I hope my enby peeps can help me out here.
I am very interested in exploring a more feminine expression, but my starting point is masc-af physically, so anything too feminine too quick is going to have a very hard contrast and I’m definitely more of an “I don’t want to stick out much” kind of person.
Any ideas that may be more androgynous, but not attention grabbing that I can try out? I am not good at picking outfits anyway, so I need all the help I can get.
Like beard and full body hair, so obviously lower cut stuff could be very dysmophic atm.
Maybe something that just feelsmore feminine but may not look it so much. You know? Does this make sense?
Nail polish! Accessoires! And you can wear skirts/dresses/kilts over pants when the weather allows it.
I do have some clear polish I’ve been meaning to try, but I want to add some shape first and try it out over the weekend. They’re long enough I’m getting self conscious but would like to try it out before I have to cut them.
Any ideas on accessories? I’ve thought about stuff like small rings. I’m looking subtle. I’m definitely not brave enough for a skirt in public yet 🫤 definite a strong fear of “man in a dress”
I’m a cis-het guy who wears nail polish every day. I live in a very conservative southern state and the only comments I get are women telling me they love the color and asking what the brand is (It’s always either Holo Taco or Mooncat). These days, no one cares. And men with nail polish is in the zeitgeist right now, so no one would make any assumptions as to the why you’re wearing it.
And I’ve been wearing nail polish for 20 years. There were times when it was an issue, but I remember this one time back in the early 2000s. I was in high school, walking through the mall and this big guy stops me. He’s tatted up, long mangly beard and torn biker leathers on, probably in his 50s. He holds up his own hand to show off his polish and tells me he loves seeing other guys with it. We talk for a bit. He then calls his wife and daughter over and tries to convince me to take his daughter’s number.
I think about that guy sometimes when I’m unsure about how people will react to how I look. Given, I am speaking from a place or severe privilege compared to you, but I want to give you a bit of perspective. My sense of style has never really fit in with those around me. I paint my nails, dye my hair. I’ve worn my share of skirts when it matched my outfit(Once I went to a drag prom with my girlfriend, then we went out for dinner afterwards. Didn’t have time to change so I was straight up wearing a plaid dress and heels. The waitress hit on me and 3 different women came up to our table to talk to me and one gave me their number). Sometimes the clothing I wear can be a bit “loud.” And over the years I’ve come to just say “fuck it.” This is me. I look this way because I think it looks good or because I like the act of doing it. People can accept that or not, but that’s a them problem. As far as I know, no one has ever assumed I was anything other than a straight cis guy, and I’ve never had any problems.
I’m not saying this to suggest you should dress in a way you’re not comfortable with yet or that you shouldn’t be on your guard sometimes. But if you’re worried about people giving a shit about nail polish while you’re taking your first steps, you likely don’t need to. I wear traditionally feminine stuff all the time if I think it looks good and don’t run into issues. Nail polish, bracelets, rings, some shirts that are definitely cut for women and are a little tight on me.
In fact, women’s shirts are a good one for you I think. They’re not all low-cut, but with the narrower shoulders and typically shorter sleeves, they do feel different on you while not looking any different to people looking. If you’re still feeling self conscious with it on you can put a loose open front shirt on over it to cover any of those features but you still get to wear it.
And if you need any tips on nail polish or nail care, I got you. Nails and nail-beds on hands that have been masculine for years just aren’t the same as hands that have been taken care of for polish from early childhood.
Thanks! This has been a very informative and interesting comments. I’m insanely surprised to hear the cross dressing part + nail polish + cis-het. If what you say is true you are an amazingly confident individual in so many areas. I would love to be that confident, but I definitely have some things that just don’t allow it.
Definitely you have made me more confident to try polish in public.
I definitely have found I like deeper v necks recently and have been seriously considering some women’s, but more androgynous t shirts, like lower cut but not that different from plane male t shirts. Definitely the shoulder width would be an issue 😅 I’ve been suggested a couple times to be a “muscle mommy” and I kind of dig that, I’ll never be petite, that’s for sure.
Like, seriously, Thank you. This comment means a lot and really encourages me.
I’m so glad you can be proudly, loudly, you and not give a fuck.
