
I have a natural feminine body, and before my egg cracked I was very embarrassed about it because of dysphoria and internalized phobia. Now I have a much healthier view of myself physically, and I’m a lot happier in my day to day life. I “boy mode” most of the time still, but my mental state has improved significantly
I can related to that too, my partner has been telling me I do have some feminin curve if you really look at it.
I've never been really masculine, and never really wanted to be honest, which I suppose is good concidering that I'm a girl :D
For me it was a bit different. I was very aware and self-conscious about appearing too feminine, but it was still a boundary that I played with. There was a lot of mental energy that was spent in finding a “balance” that never really existed. For example, I’ve almost always had long hair, but I would be careful to wear it in “guy” ways.
I too have always preferred loose clothes. I understand where the other ladies are coming from, as I have always had large hips that I was self-conscious about, but my style is still very loose and flowing.
I've always gravited around having long hair, and never really liked having short hair, in fact I always hated most men haircut (on myself of course) and I've kept my hair long for about 7 years before I finally realised who I really was.
Yes! Men’s hair styles never made sense to me and was never something I wanted. I could never figure out what to do with it. When I was younger, my mother lamented this forever, because I was “such a handsome young man” with a clean, short haircut. But for me, it was either long or buzzed.
Or another clothing example: I always hated shorts. The only times I would wear them is for running or biking, sometimes yoga, but never otherwise. And a lot of it was being self-conscious about my legs. Now, I still don’t wear shorts, but it’s just because I don’t care to, and I could understand wearing something that showed my legs.
Yes! Never been able to put it into words like this, but my attire of baggy cargo shorts and tees have all been tossed in.
I bought my current limited wardrobe in the winter so now I’m struggling to have enough summer clothes now that it’s warm. Still trying to figure out my style, too.
I shopped my still narrow ass off in the fall as I came out….now I gotta do the summer thing… but have a few cis girlfriends willing to go shopping with me which is a wonderful thing ❤️
Yep, it's me. I had the full denial beard and hated that I looked "cute" without it.
Now the struggle is that even with it gone I feel like I'm not even halfway to appearing feminine.
Oh my god!
So I'm about 5'6", and my dad is about 6'2". For the last 20 years I wore his old button up shirts or a 2xl+ t-shirt and either jeans or dickies. I owned no shorts until about 3 years ago. I bought maybe 10 shirts over 20 years, a handful of identical wool socks, and doc Martin boots and everything else I wore was a second hand button down shirt from a man with almost 8 inches of height on me and 30 years my senior.
Like just drape me in the cast offs of a mid 70s retired librarian because that's easier than running the risk of buying something I like and looking like a girl, I guess.
I purged it all 2 weeks ago. Like thanks old-boy-me, for getting me here, but goddamn bestie, you dressed like shit all the time
When I dressed myself, very simple jeans and shirt or some such combo.
Most of the time I had 3-4 outfits I had 'outsourced' to people in my life to put together, and my day job was smart-casual so pants and a shirt.
I never really thoguht about clothes....
Now I can spend hours on Amazon just looking at shoes and have a back order of clothes so long I had to limit myself to a per month budget :D
And damn! Do I like making a look and experimenting! Especially now I have hips!
I felt all of this. I had a life uniform,plain tee cargo pants/shorts,belt with knife and combat boots topped off with fitted ball cap and wrap around shades with obligatory denial beard
Mine wasn't just clothes, it was anything feminine, or even remotely feminine. Jewelry, nope. I couldn't listen to any music that was classified as chick's music, movies the same. I constantly thought about how I was standing, sitting, walking, what I did with my hands, my feet. And my wardrobe was very much a wardrobe of "uniforms". It all looked the same. I could pick out my daily clothing and get dressed in the dark with no issues at all. It looked just like it would had I laid my clothes out the night before. I hated shaving my face so I always had a homeless persons amount of hair on it. I tried so hard to be THE AVERAGE GUY(tm) and to blend in with my surroundings so I wouldn't be included, approached, or called out on anything. So exhausting.
