During the first half of my post-college adulthood, the personal gender concept I established in college held firm, if not back-seated in my brain. I didn’t struggle with or dispute it in any way. I simply embraced it and tucked it in and never really engaged in conversations related to it.
In these years, I explored my kink, I established a ten-plus year run as an erotic illustrator as a side gig, and took advantage of the attention my massive frame drew among gay men. I don’t recall the language being used, but I would have been mistaken for a cisgender gay man, even by myself, even as I still thought of myself as I had in college.
After a headlong run-in with lymphoma, six months of chemotherapy, and the ending of the longest relationship I had experienced at that point, I started exploring clothing-as-expression. During this time, I began drifting from the leather community and into the local artist community. The changes in my body shape and size from treatment left me with few clothing options to present myself in any way that I found attractive or purposeful beyond public decency.
This is when I was introduced to thrift stores. Although I had always been a discount/bargain shopper, thrifting opened up so many expressive options that literally sold for pennies. As my wardrobe grew, so did my awareness of my gender comfort in terms of clothing boundaries. My art shifted from erotic illustration to photographic imagery and mixed media. I began to use my obviously male body in traditionally feminine clothing as way to speak of the absurdity of arbitrary gender concepts. Lingerie didn’t make me appear feminine, it made cis-het men uncomfortable. At least a particular sort of cis-het men. I was rather fond of this realization.
Somewhere close in time to this period, I realized an additional benefit of the fluidity of my inner gender concept and my comfort level with varied gender expression: if I was so comfortable in my gender and in confronting gender norms, I should do so with impunity to help build safer space and challenge status quo for those of my community that weren’t yet so comfortable in their gender expression. Essentially, help normalize gender-queerness.
The events I attended were burlesque acts, and art openings, and drag shows, and various small art group gatherings. In my wardrobe, something was lacy, something was “normal”, something has a color pop, something whispered queer. Waist-cinchers replaced vests under tweed sport coats. Vintage catalogue girdles peaked out from overcoats. Lavender socks with garters peaked out from linen trousers. A-shirts were replaced with camisoles under dress shirt and tie.
In the imagery of my artwork, dandyism replaced conventional leather kinks. Skirts replaced pants. Scarves replaced clothing. Lingerie regularly appeared in otherwise typically cis-gay erotica. I used my artist-as-model body to represent both masculine and feminine archetypical figures.
I enjoyed this time immensely. I never considered any of my self-portraits as not inherently a genuine part of my own sense of self and identity. I never felt inauthentic through any of it.
Then circumstances changed and I had to give up my studio workspace and home. As I scrambled to find a place to live and maintain my daytime job, I found little to no time left over to continue with my art or with the events and occasions I had made as reasons for fancy queer dress.
It would be years later before I realized the impact that loss of expression would have on my gender identity…
quantum man 