Gender Fluid, Nonbinary, Androgynous, Crossdress - Do these terms even matter?

I have been wearing leggings as a man for a few years now. It started with running in them. It moved to my living room. Then it became something I’d run out to get groceries in every so often. Then about a year ago I got serious about developing a style and fashion with leggings. Now, today, I wear them almost daily.

In that journey, I have bounced around with a lot of labels as I have tried to understand myself and share myself with friends, family and strangers.

What do you call a guy that wears leggings?

The simple answer is - who the fuck cares!

You call him a man, unless he asks you to call him something different. What you wear doesn’t actually affect you or your gender or your name - unless you want it to.

These last few months, or more honestly these last few years, as I have really come to better understand myself and what I want out of life and how I want to dress. I have really come full circle.

In the beginning my wife was worried about my sexuality. I was changing and she was nervous. Then I began to question my gender. I was giving myself permission to explore all the things I had always been scared to try. I wondered - how far would this go? Then I went through a litany of different words/labels of what I was. basically whatever the latest google search provided.

My Gender Fluid Phase

I started here mostly as a defense mechanism early in the process of reassuring my wife that life wasn’t ending. She was nervous about a whole host of things because her husband was doing some very real changing and talking about big topics as they relate to fashion and gender expression.

In truth I wasn’t really aware of what I was or where I was going and so I said I was gender fluid.

It was easier to be fluid.

Some days I am this somedays I am that. But in reality I was always quite content being a man. I still am. I want to be a he. Gender fluid is not actually something that makes sense for me personally. But it was a way to give myself some freedom and start exploring leggings and my feminine fashion ideas.

I Became “Androgynous”

Again this was more around handling my stressed out wife. She wasn’t thrilled me saying femme. She wasn’t comfortable with the idea that I would want to present femme. She was terrified I would decide I wanted a different spouse. She was terrified she might want a different spouse. She had married a man - why are you saying femme?

If I said androgynous it made her feel way better. I wasn’t really interested in gender fluidity - as I said I have always felt most comfortable as a man. So I started to say androgynous. At least it helped Sam really start to understand and accept and support where I was taking my fashion.

Nonbinary came next

I was still very focused on describing my fashion but not my gender. I wanted to embrace my femme side and my masc side whenever I wanted however I wanted. Nonbinary actually first came to me from a comment on my Instagram. The commentor suggested my style wasn’t really femme or androgynous but nonbinary. I looked into nonbinary and I was like “hell yeah! I like this”

But again I am very happy being a man. I just want to dress nonbinary and femme. My gender is not really at question.

Am I a Crossdresser??

Maybe the right answer for all this searching is that I am a cross dresser. By wikipedia’s definition a crossdresser is anyone who wears clothing associated with the opposite gender. Leggings, flowy tops, thong underwear, crop tops - I guess I am a crossdresser?

It is not that I want to look like a women.

I don’t want people to look at me and think I am a woman.

I want to them go “whoa - who is that guy brave enough to rock that style!”

Labels aren’t that important

In the end, I think labels are only important if you value them. If the label isn’t giving you value, you don’t need the label. If you feel you need a label to value yourself I think you need to work on yourself confidence and give yourself more love.

Labels shouldn’t define you.

Now as I have started wearing femme fashion full time and I have really committed to letting myself be me everyday the best label I have for myself is me. I am me. Me is all that I am. All that I need to be, is me.