Being Authentically me

By Rae Bustos

My style has been something that’s become really personal to me as I’ve gotten older. For a majority of my life, clothing was just clothing to me and I didn’t know how to really dress myself. I feel like my style has changed a lot with how I wanted to express myself and as I’ve explored my gender identity. Growing up, I was a tomboy and always dressed more masculine. Being able to express myself as masculine growing up allowed me to be me. I’ve been able to pick my own clothing for as long as I can remember. I’m so thankful that I had parents that supported me in what I wanted to wear and express myself, especially at a young age. Being able to have that form of self-expression early on was nice, but I still dealt with a lot of bullying due to being different. Even though I dealt with bullying due to being perceived as queer and how I dressed, I still felt it was important to dress how I wanted as a kid. My go-to outfit for most of my childhood was a pair of jeans or basketball shorts, and a t-shirt or hoody (usually having some sport team logo). As I got older, especially in my teens and early college I started to change how I dressed because I was afraid of conforming to a stereotype, which was being ‘seen’ as a lesbian. I came out pretty young but I was still afraid of being put into a box because of my sexuality. I started to dress what I would consider feminine, and started growing and styling my hair too to fit my outfits. As time went on, I would see pictures of me dressed more feminine and never really saw

‘me.’ I cut my hair off and started to embrace my masculinity again and that’s helped me so much in my confidence. I wanted to be more in control of how the world sees me, not how I think I should be seen. In April 2022, I had top surgery and that has been one of the best choices I’ve ever made for myself. Since my surgery, I’ve felt even more comfortable exploring with my style and I’m really excited to see how much more that will evolve. Today, I use my fashion as one of the biggest ways to express myself. I feel like you can share a lot about who you are or a story based on how you present yourself. Every time I’m out in public, I try to let people get an idea of who I am. At the same time, internally one of the biggest challenges that I’ve struggled with is not caring what other people think about me because of how I dress. Expressing myself as not a ‘traditional woman’ or whatever that means makes me stand out and I do notice that I get a lot of attention from strangers due to that, even more so in the past 10 months. Another thing that I find challenging is my size. Sometimes it

can be really hard to find clothes that fit me well and are affirming, especially bottoms because I wear a larger size than the average. In the past year I taught myself how to use a sewing machine and that has helped me with my clothing struggles a lot. I’ve been able to hem my clothes to fit me better and that has been so affirming. This past year I’ve felt comfortable in my clothes and I hope to be an example for other people that want to dress outside of societal expectations. I was tired of putting myself into a box and pushing away this form of self-expression for a long time. When it comes to my sense of style, I hope to feel confident and like myself every time I leave my home.