Episode 163: Gender, Sizing, & The Fashion Industry, featuring Ruby & Maggie

Welcome to Clotheshorse, the podcast that never wears pants. In fact, if you see me in pants, it probably means I’m having a really weird day.

I’m your host, Amanda and this is episode 163. In today’s episode, we’ll be talking about gender and sizing in the fashion industry. And we’ll get that conversation started with a little primer on gender and pronouns. None of these are easy topics to unpack, but fortunately this week I’m joined by two incredible guests who are up for the task! First, is Clotheshorse all-star Maggie Greene (the Halloween Queen). I know you are all going to be super excited to have her back on the pod (I know I was). And my other guest is Ruby Gertz. Ruby is a self-proclaimed size chart geek and size-inclusive design advocate. She also sells sewing patterns created by her (you can find them at spokesandstitches.com) and she is currently costuming puppets (among many other things she is doing). I’m really excited to be taking on the topic of gender and fashion with Maggie and Ruby!

This episode is long and probably should have been split into two episodes. But guess what? I’m going on vacation next week and then taking some time off, so you get this super sized episode to tide you over until I’m back.

Because it is so long–and so comprehensive–I won’t be doing the usual long introduction…but I will say this: conversations about gender and pronouns can be intimidating for many of us. You don’t want to get things wrong. And the fear of accidentally hurting someone by using the wrong term or pronoun can be very paralyzing. I think that is why so many people just try to avoid these conversations altogether. Not because they don’t care, but because they worry they can’t get it right. It took me a long time to feel okay publicly saying that I am nonbinary for a lot of reasons. I’ll share some of them in my conversation with Ruby and Maggie. But I also felt afraid that people wouldn’t take me seriously (I mean, I love white eyeliner and fluffy dresses, which makes a lot of people not take me seriously)…and I worried that I would use the wrong terminology or acronyms to explain myself, and then I would not only ruin my chances of being taken seriously, but I might cause harm to the larger movement toward reshaping gender in this world. NBD, just some major responsibility right there.

This fear of using the wrong words, accidentally putting our feet in our mouths…I get it. Most of us haven’t received formal education around gender. And language and gender is constantly evolving. It’s intimidating! That’s why we are getting this conversation about gender and fashion started with a little primer on gender, pronouns, etc. So let’s jump in!

Amanda

Before we get started, I just wanted to remind everybody of my pronouns. You know, I’m Amanda, and I’m the host here at Clotheshorse and my pronouns are she/they and I’m a non binary person. If that is something that you’re like, What the heck is that? Don’t worry, we’re going to talk about that a lot today. Listen, we have two guests today. One is someone you know and love very well. And then another is someone you’ve never met before. But you’re also going to know and love very much after this. So first, why don’t we get started with Maggie? You know, and also around here, someone you all know a very familiar voice. Maggie, do you want to remind everyone of who you are?

Maggie

Absolutely. Yes. Hello, everyone, Maggie Greeneee here. My pronouns are she.her. And I am technically cisgender a pansexual. Woman, I run Maggie Greene style. So my job is Chief Everything Officer. I do all the things for my tiny ethical micro business that is on a mission to transform how you see yourself. So I work in personal brand and style.

Amanda

Thank you, Maggie. And then I said, we have a second guest someone new, you’re gonna love so much! Ruby, why don’t you introduce yourself to everyone?

Ruby

Thanks, Amanda. Hi, my name is Ruby Gertz, my pronouns are she/her. And I am a professional service pattern maker and educator based in Philadelphia. In terms of my gender identity, I would say I’m kind of in a space of like ever evolving. I played around with age gender for a while, and we’re kind of just figuring it out. I tend to hold my gender cards pretty close to my chest. But for now, I’m using she/her pronouns.

