For me, learning to own my gender has been about joy.
Given that I wear clothes every day, I deserve to feel joyous when I put them on.
The thing that I love about my gender and my expression and the way that I exist in the world
is that I break rules from both sides of the camp.
I don't shave my body hair and that's not in accordance with femme rules.
I wear heels, which is not in accordance with masculine rules.
I've given myself permission to cherry-pick
what I love from each gender tradition and to create my own tradition of
what feels good on my body, what silhouettes I love, what shapes I love, and how I love to adorn myself.
Thrifting was the beginning of my fashion journey.
I love that thrift spaces are
necessarily more gender creative than retail because most retail environments
are so fucking coded around, like, "You're supposed to wear this and you're supposed to wear this."
When I was 16 or so, I had this group of friends–
It was actually a group of friends from church camp.
One of the ways we would kill time is we'd go to random thrift stores and buy the
silliest things we could. It was all about fun and play.
For me, that's how I first accessed my gender creativity.
I actually had permission to try out different things.
For example, spirit day and spirit week in high school–those sorts of weird creative playful spaces
were what gave me permission to find my aesthetic and to figure out what I really wanted on my body.
It was pretty gradual, the learning process of claiming my femme in public.
I bought my first pair of heels when I was 16.
It was scary to go into a woman's store to buy them because I thought I might get in trouble somehow.
I went to the Charlotte Russe with my friend Davis.
The experience itself, nothing bad happened to us, but also everyone was kind of looking like, "What's going on?"
I took them home. I wouldn't wear them anywhere.
I just had them and would wear them privately, like in the kitchen after my parents had gone to bed.
It took a year or so to really take them out in public.
I wore them at this summer camp that I was at for a day as a social experiment.
What I told myself that's was that my social experiment was successful,
but what I really felt was like, "Oh, fuck. I like this a lot."
My closet is super high-low.
Half of it's, you know, taffeta designer ballgowns that were gifted to me.
I don't even know what they retail for, but I know it's $1,000 or higher.
Literally next to a ball gown that I got for seven dollars or $7.99 at the Goodwill.
I love my clothes. Most of my stuff has story to it.
I remember almost where I got almost everything.
Although every now and then there are weird exceptions.
I can't remember where I got these camo shorts.
For me, this is sort of kinky extravagant faggy perfection.
You have a little short short that like keep it real
A) it's sexy because you're showing a lot of skin
but B) it's also like, don't forget that I'm not a butch stud–femme cutie little vibes.
This t-shirt is an I Heart Beijing shirt my friend from middle school/high school went to Beijing for a study away program
or something and came back with this for me because she loves me and she knows me.
Clearly, the people who made the t-shirt are in on the joke.
I have this little leather cuff, which I literally found on the ground and I was like, "Yes, thank you leather gods."
This was originally a full leather trench coat.
I cut it up to make these weird, inverted Batman tails,
edgy crop top in the back, like leather whatever.
This collar is from my friend Nat in Chicago, who makes custom glitter vinyl kink gear.
She also gave me this little beanie baby that she put in a little harness.
Right now, she's in Boho Palm Springs grandma chic.
This is a lovely little floral pantaloon.
One of my friends in college was a serial hoarder/drifter.
She was also six feet tall and had a rib cage, so we're basically the same size in everything.
She was getting rid of big garbage bags of clothes.
She gave me these pants among a number of other things that are in my wardrobe.
This jacket sparks just too much joy.
It's the kind of jacket where if I wore it to an event, when I wear it to an event.
I'm gonna be distracted all night, because I'm just going to be like...
Oh my gosh, these earrings are so special.
They're from my friend Brian Velovic, who lived as a trans woman named Tish Jervais.
Tish was an iconic performer.
Brian made the choice to re-transition and live more as a genderqueer gay dude.
They gave me these earrings because they were like, "They're from my Tisch days and I thought you'd do them justice."
So, you know, they have some beautiful 1970s/1980s trans magic in them.
I don't even know what you'd call this look.
Is it masculine? Is it feminine? Where does it land?
It's a suit, but it's with heels.
The clip-on earrings, I guess, femme it up and certainly the makeup does, but
what tradition is this following in?
Initially, high heels were all about my agency, my ability to claim and own
my gender in a way that felt really good for me.
Increasingly, as my career's going on,
I'm starting to face some of the challenges that lots of cis women face,
which is that high heels become an obligation.
"Red carpet, better wear a high heel."
"Oh, with that dress you need to wear heels because the train–it just demands it."
I'm starting to realize, "Uh-oh. Did I just crawl into another trap?"
After my book tour, or mid-my-book-tour, I was really, really, really tired and my body was a wreck just because I was on a plane every single day.
I was wearing cute shoes to all my events and I came home to LA and I had literally 12 hours or 15 hours in LA
between when I landed and when I flew back to New York to do The Daily Show.
I had a book event that night. I came home, unpacked my first suitcase, had to repack for the second leg of my book tour.
By the time I was actually getting dressed, I didn't have enough time for a proper nap.
I was like, "My back is about to explode. I'm wearing cowboy boots to this event tonight."
My new sort of discovery is that my cowgirl boots are actually my power move for when I'm meeting with people.
There's something about showing up in a sleek outfit
and a badass, put together, high femme look, face done, looking incredible in cowgirl boots.
They have this super masculine edge to them, but they're also really femme but they're not trying hard,
but they're also asserting a power.
When I first moved to New York, I couldn't afford anything in there, but I was like, I'm just gonna go to Bergdorf Goodman
or Barney's–all that kind of stuff.
I thought it would be fun to at least go window-shopping.
I was having no fun because all these customers are hella judgey.
"Why are you in this space? The space isn't for you."
It's not like I'm boycotting retail space until they improve, but why would I shop somewhere that doesn't inspire me?
Why would I shop somewhere that feels dumb, where the construction of the artifice is everything
and the actual like beautiful thing you're buying and the substance isn't there?
I don't think we've won if we create some gender neutral world in which there is no gender.
I think we only win if we create a world that is just filled to the brim, where every kind of expression is
appreciated in its own right, every type of expression is adored and celebrated.
In my dream world gender is just like a really good vintage store.
There's so many different shapes and cuts and silhouettes,
there are a million different fabrics and textures.
The space doesn't suggest what is right and what isn't,
what you're allowed to wear and what you can, what's "proper" and what's not, what's "fashionable" and what's not.
Everything is free reign and you get the ability to fully experiment and explore.
I'm the Marie Kondo of gender.
I want to walk through everybody's metaphorical gender house and be like,
"Hold all these different aspects of your identity to your chest.
Decide if they spark joy for you. If they spark joy,
I'll teach you how to fold them and keep them and store them nicely and
honor them and display them how you want.
And if they don't spark joy, get rid of it."