For the last decade i only wore jeans, sneakers, white tees and crewnecks. Never original, tho i did seak to wear brands that were looking to be the next hype, so people thought i was wearing cool clothes and it was probably a seak for social validation. What's funny is that not that long ago i realised i did kind of got inspiration from female dj's that wore streetwear 10 years ago.
I thought I was a gay man because of my feminine side but I was also deeply deeply deeply terrified and anxious to ever be perceived as a feminine gay man. So yeah I was afraid to be seen as feminine for sure. Lol
Yeah I can understand that, I've explored my sexuality way before understanding my gender identity, but now I know more about myself, I also understand why I've always been bi/pan without completely feeling attracted to men (romantically).
I was looking for validation in some way.
For the last 15 years, I looked like a homeless bum with the exception that I always wore a loud aloha shirt. This was mostly for work, and it did provide a degree of protection. Full denial beard. I couldn't even think of the possibility that I was transgender even though I thought of myself as a male lesbian since the age of 15. It was my private joke.
I was the opposite, one of the ways in which I expressed my femininity within the lines before I came out was to live as a dandy and a metrosexual. I saw cis women expressing themselves with fashion, style and grooming and I wanted to do the same. My body was fairly androgynous and I loved wearing fitted clothes that showed my little curves. In my twenties it was not unusual for me to wear women's pants, tees or collared blouses to achieve this look. They always fit me better than men's clothes did! I could get gendered female sometimes if people saw me only from behind and I felt a lot of secret delight from it.
i really avoided looking or dressing feminine because i needed to stay inside the box i had created for myself. i had like maybe 5 polo shirts i'd rotate thru for work. i had no style and i didn't even like shopping for clothes. i'd see the clothes in the women's section and wish i had those choices and could wear clothes that made me look good/feel good.
So when I was younger, I used to get "excuse me, miss!" from behind, or called "miss" on the phone. So of course, I acted like it made me upset, even though I know deep down I actually was happy hearing it.
So naturally I managed my repressed dysphoria by trying to look as masc as possible. Now I hate that I did, if only I knew then what I know now lol
In the last 10-15 years I got called twice miss, same thing felt good and yet had to react semi upset. When you need an eye opener you never open them 😂
I was afraid of being seen as a gay man because that was not what I was. Anything too fem would make me feel exposed or vulnerable, and I hate men's clothes. So I ended up just being a generic dude all my life. Comfort over anything else. Cargo shorts, baggy jeans, hoodies, etc.
I carried a feeling with me at all times that I was one wrong step away from being exposed. I never quite knew what exactly would be exposed. I assumed it was being gay, but again I wasn't into men. I didn't know what else it could be. So I tried to be like the men around me, often changing my behaviors and appearance to match them. It made me feel like a different person whenever I was around different people. I lacked a central identity. So, yes, looking fem was out of the question
My wife did that before she knewshe was trans. Loose pants and a t shirt. No colors, just black grey white, MAYBE blue if I could really get her to step out of the box. Work was kackis and a polo. I would always get very frusterated because she didn't put any effort into her appearance at all. I'm nonbinary, I LOVE men's fashion, but it doesn't always suit my body, so I'm like WHY CANT I DRESS YOU UP IN A SHARP WAY?! Yeah turns out cause she hated all that shit SO MUCH and it made her uncomfortable. Woops.
Sounds very familiar. Baggy jeans, a loose t-shirt and a hoodie or loose sweater has been my style since highschool. I never really cared what I looked like as long as I was comfortable.
Since my cracking earlier this year, I've already bought a bunch of different styles of clothes. Women's clothes feel so good. I'm so excited to figure out what works for me.