Amanda

And today is pretty exciting, because I just realized, as the two of you are introducing yourself that through the miracle of technology, we are kind of providing a coast to coast experience for the United States. Philadelphia, me in the middle in Austin, Texas, and then Maggie up in the Pacific Northwest in Seattle, like we’ve got three time zones, three segments of the United States. It’s pretty exciting. This is Yeah, nationwide episode we’ve ever had

Maggie

no mentors. Wow. All

Amanda

right, thank you, technology, I guess. So today, we’re gonna be talking about gender, gender and fashion. The intersection between gender fashion and sizing Ruby, is, I mean, I, you know, I don’t think this is overstating it to say Ruby is an expert in sizing, and the history of that I can’t wait for you all to learn from her. But we’re gonna get started because it turns out reviews like the quadruple threat Ruby console, Ruby, designed, Ruby is an expert in history of fit and knows a lot about gender and sexuality. So really, why don’t you kind of get us started with a little primer around gender,

Ruby

I would not describe myself as an expert. I’m just someone who likes to read a lot and has done a lot of research. And while I do have a master’s degree in gender, and sexuality, it’s really, really important for me to stress that everyone is an expert on their own experience, their own body and their own identity. And I don’t claim to know more about anyone else than they know about themselves. So I can explain these concepts kind of generally. But everybody is the expert on themselves and their own identity. So I felt like that was an important point. To clarify, I also wanted to provide a little bit more clarification on this concept of sex versus gender. Something that I think is really important to mention is the term sex assigned at birth. So most times, when a baby is born, we look at the baby and we decide male or female, based on the observation of genitalia. And we don’t always get that right. Sometimes there are ambiguities there. So there is kind of a somewhat high prevalence of intersex characteristics in about 1%, maybe even more of the population, because of hormonal and chromosomal differences that are not outwardly apparent, right. So even if somebody has what we might consider to be, like, easy to categorize genitalia. There may be things happening internally in that infants body that we just don’t know when we just can’t observe at birth. And sometimes people are also born with ambiguous genitalia as well. Which is kind of a whole different thing. A lot of those folks do identify as intersex. And a lot of times, at least historically, what would happen is that when a baby was born with ambiguous looking genitalia, the doctors would usually advise the parents to have that child undergo surgery at a very young age so that they would fit more neatly into a binary gender category. And oftentimes, this was not um, I told to the parents is like, hey, you know, you’ve given birth to an intersex child, it was like, hey, you’ve given birth to a girl, but there’s just like, an abnormality in her genitalia. And we’re going to like surgically correct that so that she can like be a quote unquote, normal girl, which is really, really harmful. And a lot of those people later in life, you know, have sort of found out that they non consensually were given surgery at a very young age. And it can cause a lot a lot of stress and trauma later on, when folks are finding out that information. So, sex defined at birth is that initial observation that’s made, and sex assigned at birth is what gives you that F or that M that gets put on all of your legal documents and your records going forward from there. So anytime you have to fill out a form, and you check M or F, you know, that’s sex assigned at birth, for the most part. So not only is it possible to get sex assigned at birth wrong, sometimes people just don’t always feel that the sex assigned at birth is in alignment with their true identity. So that’s where this concept of gender comes into play. So gender isn’t just the roles that were assigned to play in society, based off of those characteristics of sex assigned at birth. But we also need to talk about gender identity and gender expression. So gender identity is how somebody feels internally. So what you personally feel your gender is, which may or may not align with your sex assigned at birth, generally, if it does align, you would be considered cisgender. That’s a CI S, which means that your gender identity is aligned with your sex assigned at birth. And gender expression is how you express your gender to the world. So that’s the part that’s more observable to to the outside world to passerby, you know, to people in your community, as you’re walking down the street, you know, someone might look at you and say, like, that’s a man, that’s a woman, and we’re sort of trained in our society to like, categorize people that way. So I would say that it’s sort of like a very comfortable place to just like, put people in gender binary boxes, and typically, when somebody does not fit squarely into one of those boxes, you know, I think the the typical reaction, if it’s not something that we’ve thought critically about, is to feel sort of uncomfortable around that person, or to just be like, Hmm, you know, like, I can’t, I can’t squarely