Six months ago, I talked a little bit about how, oh, yadda yadda tumour messing with my hormones, etc etc. Medicine blah blah blah fixing things. I don’t want to bore you with the details again. Anyway, since then I’ve felt a little different. A little more energetic, a little more wanting to _do_ things. As expected I started to want to dress more, and not just dress – but to also push back, uncomfortably, on some self-imposed boundaries.
I’ve always found it difficult to put myself into any category – even calling myself a “crossdresser” was oddly tricky because, while it describes an action – i.e., wearing the clothes of the opposite gender, it’s also read as a classification – i.e., a member of a group of people who wear clothes of the opposite gender… and maybe do other stuff too – and the label, to some people, implies membership of the group and all the various actions of that group, whether or not I do those things. I don’t want to get too drawn into the conversation of while many folks find labels helpful, I tend to not. There’s a ton of labels out there that might apply to me – crossdresser, transvestite, transgender, femboy, demiboy, genderfluid, genderqueer, gender-nonconforming – probably a buttload more that I haven’t heard of! I’m just someone who wants to wear whatever I want with no arbitrary restrictions – that seems like a much less complicated description.
Going the distance, in a skirt
Another label I’ve struggled with for a long time is “runner”. I try and run every Sunday – and I have, for years! There was a time where I was able to run seven miles every time without too much issue, with the very occasional longer run thrown in, and then suddenly, when my meds started to take effect last November, I felt like I could run further… and then further still.
I ran a half-marathon back in 2016 and then another one in 2018.
Since December I’ve run eight.
Throughout 2026, I’m aiming for at least one half-marathon every month, and so far I’m on track! And in between, I’m still running every Sunday (unless I’m injured or something. I’m resting my hip right now because it’s spent the last week yelling at me).
But I guess I can call myself a runner now.
The distance I can run is certainly one of the boundaries I’ve been pushing. Gender identity is one of the others – I’ve been updating pronouns in all the relevant places – to he/they/she, or she/they/he – fundamentally I don’t care how people refer to me – so long as they’re nice about it (which, given my recent experience with online trolls, certainly isn’t happening as much as I would like).
Fitness and gender-identity have oddly gone hand-in-hand for me. At some point over the last few years I started running in a skirt. Partly because I typically like running in compression shorts, which doesn’t hide my business. But most importantly, because I look fucking cute in a sparkly skirt at 6am. It was a bit of a challenge to get into that routine, but I don’t really think about it any more. Dudes wear skirts pretty often in races (at least, the cool ones do) and so it felt more defensible than if I was just going out for a walk in a skirt…
Taking up space in suburbia
Sometime last year, I started to wake up early a few days a week so I could get some more exercise in – mostly kettlebells and yoga. That turned into going for walks, and then that quickly turned into “going for a walk in a skirt before the world wakes up”. As the earth moved through its orbit and summer came closer, the mornings were getting brighter and brighter, and I became less and less likely to go for these walks. The possibility of being seen going for a walk in a skirt but not fully femme-presenting felt somehow scarier than if I was seen fully en-femme. And so I stopped wearing the skirt, but the walks continued for a bit. I was walking for my cholesterol, but my fear of being harassed in some way made it less likely that I’d do the walk, so I uncoupled those things from each other so that I could keep walking.
But in the back of my mind, it felt like a defeat.
And then… my meds came through, and the leaden foot that was weighing down on the brake-pedal of my endocrine system was lifted. I started dressing more. Hormonal bravery activated, I also started getting dressed up and walking a loop around the neighbourhood, damn the consequences. The world needs to deal with the fact that I exist.
I settled into the routine of, when the mood struck, getting dressed up in the morning, ploughing through a ton of work meetings, and then going for a lunch walk and/or a walk – while fully en femme – after work was over. One of the first times I did this, someone yelled something at me from a car as they drove past. I didn’t hear what they said, but it was pretty clearly directed at me – I was the only one around, and they rolled their window up as soon as they were done yelling.