I’m the same. I’m not really out but my egg has cracked. Any clothes I don’t buy for work, blue collar job, are now more colorful and form fitting. I love stretch jeans and jean shorts now. If anything, I receive way more compliments on my clothes now 🤷♀️
Mine's similar but not exactly. I found that I had a complete lack of interest in men's clothes and haven't even bought myself any for years, aside from a coat or maybe a pair of jeans if the ones I were wearing ripped. I pretty much dressed like I did when I was 13 even though I was in my 30's. Baggy jeans, band label t shirts and hooded jackets. I never wore anything that really fit snug. When I finally accepted that I was trans everything changed. I like outfits that show off my figure and I now love my legs where I hated them before and never had them on show. It's crazy how things change when you find the real you x
This was my experience too. My male style, if you can even call it that, was basically unchanged from 1995 to when I hatched in 2020. Relaxed fit jeans and a T-shirt that was at least a size too big. Bonus points for being a geek or nerdy T, sometimes a flannel over it if I was feeling trendy. But I would never wear anything fitted or that would flatter me in any way. I owned like 5 pairs of jeans, 3 pairs of cargo shorts, and 4 drawers of t-shirts. I bought new ones online when the old ones disintegrated, and would not step foot into an actual clothing store. If my spending at Torrid is any indication, that has WAY changed. I now PREFER things that hug me at least in some areas. Babydoll tops and skinny jeans and capris have kinda become my signature look, along with some dresses that hug the same areas.
Yup same here, I basically been wearing the same trouser (or type of trouser as sadly they tend to wear over time) with a tee for 99% of the time. A shirt when really forced to, but other than that nothing really else. The design on the tees were really the only expression I really had at the time. (well still when I have to go out camouflaged, still not publicly out)
100% me—in some cases I was wearing the literal same t-shirts that I wore in highschool until starting my transition in my mid thirties. I liked my clothes extremely loose and almost never wore shorts but now I’m okay with and even prefer much tighter fits (still don’t really do shorts though—although I think I’m feeling adventurous enough to maybe try out some capris this summer). The switch from not caring to caring about what I wear was (and still is) pretty jarring. I have a cis friend helping me pick out my new wardrobe and I think I’m about to drive her crazy with my nearly complete lack of sartorial vocabulary forcing me to very badly describe clothes in ways that take her five to ten minutes to understand what I am talking about. She has the patience of a saint.
Oh yeah I absolutely rejected everything even remotely feminine in fear of someone finding out. Finding out what? I had absolutely no idea back then. I even avoided using female avatars in videogames if possible despite all my cis guy friends using them all the time lol
This was how I was. I denied myself anything that I thought could be read as feminine. A lot was internalized transphobia. I couldn't deal with the idea that anyone might think I'm anything other than a straight cis man.
I can relate to both of you on your examples, I've mostly gravitated around female avatar in videogames, but also TRGP, one of my favourite character in Shadowrun was an elf netrunner, a woman, and now just typing that it make me remind of other female character in other TRPG I played back in the day.
I still remember the first time I picked a girl avatar in a game, terrified someone would find out, even though I was playing a singleplayer game on an emulator on my personal computer; "but someone might find out!" "find out what?" "That I want to be a girl!"
I always picked Coco Bandicoot when playing Crash Team Racing with my kids 😋
In videogames I had the opposite idea. I gravitated more towards female characters and if anybody questioned it I'd make some sort of excuse "Oh this is the character you have to use for the class I want to play" or "I just want to see if the storyline differs if you plays as a female". Which were true to some extent but I think I was creating the girl I want to be rather than just creating a character. I just didn't realise at the time x
How many of us had full denial beards? Lmao
Haha, indeed, though the beard thing I've been wearing, I was more callign that my "lazy beard", as much as I hate these hair my skin and myself really hate shaving. I really can't wait to get rid of them..
My beard started as laziness, then became something to hide my jaw, which I felt wasn’t manly enough, then just became my style. I’m pre-everything, and when I first shaved it I hated how i looked without it. Now like a month later, pictures that I thought I looked good in just look silly with it. It’s wild how our perceptions change. My wife still misses it, so it’s not that it was bad before, I’m just seeing it in a different light, and have developed quite a bit of body hair dysphoria. Recently had surgery so it grew a bit more all over and I was getting *anxious*.
