I’m Not Wearing That, It’s Ghastly!

Jan 31, 2010

Posted by: abandonedboyjon

Bloggers - Jon

Hello, again. I write to you from Los Angeles, where I have
been living since Thursday! California
is magnificent. I will be job-hunting
this week, but as a treat for myself, I think I will take a walk down to Grauman’s
Chinese Theatre to see the trio’s Hand, Foot, and Wand prints. Harry Potter always grounds me whenever the
world becomes a bit overwhelming and scary.
Of course, this move and this city have been that at times, but the fact
is I’ve chosen this upheaval of my life, and though I can feel the nerves
prickling up and down my body, nothing can suppress my excitement for this
place. I’ve been marveling at
everything. Just walking down the street
with my friend, also an East Coast native, we gawked at the palm trees standing
50-foot high. I couldn’t help thinking
how dangerous that would be on a main road in Massachusetts in mid-
winter. It would snap in half and cause
a three-car pile-up.One of the things I’ve noticed in
the past few days is the fashion here in LA.
Being fashion-obsessed myself, I can say with certainty that there is no
lack of opinionated dressing, from high fashion to hipsters. Though I’ve been warned that the snubbing of
the non-rich on Rodeo Drive is just as bad as Pretty Woman might have you believe, I still can’t wait to check
out those stores. People were walking that
street like it was a runway. A beautiful
thing.

Because of my fashion obsession,
plus my love of Potter, over the last three years, I have amassed a huge collection
of magazines featuring Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe, and Rupert Grint in
exclusive photo shoots with designer clothes.
Of course, I adore Emma for her fashion show-hopping and her fabulous
new clothing line with People Tree, which is both fair trade and
environmentally conscientious. Dan has graced the covers of Esquire and Details and the photos that have come from that have been a bold
look into his personality and interests (my favorite was his rendition of Puck
from Midsummernight’s Dream). Rupert, who only really joined the fashion
mag game last year, now has Blag, Drama
Magazine,
and FHM shoots under
his belt. While FHM isn’t the most even-keeled when it comes to gender, they did
show me five different ways to tie my shoes, and he looked gorgeous.

I get a lot of crap for being a dandy,
a lot of raised eyebrows, since I walk such a fine line between masculinity and
femininity, socially-speaking. On one
hand, there is an inherent masculinity thrust upon me in being a transman, and
I do welcome that, sometimes buy into that, but on the other, I love Gilmore Girls, I cry a lot, and it
doesn’t matter to me if something matches, as long as it goes. Now these are not
innately feminine qualities, no, but they are the things some people like to
think women do, straight women. They
like to think all women are looking for an Edward Cullen as opposed to a Seth
Rogen and that this explains the popularity of the Chick Flick. And they like to think that a man could enjoy
one such movie, as long as he has one crucial thing in common with women: A love of men.

Now, with the advent of “the
metrosexual” a few years ago, there seems to be more acceptance every day for
men who simply like to pay attention to how they look, if only in certain
open-minded circles. However, it is in
the company of men who find befriending women a waste of time, think Edward
Cullen is gay, and bother to post endless diatribes on the subject at
comingsoon.net which always read like an attempt to eradicate their own
feelings of gayness within themselves, where I find the least amount of
tolerance. Often times, I’ve noticed
these guys making casual links between gender identity and sexuality. One of the things that initially delayed my
discovery of my own transgenderism is my attraction to men. Why couldn’t I just be a woman and settle
down with a nice man? Of course, there
just came a point when I realized I wasn’t a woman and that I really didn’t
have a preference sexually for one gender over the other. Once I understood this separation, I noticed
it became easier, not only being openly attracted to people, but being
comfortable when others were attracted to me.

And that’s what fashion is all
about. Confidence. Perhaps many found it shocking in 2007 when
they opened their August issue of Details
to find a scruffed-up and bare-chested Dan Radcliffe donning a killer leather
vest gazing at them from the front cover.
And maybe fans who’d never seen Rupert Grint sans his signature mop top
were thrown off by page after page of slicked-back fifties style in Blag.
However, no one seems to turn a head at the countless magazines Emma has
done shoots for or her Burberry campaign, no raised eyebrows there. Rupert and Dan are confident young men and
these presentations of themselves are a mark of that. Fashion can be an important tool for many in
creating confidence. It’s the very
philosophy of What Not to Wear. It can show others how you feel about
yourself. And this is exactly what that
brand of man who can’t bear to be perceived as anything other than straight-up
straight lack: the confidence. They’ll give you opinion on the government,
the Super Bowl, and a woman’s behind, but when it really comes down to it, can
they give you a true opinion of themselves?





The Leaky Cauldron is not associated with J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros., or any of the individuals or companies associated with producing and publishing Harry Potter books and films.