Disclaimers
This post has contents that discuss subjects like body image, dysphoria, and mental health, all from a trans woman's perspective. If you feel uncomfortable with these topics, please consider not reading further, or leaving this for another moment.
To get out of boymoding
In 2023, I started therapy, I had a lot of goals, but one of them was to talk about being trans with
someone. I have known I was a woman since 2016, and I had presented myself as one online since at least
2017. But
the real world and the virtual one are very different, to get out of my shell I needed help. Therapy is
great, I recommend wholeheartedly. It culminated with me, in 2024, starting HRT and "kind of" socially
transitioning.
I say kind of, because the concept of socially transitioning is very fluid. It encompasses a lot of things,
what do you tell people, how you introduce yourself, how you dress, etc. For me, it meant that I wanted to
dress as I wanted, and I would always introduce myself as Agatha, unless I needed legal backing, because I
have not changed my name legally. So, places like work have no idea, but my friends and family do. Also I
always use the name Agatha when applicable, and I will correct people when they misgender me.
This brings us to the topic of clothes and fashion, the trans community coined the term "boymoding" to refer
to those moments where you dress in a way that aligns more with a boy, for any reason, it's a temporary
mode, something you do out of necessity. And I just always "boymoded", I don't wear dresses, thigh highs,
skirts, or any of that, but here's the thing: I never wanted to.
Don't get me wrong, I love and support all the spinny skirts and programmer socks, what matters is you
feeling good with how you are, how you get there is up to you. But I did not see me in items like that, at
the time I wasn't sure why, and internalized dysphoria is always an obstacle that is hard to even notice,
but if I'm writing this, it's because I reached my answer, thankfully.
Clothes have no gender
Another concept that I saw a lot on online spaces is that concept of "dysphoria hoodie", usually a baggy,
oversized hoodie you wear to hide your body, in essence, to not feel "boyish", or even to hide HRT effects.
It is treated as a stepping stone, you wear it until you don't need it anymore, and then you wear more
"feminine" clothes. Makes sense, until you realize you don't want to wear dresses or skirts, maybe you
genuinely like hoodies. You definitely are a woman, yet you like things that maybe are found on the men's
section, are you being a bad trans woman? Of course not, that is ridiculous, yet a lot of times you just
feel like it is the case. That there are expectations of how a trans woman needs to be, and you can be less
or more one.
The truth is, clothes have no gender. Gender is a social construct that requires consciousness to exist,
people have gender (or the inexistence of it), clothes don't. Clothes have sizes, styles, cuts, colors, but
not gender. I firmly believe that. This is focusing on self-expression, and not on what society expects from
you, I'm not blind to gender norms and societal expectations, but please entertain me here.
So, now that we established that, I started to explore fashion in a way that made me feel good. For years I
had this choker that I slowly built the courage to use, and I'm very fond of it, so I know what feels good.
Around a year ago I got enamored by techwear, those utilitarian, yet stylish clothes captured my
imagination, unfortunately they are both very expensive, and very easy to notice, a pain when anxiety kicks
in. My solution was to dial it down a bit, the style that I'd argue techwear expands upon is streetwear, and
that is way more approachable. I specifically bought a large, oversized t-shirt, and some cargo joggers,
and it was essentially my look for an entire year. It was comfortable, it made me feel good, I never thought
"Oh, I'm dressing like a boy", no, I'm dressing like me.
I guess I now really like fashion
So, fast forward to a year later, I had that yearly mood of "new clothes", and I wanted to expand my
wardrobe. Techwear remained very expensive, so, I just went to a big-brand store, with my girlfriend, and we
browsed for things that caught my attention, some boxy and oversized t-shirts, and an "super baggy" pair of
jeans, I adored how those looked. And if you ask my wallet, that was the big mistake.
When I was going home that evening, I opened a website on my phone, a Brazilian clothing store specialized
in streetwear and some techwear. I had seen a jacket the other day, but dismissed as too expensive, too
much money for clothing. Now? I was on a high, it was the last day of a sale, and I got the jacket and a
cat-eared beanie. Oh, it was getting fun.
I didn't had any cool shoes to go with those outfits, so I started looking for some, throughout my journey,
and this is controversial, a big helper was actually Gemini, the Google's LLM. Surprisingly, asking for
style
tips, and asking what works and what doesn't is a very helpful use case, and it being an AI, it reduced a
great deal of anxiety. I didn't have to look at extremely pretty people online, it was just words on a
screen, of
course, it's overly optimistic, but actually this is a time where being optimistic wasn't a bad thing.
Fashion
is 60% attitude, being positive that "this works" is over half of the journey. Could I have achieved the
same effect with other sources? Yes, but honestly, so much content, including fashion-related, is AI
generated nowadays anyway, at least Gemini called me Agatha.
Back to the shoes, I ended up making the mistake of browsing the Nike store, seeing the fancy limited
editions, getting an Air Force 1 Summit White that did not fit well because Nike sizing is garbage (but it
was the biggest one and I just had to make it fit), and it only grew from there. I now like sneakers, it's a
part of me. AF1s, Air Jordans, now a Puma Mostro, and it's just so cool, it inspired me to get more clothes,
to actually think about what matches, what colors go well together, and I just feel good, I feel so happy
when I go out dressed the way I enjoy.
This was, of course, expensive. I have a lot of installments to pay, but I don't regret a thing. I bought a
lot of things that just gather dust, but this? I use every single piece of clothing I bought, and I feel
good about it. I can experiment with more "statement pieces", like the cat-eared beanie, and I just bought
even more (thank you Black Friday sales), on stores I thought I'd never go to. It's only the start, and I am
so incredibly happy about it.
Final thoughts
Fashion is about self expression. There is no wrong way to dress (screw dress codes), there is no wrong way
to be yourself. You aren't more or less of who you are because of what you wear. If you love baggy
clothes or tight dresses, if you like sneakers, heels or big stompy boots, no matter how it may feel. As I
said, fashion is 60% attitude, and managing to get that attitude is the biggest step we can take, what is
more badass than being yourself?
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