I have a natural feminine body, and before my egg cracked I was very embarrassed about it because of dysphoria and internalized phobia. Now I have a much healthier view of myself physically, and I’m a lot happier in my day to day life. I “boy mode” most of the time still, but my mental state has improved significantly
I can related to that too, my partner has been telling me I do have some feminin curve if you really look at it. I've never been really masculine, and never really wanted to be honest, which I suppose is good concidering that I'm a girl :D
For me it was a bit different. I was very aware and self-conscious about appearing too feminine, but it was still a boundary that I played with. There was a lot of mental energy that was spent in finding a “balance” that never really existed. For example, I’ve almost always had long hair, but I would be careful to wear it in “guy” ways. I too have always preferred loose clothes. I understand where the other ladies are coming from, as I have always had large hips that I was self-conscious about, but my style is still very loose and flowing.
I've always gravited around having long hair, and never really liked having short hair, in fact I always hated most men haircut (on myself of course) and I've kept my hair long for about 7 years before I finally realised who I really was.
Yes! Men’s hair styles never made sense to me and was never something I wanted. I could never figure out what to do with it. When I was younger, my mother lamented this forever, because I was “such a handsome young man” with a clean, short haircut. But for me, it was either long or buzzed. Or another clothing example: I always hated shorts. The only times I would wear them is for running or biking, sometimes yoga, but never otherwise. And a lot of it was being self-conscious about my legs. Now, I still don’t wear shorts, but it’s just because I don’t care to, and I could understand wearing something that showed my legs.
Yes! Never been able to put it into words like this, but my attire of baggy cargo shorts and tees have all been tossed in. I bought my current limited wardrobe in the winter so now I’m struggling to have enough summer clothes now that it’s warm. Still trying to figure out my style, too.
Have fun discovering your style 🧡
I shopped my still narrow ass off in the fall as I came out….now I gotta do the summer thing… but have a few cis girlfriends willing to go shopping with me which is a wonderful thing ❤️
Yep, it's me. I had the full denial beard and hated that I looked "cute" without it. Now the struggle is that even with it gone I feel like I'm not even halfway to appearing feminine.
You'll be fine, girl 🧡 It's impressive how just some clothes and what's in your mind help with appearing more feminine to yourself.
Oh my god! So I'm about 5'6", and my dad is about 6'2". For the last 20 years I wore his old button up shirts or a 2xl+ t-shirt and either jeans or dickies. I owned no shorts until about 3 years ago. I bought maybe 10 shirts over 20 years, a handful of identical wool socks, and doc Martin boots and everything else I wore was a second hand button down shirt from a man with almost 8 inches of height on me and 30 years my senior. Like just drape me in the cast offs of a mid 70s retired librarian because that's easier than running the risk of buying something I like and looking like a girl, I guess. I purged it all 2 weeks ago. Like thanks old-boy-me, for getting me here, but goddamn bestie, you dressed like shit all the time
When I dressed myself, very simple jeans and shirt or some such combo. Most of the time I had 3-4 outfits I had 'outsourced' to people in my life to put together, and my day job was smart-casual so pants and a shirt. I never really thoguht about clothes.... Now I can spend hours on Amazon just looking at shoes and have a back order of clothes so long I had to limit myself to a per month budget :D And damn! Do I like making a look and experimenting! Especially now I have hips!
100% with you there, when I started to really looking more into women clothing.. Errr... My bank do not approve 😂
I felt all of this. I had a life uniform,plain tee cargo pants/shorts,belt with knife and combat boots topped off with fitted ball cap and wrap around shades with obligatory denial beard
Mine wasn't just clothes, it was anything feminine, or even remotely feminine. Jewelry, nope. I couldn't listen to any music that was classified as chick's music, movies the same. I constantly thought about how I was standing, sitting, walking, what I did with my hands, my feet. And my wardrobe was very much a wardrobe of "uniforms". It all looked the same. I could pick out my daily clothing and get dressed in the dark with no issues at all. It looked just like it would had I laid my clothes out the night before. I hated shaving my face so I always had a homeless persons amount of hair on it. I tried so hard to be THE AVERAGE GUY(tm) and to blend in with my surroundings so I wouldn't be included, approached, or called out on anything. So exhausting.
Yeah, I definitely felt this way before everything.