put this person into one of these boxes. So I’m not sure kind of like what to do with that information. So that’s what we’re going to talk about a little bit more. But it’s also important to note that you can’t tell what somebody’s gender or what somebody’s sex is just from looking at them. So you might look at someone and think, Oh, hey, that person looks really feminine, they must be a woman. And that’s not necessarily true, because you don’t know what that person’s gender identity is, you don’t know how they feel inside. And you also don’t know what’s happening happening biologically in that person’s body. So really, the best practice is to train yourself to recognize and accept that you can’t just know from looking at someone, what their gender is, or what their sexes. So believe somebody when they do choose to disclose to you and tell you who they are and how they identify. And just try to operate it from a place where knowing that it’s safest to just not make assumptions about anyone, and use the language people use to describe themselves. So if someone introduces themselves to you, and they say, like, I’m a trans woman, you’re like, okay, this person is a trans woman, it would be inappropriate or rude of you to then you know, be like, Oh, that’s somebody who, you know, is a man dressed as a woman, or that somebody whose identity you know, I don’t know, to you to use a word different, right? Oh, that person’s genderqueer, they didn’t introduce themselves as genderqueer. So you probably shouldn’t use that term to describe them. So sex assigned at birth, you might also see abbreviated as the acronyms a fab and a map, that’s a F, A, B, and A and AB. So that’s a shorthand way of referencing sex assigned at birth as like assigned female at birth assigned male at birth. So if sex assigned at birth aligns with your gender identity, again, that makes you cisgender. But if your identity doesn’t align, then you might identify as trans non binary, gender queer, gender non conforming, there’s a lot of terms and those terms are also always changing and evolving. So again, it’s best to use the language that people use to describe themselves. Also, if somebody describes themselves as a fab or a map, you can definitely use that terminology. You know, if if that is something that they said to you that they identify as, but it’s also Not so cool to use that language to talk about people when you don’t necessarily know that information, or it’s not how they’ve introduced themselves to you. So even though these terms are a bit newer, the idea that there are people who exist outside of the gender binary is not a new concept. There have always been people who didn’t fit squarely into one of those two gender boxes throughout history. So if you do some research on trans history and gender nonconforming histories, there’s a lot of people, sometimes even famous people, or people who were influential or notorious in their societies, who we’re not necessarily like, fitting into the male or female man or woman, gender categories. And oftentimes societies had other ways of talking about those people. Maybe they had third or fourth or other gender categories in their societies. And so currently, the way that a lot of folks whose gender identity doesn’t match their sex assigned at birth, expressed their identity through using gender neutral pronouns. So typically, we use he him and she heard her refer to cisgender people in the third person, and more and more people are starting to use singular they them, or sometimes other pronouns like Xizor, as a way to opt out of those gender binary categories. And so for people who think that this was hard, right, I think there’s this narrative that like pronouns are hard, like I’ve, I’ve been trained to refer to people in this very specific way, my whole life, and it’s hard for me to like, understand how to do that differently, or break that habit, it is really important to practice, yes. And it’s also important to note that we do have a frame of reference for people shifting their identities in our society. In fact, it actually happens a lot where people get married, and maybe they change their surname, right, especially cisgender women marrying men, oftentimes will adopt the man’s last name. Or, for example, maybe you’re growing older, and you decide to give up a childhood nickname. So maybe you’ve been going by Charlie your whole life. And then you get to college, you say, actually, I want people to call me Charles, right. And generally, it’s kind of accepted that it’s rude or inappropriate to keep using that person’s old name after they’ve told you they’re changing it, right. So if somebody changes their name, because of marriage, or they tell you that they don’t want to go by their childhood nickname anymore, and you keep calling them that name, and you’re just like, oh, sorry, I forgot. Oh, you know, that’s like something that we’re all going to kind of like, you know, roll our eyes at you behind your back, because it’s just rude, right? We just kind of know that that’s like, not nice to do that, right? It’s like, not respectful. And in fact, we often celebrate this transition when it happens within a cisgender context, again, like, think of like, a woman getting married and changing her last name, right? Like, we get so excited over that shit, right? We’re like Mr. And Mrs. Williams, or whatever, right?

