In 2024, I stopped wearing dresses and grew disdainful towards tight clothing. There is nothing wrong with dresses, they are beautiful things, and yet they always feel like fabric I’m hiding behind, but never seen within. I was forcing myself to fit into a mold of beauty that wasn’t made for me, and yet I tried again and again and again. Now my eyes glaze over looking at a picture of myself in a particular pink dress as I search for recognition, and I find none. I also stopped wearing excessively compressive workout leggings last year - spandex blends that could squeeze me tight enough to cut off my circulation are no longer a part of my wardrobe. I thought this material would give me the thinnest legs possible, make me appear the most feminine, but all it did was restrict my full range of motion when I was made to run and leap and play with ease.
I was wearing these items, constantly, and why? Because I was told from a young age by the society we live in that looking a certain way, acting a certain degree of feminine, would make me worthy in some sense of the word? Wanting my body to look both “delicate” and “snatched” for this faux promise is a patriarchal construct that leaves me gasping for air, my lungs compressed by an ever tightening corset. It’s like I turned 25, and I was no longer content with constriction, both from the clothing that adorns my body and the institutions that bind me, but the latter is made of crueler material.
I’ve always experimented with clothing, but 2024 was a year of a larger awakening in me. Firstly,, I now know what true love looks like, and it never had anything to do with how feminine I looked, or how tight a garment was on my skin. I have the most incredibly supportive friends, who are the brightest people I know. I have a partner who shows up unapologetically himself each and every day. None of us love one another because of appearances. We love and accept each other for who we are. I’m constantly shown the roadmap of what kindness, unconditional love, and the beauty of bravery can bring me towards, and it is mother f**king COMFORTABLE, not constricting.
Secondly, the society we live in preys on our vulnerabilities to sell us a product, and I was being sold heavily on the idea of what “womanhood” was supposed to mean. It was difficult to discern what I wanted, from what I was told to want. I realized for me, androgyny fit my body better than femininity. With this new understanding of myself and the support of my chosen family, I stopped dressing for the male gaze, and I sought more degrees of freedom around every corner.
I’m sick of the confines of these societal norms, and I hope to ditch them, like my dresses, in 2025. Perhaps this year we will wrestle out of other troubling constrictions, together. I know I’ll be wearing my most gender-euphoric and comfortable clothing in the fight against patriarchy, capitalism and fascism, and I hope you’ll join me.
All my love & happy new year
-Katie
Music Recs:
The wicked soundtrack - oh my. I’m thoroughly obsessed with the movie and the soundtrack.
Everybody’s Baby by Beeson - this song makes me feel like I’m in a movie
Humble by Ren
Power, Sex, Dreams by Annika Bennett
Last Last Time by Boys Go to Jupiter
Icy Windy Sky by Ugly (UK)
Book Recs:
Martyr! by Kevin Akbar & Priory of The Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon - these were the last two books I read in 2024 and were some of my top reads of the whole year! It was like putting a ribbon and bow around 2024 <3
Other Recs
PAVLOVA’S omg I followed this recipe and they were DIVINE