Image by naahalexsandra310 from Pixabay
By Jorge Fernandez Bedoya
People from the trans community have always had a large impact on fashion and its industry. This is due to their existence itself, as it challenges the norms of gender that were already established in the industry.
This can lead to people seeing them as different, and classifying them as such, dividing people and their fashion sense between cisgender, or those who have the gender they were assigned at birth, and queer subcategories.
This usually means that cis straight people get the “normal” treatment, excluding the queer community and viewing it as less valuable. This method of dividing and segregating severely affects non cis passing and alternative queer people, as they are easily targeted by the hegemonic point of view.
Guillermo Vaquero, a 25-year-old Fine Arts student, agrees. Vaquero thinks trans models are more often criticised and only given visibility in occasions like Pride Month. “If a trans model appears, they tend to receive a greater amount of attacks and criticism,” he adds.
Lucas Novillo, a 19-year-old Fashion Design student, has a clear idea of gender segregation in the fashion industry: “I believe that fashion has no gender, that it was created as a way to express yourself,” he says.
“I’m against the idea that society has made a specific type of clothing that is exclusive only to a determined gender. What I do believe is that masculinity and femininity do exist but that it is not exclusive to a different gender since there are more feminine men just as there are masculine women.
“If we removed the gender division, I think people will be more free and express better their own identities.”
Since the beginning of modern LGBT history, queer people have been able to express themselves in the ballroom scene, where they could be themselves without the fear of being chased. In these environments, gender was a performance, so gendered clothes weren’t a thing. This meant that people could find their identity, exploring gender beyond binarism.
“Ballroom culture was born in a spirit of defiance by Black and Latinx trans women in 1970s New York,” wrote drag queen Taya Mwah recently in the Queer AF blog.
“Women who built their own world when the rest of society, and even the beauty standards of white queer people, refused them one. Houses became chosen families; runways became safe ground.”
Taya Mwah at the London Met Fashion Newsweek
This kind of environment where gender norms don’t exist could be brought up to the fashion industry, so more people could be able to explore their identity and style. Vaquero says: “I think this (referring to gendered clothes) is actually a mistake that stems from misogyny… It is a problem that come from outdated ideas about what’s feminine or what a woman should wear to be socially accepted.”
He adds that the removal of gendered clothes would “also break down many patterns that can be harmful to trans people, such as the idea that they are owed masculinity or femininity based on their gender”.
Thankfully, trans people have been gaining attention in the fashion industry for the past few decades, not only by being represented by models, but also by their inclusion in emerging queer brands and designers. But there’s still a lot to be done, as trans and queer inclusion is quite reduced, and only cis passing models are given the spotlight, reinforcing the beauty standards in the industry.
We should “normalize non normative models as the first step of inclusion, and it would help to accept ourselves and our bodies”, says Daniel Castey, a 18-year-old student. He agrees with the inclusion of different types of bodies and identities in the modelling industry, as more people would feel represented this way.
For the last few years, rather than trans identities being more included, it feels like there has been a regression of their rights as a whole. Due to the conservative period we are entering, queer people in the fashion industry have been given a secondary role, and it is less usual for them to have the spotlight.
Guillermo Moreno, a 22-year-old Marketing and Advertising student, says the regression is “due to the rise of right-wing governments, which try to portray LGBTQ+ people as ‘strange’ or ‘unusual’. This is why a sector as innovative as fashion must strive to be as diverse as possible, and stop making certain identities invisible.”
There is a lot of progress to be done in the fashion industry, and we can’t let trans and queer identities feel left out not only in this environment, but in our society in general. Let’s be empathetic and care abut others a little more, as everyone deserves to be included, and has the right to be heard and seen.
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