Like, we can’t wait, we’re like putting that name on everything, it’s something to celebrate. So, you know, I think it’s really important that we show the same support to our trans gender non conforming, non binary, and otherwise not cisgender friends and community members, when they tell us who they really are.

Amanda

So I’ve definitely had friends over the years, who have come out about their pronouns. And at first, you know, the thing that’s most important to me is that I want them to know, that I recognize and respect and care about the statement they’re making via their gender and their pronouns. And so I don’t want to use the wrong ones. And you know, for friends that I’ve had 1020 years or longer, I have been like, my brain filed away a long time ago that their pronouns are this. And it’s a mistake, that would be really easy to make. So what I do is, I will literally go around the house, and I will like talk to the cats about that person using the correct pronouns all morning long while I’m doing other things, or I might write a little paragraph about a story that I you know, something that experience I had with that person using the right pronouns. And I swear, it’s just like, and I say, this is a person who’s been jamming Japanese into my head for like, four years now. That repetition and writing and thinking about it and putting that effort into it makes it more natural, like you just won’t, it’s less likely that you’re going to make the mistake, and it’s worth that effort. When you care about and love someone and want the best for them.

Maggie

Yeah, it’s a little bit of an exercise in retraining. Right. That’s why we practice it’s, it’s building new muscle memory, especially for contexts where we like you were mentioning Amanda, you have people that you care about, maybe their pronouns change, or their gender identity evolves over time, whatever it is, in that moment, like, listen to it, honor it, respect it and put that extra time in like, yeah, that’s one way to show that you care and And they may never even know that you’ve done that, behind the scenes, right? It’s not about that. But building that, building that vocabulary building that muscle memory is super important. I also hear a lot of cisgender. Folks on particular, heterosexual folks in particular, are like, they don’t quite understand, because maybe they don’t have a different kind of pronoun, right, sis cisgender folks are like, Yeah, you know, I’m, I’m used to this, this is the way it is, I don’t understand the importance of say, like, adding my pronouns to my Zoom profile, or my email signature, or, like the LinkedIn bio is a really huge thing. And in fact, when it comes to LinkedIn, especially if you are someone who considers himself an advocate, or you yourself are trans, that’s an easy visual cue of like, being able to tell who’s who, who gets it, who doesn’t get it, who respects it? Or like, what, why should we do this, it’s not so much about sharing your own identity. It is, it’s a social cue and a signal to those who might have different pronouns that you’re a safe person to share those with, like you do understand you see them, you’re, you know, you’re, you’re with it, right. There, just I wanted to point that out. Like, even if you are cisgender, I would say maybe even, especially if you’re cisgender, and you care about people, this is one way that you can communicate that and embrace this whole concept of respecting pronouns is pictures out there that will make others feel more safe and comfortable to share their own.

Amanda

Yeah, I think that’s very true. Just like normalize caring about pronouns. And how we do that is by not making people who do share their pronouns feel weird about it by just everyone too, you know. So I really appreciate that. So, I know, Maggie, you’ve I, you know, I’m gonna say I was really touched by this, you really went to bat and dealt with someone who’s being really troll-y. about pronouns. Regarding me. How long ago was that? At this point? I have no concept of time. Three months ago, maybe?