Yeah, I feel that. I mostly wear skirts when I’m with a group of queer people.
Rings are an idea, there’s pins, necklaces, hair clips/bands. For earrings you should seek a piercer, they’re better than these nail canons you get in stores.
You can also use different bags/ wear your bags differently and other smaller changes you can do to how you put together your outfit. Though I myself lack knowledge there.
😳🤣 OMG! I just realized I’ve been slowly been turning my work backpack into a purse over the last year or two, even before cracking!
It’s got medicine, sanitizer, spare deodorant, and I forget what all else 😂
I will keep that in mind for piercing. It has crossed my mind, but attention 😱 even though I could alternate or wear androgynous, though I think my family would perceive androgynous as feminine.
I’m having trouble bringing myself to shave my beard(had constantly for ~10 years) just because I don’t want to be asked about it a million times because it’s been so long. Not even that anyone will suspect anything just “hey (50th person in a row) noticed you changed something” 😓🙄😮💨 “Yeah…”
You can try trimming it short first, and then do a bad trim and say you had to shave it because the trim ruined it ;)
Piercings and nail polish really are so excepted now for men by the general public, that it is super easy to get away with that.
Shaving was a huuuuuuuuuuuuge step for me, as my facial hair was a masculinity mask of sorts. NGL, I cried through it. I wish I could snap my fingers and switch between not/having a full beard again.
I did a similar thing with slow transition with doing more femme presentation. Would love to hear how things have gone since so much can happen in the span of months, ie how long it’s been since this was first posted
I was going to say things have been progressing fairly slowly, but thinking of everything over the past 7 months, maybe it wasn’t as slow as I thought
I did eventually shave the beard, although it was in stages 😂
I went from full beard to chin strap, then just sideburns, the nothing…
My boss mentioned once something like “you’re slowly losing beard” it was actually way less attention and awkwardness than I anticipated.
I have occasionally painted my nails on the weekends and had a couple insanely nice compliments, one by a guy(super surprised me)
I did impulsively buy some yoga pants one day, wrong size, but that’s legit girl problems anyway. 😂
Not much anything public besides nails so far. I have had some clear and almost clear with light glitter on my nails for like 3 weeks now and either no one has noticed or just hasn’t said anything.
Oh I also dabbled in body hair removal, which has proved to be trickier than I expected but I also thought I looked less weird than expected and found I liked it gone more than I thought I would.
Awesome. I’m glad you’ve been finding things to try out and stay comfortable with it.
ooo I’d love to get nail polish I’m just scared to ask lol
I think sometimes the absolute hardest part is allowing yourself to do it.
People really don’t care what you buy. If anything they do think it’s for someone else.
I bought some recently because it was close to a shade I thought and on sale. The hardest part really was like convincing myself it’s OK. Nobody said anything. It was all internal.
As a straight guy that started painting his nails, I can assure you that the entire process is surprisingly simple.
Buying nail polish? Hmm, he must be buying some for his gf how nice.
Wearing nail polish? No matter how vibrant, I have never had someone notice my nails unless I have had actual prolonged exposure to them, in which case they almost immediately assume it is because of a girlfriend or daughter or something.
Most of the time people don’t notice, it took my boss two weeks even when we work next to each other pointing at things on a screen regularly.
As a queer guy wearing nail polish, I have a different (though not negative) experience. In my experience people do notice it, but often either give compliments or make slightly bigoted remarks that can be pretty easily laughed away or countered. I haven’t come across anyone who was a total asshole about it up until now though, even when I pivoted to colours that weren’t black.
It’s also not that I’m a necessarily queer-positive environment or that people support it because of my queerness. Both family (apart from parents and siblings ) and colleagues are generally not aware that I’m LGBT+, and they’re also usually leaning slightly “anti-woke”. But at the same time they also seem to abide by the Dutch “live and let live” mentality. It seems like they just think “oh cool, he’s a guy who painted his nails”, which is definitely better than I was expecting of some of them.
I don’t know where you live, but I just got myself gifted my first or went to the convenient store for it. I don’t know who you’d have to ask
still in my teens, would have to ask my mum :/
Or you could ask friends for their nail polish?!
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