For many transgender people, fashion is a way to present themselves in a gender-affirming way.

According to the article “Transgender Fashion: Fit Challenges and Dressing Strategies” by Sandra Tullio-Pow, “Clothing is performative and helps position individuals as their desired gender, which is why clothing is so important to transgender people.”

This statement is true for many transgender college students here at Shippensburg University. 

SU student Dan Brouse has an alternative and androgynous style, although he tends to lean masculine in his fashion choices. 

“As a trans person, fashion is pretty important to my identity because it's a form of self-expression,” Brouse said. He must consider how he will be perceived by others, as well as what clothes will minimize dysphoria. 

Cynthia Dodd, another student on campus, also has an alternative style, describing her fashion as goth, scene or dark bimbo. She finds that she feels the most comfortable with edgier, more provocative styles. 

“Though it is a cliché, fashion really just lets me feel comfortable. It is an easy way to tell others who I want them to think I am,” Dodd explained. “It helps keep away people that would think that I am too much, without any extra work on my end.”

Jean Stinchfield is another trans student on campus who uses fashion to express himself. He says that his style varies from day to day, describing his style as eclectic and expressive. 

Stinchfield explained that the clothes he wears are deeply tied to his expression, including the gender identity, sexuality, interests, politics and subcultures he ascribes to. He centers his clothes around how he feels on particular days. 

“Some days I feel like a guy in blue jeans and a white T-shirt with sneakers and a baseball cap, and that’s what’s affirming to me. Sometimes I feel like dark jeans, black graphic tees, giant platform boots, and silver jewelry,” Stinchfield said. “It all depends on the type of armor I need that day.”

Furthermore, pop culture greatly affects what many trans students on campus wear. It also “has influenced beauty, makeup and gender-bending fashion in today’s society,” according to Jairath in “Role of Pop Culture in Popularizing Gender-Bending Fashion.”   

Brouse takes a lot of inspiration from music subcultures like rock and alt. He notes that with the rise of e-girl and e-boy fashion on social media around 2019, alt fashion became a more widely accessible. 

Dodd also takes inspiration from music subcultures. “Music above all else has played the biggest influence on my appearance,” Dodd said. “The singers I like are the ones I try to emulate the most.” 

One artist she cited as an inspiration is 6arelyhuman. In addition to music, Dodd is also influenced by Misa Amane’s rokku gyaru style from the anime “Death Note.” 

Stinchfield said that during his transition, he found masculine figures that he began to emulate. Specifically, he says that as funny as it may sound, “The parodic American masculinity depicted in ‘Supernatural’ was a huge influence on my transition wardrobe.”

Other than that, Stinchfield wears the styles of the subcultures he is a part of like butch fashion, gothic fashion and punk fashion.     

Especially today where it can be scary or even dangerous to speak out, fashion is necessary in expressing identity. As Barry and Drak explain in their study “Intersectional interventions into queer and trans liberation,” “Fashion is therefore political, allowing people under states of duress a way to craft their existence when it is denied by the state.”

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