Maggie

Yeah, yeah, probably three months ago, maybe over three months. Here’s, here’s the thing. And this is this kind of goes along with making sure that your pronouns are visible in like your email signature, your resume profile, I have a personal policy, but also through my business. So it’s a professional policy to see some say something if I see something, and that includes any situations where like, I don’t go looking for these things to happen. I don’t have time for that, or, frankly, the emotional bandwidth that would be a task and undertaking that would probably make me miserable. But if I see it, I’m going to say something, if someone misgendered someone, and that’s what happened in this case, it was I think it was on an Instagram post on clotheshorse. And I happen to notice this person misgendered you not specifically using the wrong pronouns, but using a word and a phrase that I I knew was offensive to you? Yeah. And I, I said gentle corrections are the terms that I always use gentle correction, as a reminder, the host is non binary. And they use she they pronouns, this is, you know, and they immediately jumped into my DMs to make it all about them. So this, this, why I’m sharing is a little bit of like, this is what not to do. Yeah, okay. Maybe Maybe we can ask Ruby like, Okay, how do we handle this in a positive and respectful way? This is what’s what not to do? You don’t make it about you. This person? Absolutely did. They were flabbergasted that I said anything in a public forum, and they got super defensive. And it was message after message of like, rationalizing and justifying, for example, said I was born in 1981. I’m old. I don’t get it. I don’t understand.

Amanda

We would have been in school the same time, but if I can get it… I mean, honestly, age has nothing to do with understanding people and respecting who they are.

Maggie

If people’s grandparents and they do if they’re great grandparents can take that step and make an effort. Anyone and everyone can age is never an excuse, frankly, there there is no excuse. And that’s why we’re having this conversation today. Because we’re all learning. We’re all going to make mistakes, right? And also language changes over time. So nobody’s gonna get it right 100% of the time, but if we make the commitment, this is what I explained to this person, the commitment to learning and just being receptive to challenging her Have and educating yourself listening, when someone says this, the best thing you can do is say thank you. Right and move on. That’s not what happened. In this case, it got pretty ugly. And we eventually blocked each other. And that was kind of the end of that. But yeah, I will always do that. Anyone who’s listening, Ruby, Amanda, all of you, if I see it, I’m going to say something. I feel like that’s, as someone who has some amount of privilege, I feel like it’s my responsibility. Like, I can do this people. People will listen, maybe they will, maybe they won’t listen. But I have to say something. So right thing to do?

Amanda

Well, I appreciate that. And there will, there will be someone who you really open their eyes on, you know, and maybe that’s only going to be 20% of people, maybe that’s going to be 90% of people. But regardless of how, quote successful is, the person who was misgendered or mislabeled, or whatever, is always going to feel so appreciative, and just feel cared for. And I think that that’s the most important part of it all. So how does anybody have any advice out here on how you could react in that situation? If you misgendered someone, for example, and someone called you out on it? I called out sounds aggressive. Someone gently corrected. Oh, am Colin, right. Like, yeah, I you know, because I think I understand I honestly had a recent situation with a vendor at work, who used a term on the packaging, that is a pejorative racist term for the Romani people. And I said, you know, like, we listen, we there’s no way we would carry that just because of this, like, if you want to change it, here’s a bunch of information about it, and why this is important to us. And at first, they were just like, really defensive, like, well, no one else cares. And I’m like, well, actually, let me show you about a huge rain, global renaming of a type of moth. Because of this, like, this is a really big deal. When I say something, even more information was like really gentle with them. And then they were like, you know, thank you so much. At first, I was a little taken aback, because I felt bad or embarrassed. But I’m glad to thank you for being patient with me. And I’m not saying that we all need to be doing all that emotional labor all the time for everyone. But to me, that ended up being like a better response, although I wish it didn’t take like 45 minutes of me pulling links to get them there. What would it be a better way to respond to if Maggie says to you on Instagram? Hey, you just misgendered that person?