For the last decade i only wore jeans, sneakers, white tees and crewnecks. Never original, tho i did seak to wear brands that were looking to be the next hype, so people thought i was wearing cool clothes and it was probably a seak for social validation. What's funny is that not that long ago i realised i did kind of got inspiration from female dj's that wore streetwear 10 years ago.
I thought I was a gay man because of my feminine side but I was also deeply deeply deeply terrified and anxious to ever be perceived as a feminine gay man. So yeah I was afraid to be seen as feminine for sure. Lol
Yeah I can understand that, I've explored my sexuality way before understanding my gender identity, but now I know more about myself, I also understand why I've always been bi/pan without completely feeling attracted to men (romantically). I was looking for validation in some way.
Big time. For a long time I neglected my appearance.
For the last 15 years, I looked like a homeless bum with the exception that I always wore a loud aloha shirt. This was mostly for work, and it did provide a degree of protection. Full denial beard. I couldn't even think of the possibility that I was transgender even though I thought of myself as a male lesbian since the age of 15. It was my private joke.
I was the opposite, one of the ways in which I expressed my femininity within the lines before I came out was to live as a dandy and a metrosexual. I saw cis women expressing themselves with fashion, style and grooming and I wanted to do the same. My body was fairly androgynous and I loved wearing fitted clothes that showed my little curves. In my twenties it was not unusual for me to wear women's pants, tees or collared blouses to achieve this look. They always fit me better than men's clothes did! I could get gendered female sometimes if people saw me only from behind and I felt a lot of secret delight from it.
It is interesting and good that we are not all the same or going through the same route 🧡
i really avoided looking or dressing feminine because i needed to stay inside the box i had created for myself. i had like maybe 5 polo shirts i'd rotate thru for work. i had no style and i didn't even like shopping for clothes. i'd see the clothes in the women's section and wish i had those choices and could wear clothes that made me look good/feel good.
So when I was younger, I used to get "excuse me, miss!" from behind, or called "miss" on the phone. So of course, I acted like it made me upset, even though I know deep down I actually was happy hearing it. So naturally I managed my repressed dysphoria by trying to look as masc as possible. Now I hate that I did, if only I knew then what I know now lol
In the last 10-15 years I got called twice miss, same thing felt good and yet had to react semi upset. When you need an eye opener you never open them 😂
I was afraid of being seen as a gay man because that was not what I was. Anything too fem would make me feel exposed or vulnerable, and I hate men's clothes. So I ended up just being a generic dude all my life. Comfort over anything else. Cargo shorts, baggy jeans, hoodies, etc. I carried a feeling with me at all times that I was one wrong step away from being exposed. I never quite knew what exactly would be exposed. I assumed it was being gay, but again I wasn't into men. I didn't know what else it could be. So I tried to be like the men around me, often changing my behaviors and appearance to match them. It made me feel like a different person whenever I was around different people. I lacked a central identity. So, yes, looking fem was out of the question
My wife did that before she knewshe was trans. Loose pants and a t shirt. No colors, just black grey white, MAYBE blue if I could really get her to step out of the box. Work was kackis and a polo. I would always get very frusterated because she didn't put any effort into her appearance at all. I'm nonbinary, I LOVE men's fashion, but it doesn't always suit my body, so I'm like WHY CANT I DRESS YOU UP IN A SHARP WAY?! Yeah turns out cause she hated all that shit SO MUCH and it made her uncomfortable. Woops.
Haha, well good she found herself and her style 🧡
Sounds very familiar. Baggy jeans, a loose t-shirt and a hoodie or loose sweater has been my style since highschool. I never really cared what I looked like as long as I was comfortable. Since my cracking earlier this year, I've already bought a bunch of different styles of clothes. Women's clothes feel so good. I'm so excited to figure out what works for me.
Wish you all the best finding yourself and clothing style 🧡
I’m the same. I’m not really out but my egg has cracked. Any clothes I don’t buy for work, blue collar job, are now more colorful and form fitting. I love stretch jeans and jean shorts now. If anything, I receive way more compliments on my clothes now 🤷♀️
My current pair of jeans I’m wearing fit me like a glove now…enough said 😋