It turns out that I have fighter’s blood – my immediate reaction wasn’t to shy away (which is what I might have thought myself) but instead to cup my hand to my ear as a challenge of “I didn’t hear you! Say it again!”. As they sped off, I threw my hands up in the air. I mean really, what kind of coward just yells something from the safety of their own moving car?
I won’t be cowed. This incident only served as fuel to the fire that powered my internal steam engine, blasting the turbines of my guts through the gearbox of my heart and into the tyres of my block-heeled sandals, delivering power to… what am I talking about again? Oh yeah – the idea that dressing up in public is a necessary act to be visible out in the world.
So I dressed again, and again – every time going for a walk. This is my neighbourhood.
I started going for walks again, fully skirted up, very genderfluid, trés chic. Every morning, I would pull on a skirt, put on some earrings, and pound the pavement for 30-60 minutes and return home where my day would continue as normal. Other days, after my skirted walk, I would throw on the breastforms/wig/makeup and dress up for the work day, and then go for a walk at lunch, and then another walk after work again. At least one day I went to get my nails done en-femme, and went to get coffee afterwards. The world isn’t so scary.
I realised that if I fully dress up, or if I don’t at all, or if I’m somewhere in the middle – light makeup, earrings, no wig, no breastforms – I’m still happy. I’m pushing on this a ton. I had to get my blood drawn to keep an eye on my hormones. I sat in the busy waiting area, staring at my phone, one leg over the other, in a floor-length black pleated skirt with large polka dots. I got coffee afterwards.
Someone once described Jazz to me as playing the wrong notes with confidence until they sound right. That kind of feels like what I’m doing right now.
Visibility, Bravery, and little old me
I try and take my kid on a vacation once a year – we missed last year’s because work was pretty insane, and with that on top of my weird little tumour, I was a bit stressed out. I wasn’t to be dissuaded two years in a row, however.
He’s seen me dressed up a ton at this point – it’s just kind of the normal routine. “You gotta get out of bed yourself today, I’m doing makeup today!” is not an uncommon phrase for him to hear. “I’m in the bathroom! I’ve made you breakfast already!”, etc etc. He is unfazed – which, I think, is how everyone should be to something that feels so normal. But he hadn’t seen me wear a skirt outside, even if he knew I had gone for a walk fully dressed up a few times.
I was born in 1983, in London, to Sri Lankan immigrants. In Sri Lankan culture, men very typically wear sarongs. My dad did. But only at home. It wasn’t lost on me growing up that, while Dad clearly felt more comfortable in his native clothing, the fear of being seen in his immigrant clothing by the general population was strong in his mind. He wasn’t ashamed of his culture, but I think he might have been embarrassed to be seen in it. That always felt a little sad to me, but being an immigrant in the 70s in London must have been hard, and the pressure to conform and not be other so strong that it forced him to change. I understand that pressure to conform, and I certainly understand the pressure to not be other. But I won’t do it – got some of that fighter’s blood, I guess.
I saw my dad hide a part of himself from the outside world. I won’t let my child see me do the same.
This year, for our vacation, we went to New York and San Francisco. And I mostly wore a skirt. Wandering around the streets of Manhattan, walking through JFK, flying to SFO and walking around SoMa in SF – across a number of days, I wore a variety of skirts. It was a little scary but again, felt necessary. Necessary to be seen by many, necessary to prove to myself that it could be done, and necessary to show my kid that no matter how scary it can be sometimes, you still have to be yourself.
Anyway, here’s a shit ton of pictures. Child not pictured because the internet is a horrible place.
Skirted runs
Gender-whatever-ness
Standard Liz-Business
Sometimes I think about my impact on the world. Ever since I was a kid, I had hoped that I could contribute – leave my mark on the world, have some impact on people’s lives. I may not be the next Einstein, but that’s ok. In my small way I am fighting in my own little corner of the world to make space for myself, and hopefully, show other people they can do the same too.
And be fucking fabulous at the same time.
Liz xx