International Women's Day, showing some love for trans women in technical spaces
Happy international women's day.
About half the #women I interact with in an average week are #trans. Trans women make my life and the spaces I hang out in online immeasurably better. They've rounded sharp corners and added a sense of emotional availability that men just tend not to do. They bring an air of femininity to a space that helps me feel like I don't need to do extra social work to balance things out myself.
It's really wonderful.
Last week, at the local hackerspace, I had a great chat about ethical alternative clothing shops with knowledge and nuance. These conversations rarely happen when I talk to men-- not because they don't care, but just because the topic is more complicated for feminine clothing than masculine. There's deeper changes to manufacturing processes than men's clothing silhouettes seem to feel, so less nuance (and digging) is necessary to achieve a pretty reasonable effect in comparison. Anyways, it was great, and it just felt very 'normal'. But I've also never had such a good fashion conversation in a technical space before, which is interesting because fashion is a highly technical art. This was, in a small way, revolutionary.
When spaces make femininity a comfortable thing to bring, they make everyone else feel more comfortable being a wider breadth of themselves. You see wider ranges of expression from everyone. Making women feel more comfortable often helps everyone feel more comfortable.
When spaces restrict those energies, everyone feels it. When I'd been in technical spaces without women, I used the phrase "caustic culture" a lot. The feeling of this pervasive, inescapable, slow ooze that just eats away at you little by little. Since then, I've spent a lot more time in spaces without that energy. I can't think of a single online technical space that doesn't feel caustic that hasn't had trans women in it. As a professor of mine once said, correlationdoes not imply causation, but it does often waggle its eyebrows at it.
So, happy international women's day to all the women everywhere, and especially to the trans women that've helped make the spaces I've been in so comfy. So many of you are leaders, and you are all wonderful and beautiful beings capable of immense gentility and soft strength. Celebrate yourself a bit today. 💙
International Women's Day, showing some love for trans women in technical spaces
@starless This is wonderful and also could you share those clothes shop recs if you remember them? (Because all clothes shit is so hard when you're trans.)
International Women's Day, showing some love for trans women in technical spaces
@klara yes! I boosted two old threads, but...
My current favorite is Noctex for clothing. They do dead stock fabrics and ethically made stuff.
Buddaful Boutique has some nice things, but may be problematic in some ways. Typical yoga place vibe issues, nothing bigger.
House of Aris is amazing and bold and perfect.
CrisisWear is nice but expensive and I haven't had perfect luck with their fits.
Son de Fleur (etsy) makes amazing but expensive wrap dresses.
CryoFlesh is owned by a few nice friends of mine as a hobby project thingie.
Pocket bean crafts occasionally makes incredible clothing.
Sock Dreams is the OG of thigh highs that are actually thigh high, but Thunder Thighs is a rising star.
Carmen Liu now has a US distributor, but their thongs are too small for folks not in hormones, just FYI.
My secret for comfy wrap shirts is to order from https://www.bellahatailors.com/ . They also make custom wrap dresses.
I have found one fast fashion place that I do like for pants because it's so hard to find ones that are comfy with good pockets. I can't speak to their ethics, but Soft Surroundings has comfy pants that have a lot of stretch in them. Make sure they say they have pockets, though, because some do not. They often have sales.
See also https://social.pixie.town/@starless/106145166566413416 and https://social.pixie.town/@starless/104532518135869399 .
The woman I was talking with recommended Black Tailor, which looked really neat.
International Women's Day, showing some love for trans women in technical spaces
@starless Thank you!
(I am familiar with ABraThatFits, yeah. And yet even with their trans advice it was still real difficult!)
International Women's Day, showing some love for trans women in technical spaces
@klara also, just a fit note-- I'm afab, and wear around a size 6-8 dress. I have wide shoulders and wide hips/thighs. I prefer things that don't put tension over my knees, so I look for pants that are a bit roomy.
Bra-wise, my girlfriend strongly recommends the b tempt'd line from Wacoal. She has a small frame, her dress size is around 2-4. There's a subreddit, r/abrathatfits , that may be able to give good advice.