like, one possible reason for why so many trans people, especially young trans people, get fancy haircuts or haircolors, piercings or tattoos, or all of the above or a mixture of some of it…
is that that’s a way we can take control over our bodies. change them in a way we want to. get a feeling that they actually belong to us.
honestly, the feeling i had after having got a tattoo was such a relief – i was overjoyed! and looking back, it did actually reduce my dysphoria. not necessarily in a way i really noticed right away at the time, but definitely in a way i can notice when i look back at it.
when hormones and surgeries are constantly gatekept from us, making small changes like these to our bodies can be a really empowering thing.
so it’s really disheartening to see it constantly being made fun of.
yeah honestly.. i feel like alternative styles is like a really effective way of deviating from norms?
like, goth/punk/emo etc aren’t “traditional” ways of looking, thus the fashion doesn’t fit within gender roles.. hence why many rock stars and such are thought of as androgynous and what not..
because when you get all funky with things, with your expression.. you can’t really easily squeeze that into masculine or feminine..
and you know, i feel it’s also a very easy way to sort of “cheat” too.. if your hair is all wild n purple, n u got a ton of piercing, n purple lipstick, n ur wearing like fishnets over ur arms n shit.. ppl are probably less likely to notice stuff like a trans girl wearing makeup or a skirt? or the fact that they have long hair..
like, when i was younger, because i was the sort of rocker type.. people didnt really question too much why i had long hair.. because the “deviation” from the traditional was already broken through other things.. thus it’s not as much of a contrast?
and u kno, another thing is that i feel like my large non-conformity as being punk is almost inseparable from being queer at this point… like to me this really is how i want to “transition” mostly in a sense? have freedom over my expression and how i present myself.. by going all out.
good post op.
Truuuuuueee. As a non-binary punk I also get a lot less “are you a boy or a girl?” shit when I’ll totally punked out then when I look more mainstream. Part of it is that gender deviation is more common in punk, another part is that a lot of people sort of treat punks in public spaces as ‘not one of us’ to the point of not caring about their gender. So I don’t look like a boy or a girl? People either don’t notice that or don’t care when genderfucking is the least remarkable thing about how I look.
QueerAnarchism 