For Us, Beauty is a Choice

Once again, Hannah McKnight provides some insight into the differences between clothing choices for women and cross-dressers.

I feel comfortable, calm, happy, and like myself (or more accurately, a part of myself) when I am wearing stockings, heels, and makeup. Some look forward to taking their bra off, I count the days until I dress and I check the mail obsessively when I am waiting for the new bra and panty set I ordered to arrive. I LOVE wearing clothes that others can’t wait to take off. BUT! I do know that my wife and I wear bras for different reasons. I do know that women are “expected” to wear heels and dresses. Being “required” to wear something, whether it’s because of your anatomy or because of arcane and antiquated and unfair social expectations, takes away from the joy, the fun, the CHOICE of wearing anything. I do understand that, promise.

When I came out to my wife when we dated she had a hard time understanding why anyone would choose to wear a bra and stockings. Why wear panties that weren’t designed for someone with my anatomy? After we married and I started to wear dresses and makeup, she “got” it. She understood this side of me, or us, as well as anyone could. She said that sometimes I wanted to look and feel beautiful. Who couldn’t relate to wanting that? She went from having no idea why I wanted, why I wore lingerie to a starting place and her understanding, her experience, grew from there.

Of course, [the people we come out to] may also think that this side of us is just, well, weird. Not weird in the sense of “why would a boy want to wear a bra?” but “why would ANYONE want to wear a bra?”.

And on the surface level, yes, I suppose it is a little weird. Last time I was out en femme I wore a tight corset and a skirt that I was paranoid was too short and showing off my stocking tops. Was I comfortable? Yes, of course. My corset was cinched perfectly, my gaff held everything where it needed to be held, my bra was adjusted for my body, my heels clicked merrily on the pavement. I was about as comfortable as one could be in wearing such restrictive clothes. If your corset is seasoned and everything you’re wearing is the right size and you are tucked properly you don’t really FEEL what you’re wearing. Until you have to get out of a car or or walk up a flight of stairs or something, of course.

But I don’t wear what I wear because it’s more physically comfortable. If that was my guiding star then I would wear leggings 24/7. No. I wear what I wear (at least en femme) because clothes are how I express myself, or more specifically, Hannah. Hannah has a look, and I love her look. Usually overdressed in heels and a cute dress and false eyelashes for anything and everything. I wear what I wear because of how it makes me feel emotionally. I FEEL beautiful, and I hope I look beautiful. And yes on one hand this is all very shallow, but it is what it is.

While it may be weird that one chooses to wear a tightly laced corset, it’s understandable to choose to wear something, whatever it is, that makes one feel beautiful. Who couldn’t relate to that?