Not All Girls Are Expected to Be Feminine
Yet another way that the myth of a singular “female socialization” fails.
For girls of many cultures & class backgrounds, “female socialization” means being expected to be strong, self-sufficient, and resiliently womanly.
Before I transitioned, I spent two or three years wearing nothing but dresses. I favored silky sheaths and kicky, brightly patterned skater dresses with open, flouncy skirts. I wore them over bicycle shorts or leggings with low-cut tennis shoes, but they were still quite impractical for any kind of strenuous labor or even office work. It didn’t matter. I wore them anyway, day or night, summer or winter, while at my desk or on a run, no matter the situation. I kept my hair long, and I bleached it at home with hydrogen peroxide and sunlight.
Other people didn’t really love this. You could say I was performing femininity, which in someone assigned female at birth you’d think would be desirable, but most people looked sideways at it because it was so over-the-top and frivolous. I was freezing cold in the winters, constantly risked revealing my underwear when I sat down in the summers, too underdressed for any job interview, and too playful in my silhouette to be…