Ruby

Yeah, I mean, I think the best way to respond is to apologize quickly, and just move on. So I think right? Yeah, it’s like, the longer you sit on it, it feels weird. Like, if you, let’s say, like, I misgendered a co worker or something. And they were like, you know, someone told me later, oh, that person uses they them pronouns. Even in that situation where maybe that person has like, walked away. And like, that interaction is over or something. It’s like, I think, you know, if you’re given that information, oh, that person uses they them pronouns, you just say, Oh, thanks for letting me know. And then you don’t even need to say anything to that person. You know, and just get it right the next time. Because I think when you go up to someone, you’re like, Oh my God, I didn’t realize I’m so sorry. Like, oh, like I misgendered you like it kind of makes it all about you and your guilt. And you’re kind of centering like your own discomfort with the situation and almost like putting them in a position where they need to then sort of follow this script that says like, Oh, it’s okay, don’t worry about it. And that feels really awkward and, and bad for that for that person. Because like, they’re, they weren’t trying to have an interaction that was like all about that. Um, so I think, you know, if it’s, if it’s to somebody’s face, or the person, you know, the person is present in the room, I think you just say, Oops, sorry. And then, you know, make an effort to get it right from then on. And if somebody is, you know, calling you in, like, you know, like Maggie did in that comment that’s like, you can just say like, Oh, thanks for the info, I’m gonna, I’m gonna delete that previous comment. And then you just do it, and then you’re done. When you walk away,

Amanda

it’s that simple. And then it’s not like, I feel like with the situation where it went awry with Maggie, it turned into minimally one hour of really bad feelings on both sides. And we don’t need that because there’s like, enough stuff to be upset about in the world, honestly. Like, without that, you know?

Ruby

Yeah. And it takes I think it takes a lot of emotional labor to, to, you know, especially if you are the person being misgendered to stand up for yourself and that moment, and so it really, if you’re the person who has done the misgendering well, even if it’s like by accident, like, just don’t, don’t dig yourself and that other person into this trench where you now need to talk about it forever, you know, just just apologize and move on. Yeah, and I will just say,

Amanda

as someone who I would say, I waited almost 10 years to tell everyone that I was non binary, even though I’ve known it this whole time and have been like thinking about it. And it was sort of just like, for me, I thought, Well, it’d be too difficult for everybody else around me to understand. So I just won’t say anything to anyone ever, but I will just know it. I think for me, it felt really liberating, freeing, like I was being honest about something that I’d been secretive about for so long to just tell people. But then at the same time, and I was telling both of you before we started recording that, you know, I get misgendered constantly at work. Like if I get one more email from a vendor, or even like someone who works for my employer that says, Hey, lady, or ladies, let’s set up some time to talk. I just didn’t get to like, flip over a desk. I’m not going to do out there, like attached to the wall there. There’s no way. But But like, you know, it’s like one of those things where I feel like sometimes, oh, man, if I just never told anyone publicly, like, this is something you know, that is me and something I’ve been thinking about for a long time, then I would never have to deal with the disappointing feeling of people not respecting it, if that makes sense. Yeah. So I just I guess what I’m saying, like a really roundabout way is that one of the things I think it’s important for everybody who’s listening to this conversation to understand is that no one is coming out and saying, Hey, I’m non binary, or my pronouns. You I know you think my pronouns are she her there, but they’re actually he him? Or they’re they them, nobody’s coming out and saying that on a whim. It took me 10 years, to say something out loud about it. Yeah. And I think like, that’s why by the time you know, someone’s pronouns, like, it’s it’s long overdue to respect them. Important, it’s like extra more important than you think it is.

Ruby

Yeah, thanks for sharing that, Amanda. Yeah,

Amanda

I think like, you know, when you were talking about like, how you hold your gender cards close to you, I was like, wow, this is a feeling I know. Really, really?

Ruby

Yeah, it can be really scary to say say anything out loud if you don’t feel 100,000,000% certain about it. Yeah, yeah. So I think trusting, trusting people when they tell you who they are is, is really important.