When I go out to an “Outreach” at a college, one of the stereotypes that some of the students have is the way we dress. They expect me to come in to class with a bouffant hairdo, a dress, stiletto heels and tons of makeup and when I come in wearing jeans, sneakers and a denim jacket, it breaks their stereotype. I have never been one to use a lot of make-up, for me when I wear lipstick I’m dressed up. I think too much make-up brings about more scrutiny. Many people have the stereotype image of a trans-person from the pictures that are flashed on the news from Pride parades or television shows and they present a distorted view of the transgender community. So when I go out, I dress as your typical middle age woman and I want to blend in to the crowd.
I am comfortable in jeans and turtlenecks with sneakers or ankle boots in the winter or capris and tank tops with sandals in the summer. I also like gauze skirts and tops, the hippy look. Maybe that is because I couldn’t dress that way in the sixties so I am making up for it now. When I was working at my internship I wore casual business attire, slacks with a blouse and maybe a sweater. For shoes I wore 1” pumps. Once in a great while I wore a skirt or a dress, but those were usually reserved to meetings or when I was at the state capitol or the Legislative Office Building, I was always amazed with all the women who wore high heels there because walking on the marble floors was hard on the feet.
When I do have to dress up, I have my basic “LBD” and black 2 ¼ inch pumps or in warmer weather black 1” sandals. (You can see me in my LBD here at the semi-formal dance for the graduating students.) I do like to get dressed up occasionally, usually I attend three or functions a year where I have to get dressed up.
This is my style; other people have their style, they like to wear dresses and heels and that is okay. We each dress differently, that is why they have racks and racks of clothes and a huge variety of stores.
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