ROGERS PARK — Willow Mathis stepped out of a thrift retailer dressing room sporting a blue-and-white denim vest paired with a red-striped headband. She smiled as she checked out her reflection in a full-length mirror.
As a transgender lady, Mathis, 26, as soon as discovered the concept of purchasing within the ladies’s part terrifying. These struggles led Mathis, who moved to Chicago from Kansas Metropolis 9 years in the past, to a session with Costume Your New Physique, a free styling service in Rogers Park created for newly transitioned transgender and nonbinary people.
“I’ve spent my whole life in garments that don’t match with my physique, and I’m nonetheless beginning out in my transition, so I haven’t been ‘Willow’ for that lengthy,” Mathis mentioned throughout a go to in late Could to Costume Your New Physique. “However throughout this [consultation], it actually hit me that I might discover my voice via trend. That clothes might play a giant half in my journey.”
From sizing that usually requires a tailor to suit correctly to the overall lack of gender-neutral clothes within the mainstream trend business, many transgender, nonbinary and intersex folks face challenges find apparel that matches and feels affirming.
That’s the place Costume Your New Physique is available in.
Based by Rogers Park native Missy Thrasher-Lyon, Costume Your New Physique opened in November inside New To You Thrift Store, a 98-year-old secondhand retailer situated on the United Church of Rogers Park, 1545 W. Morse Ave.
For Thrasher-Lyon, 35, the Costume Your New Physique idea just isn’t solely about serving to folks discover their model.
“One of many issues I’ve seen which means probably the most to me is watching folks determine it out on the spot, watching their self-concept evolve proper in entrance of your eyes,” she mentioned.
The consultations now come at a time when federal positions on LGBTQ+ communities have sharply shifted. In one of many first days of his second time period, President Donald Trump issued an govt order instructing all federal companies to take away any statements or insurance policies which confer with “gender ideology.” Transgender, nonbinary and intersex individuals are labeled within the order as “ideologues who deny the organic actuality of intercourse.”
The Trump administration has additionally stripped the flexibility to alter gender markers on a passport and has sought to bar transgender folks from taking part in feminine sports activities or serving within the army. Authorities officers are additionally looking for to dam gender-affirming care for people beneath the age of 19. A few of these efforts have been briefly blocked by authorized challenges.
However queer communities have an extended historical past of utilizing trend as a type of expression and defiance. Underground drag balls courting to the late nineteenth century, together with modern-day clothes swaps the place gender-affirming garments are exchanged for gratis, are only a few examples of how attire can assert identification and problem societal norms.
“Style can be utilized to make a press release,” mentioned Andrew Reilly, a professor on the College of Hawaii at Mānoa who researches trend design and merchandising. “And clothes itself can be utilized to point out that we [queer people] do exist, that we’re right here.”
Raised in a break up custody, low-income family in Rogers Park, Thrasher-Lyon discovered at an early age the way to store on a funds however nonetheless discover fashionable garments. Later, after marrying a transgender lady, she mentioned she gained a deeper understanding of how trend influences identification, in addition to the challenges related to clothes for folks of various genders. These experiences impressed her to begin Costume Your New Physique.
Thrasher-Lyon teamed up United Church of Rogers Park, the place she and her spouse are members, to launch the enterprise. When she approached church management concerning the venture, the church — a predominantly queer congregation with a longstanding historical past of LGBTQ+ advocacy — agreed with out hesitation.
“I’m a preaching homosexual man. We have now a trans man that’s singing. We have now a homosexual man taking part in the piano. We have now an older social justice woman that’s doing the scripture studying,” mentioned Seth Botts, a reverend on the church. “Trans identification is simply such part of our identification.”
Costume Your New Physique hosts consultations each first and third Tuesday of the month, with as much as 4 purchasers styled every time. This system has styled purchasers from ages 11 to 50. Garments are free or low price; no piece exceeds $15.
Costume Your New Physique is aided in its efforts by Rogers Park neighbors and companies, who’ve traditionally created a private, supportive surroundings for queer communities, Thrasher-Lyon mentioned.
Particular person barbers and outlets supply Costume Your New Physique’s purchasers reductions on hair and tailoring companies, whereas posters promoting the session service are taped up in shops and cafes all through town.
That’s how Diego first heard concerning the consultations.
Diego, a transgender man who requested to not use his full title for privateness causes, noticed a flyer whereas getting a haircut at Twisted Scissors, a queer-owned barber store in Avondale. Attracted by the design with the transgender flag, he mentioned the signal was a uncommon commercial that had transgender visibility at its epicenter. Feeling seen and on the lookout for styling recommendation, he despatched Thrasher-Lyon an e-mail.
After filling out a questionnaire, Diego arrived on the retailer in February and was met with a curated number of skilled apparel and daring, “enjoyable librarian” assertion items.
Thrasher-Lyon selected his outfits, assisted by Judas Rotter, a member of the transgender group who helps with styling. As a result of Thrasher-Lyon is a cisgender lady, she ensures somebody who’s transgender or nonbinary joins her for the consultations to create a extra inclusive expertise.
For Diego, trend provides him the flexibility to go or be perceived because the intercourse he identifies with fairly than the one assigned at start.
“Folks all the time go like, ‘Trans individuals are perverts, they’re scary folks’ — they are saying every kind of s— about us,” he mentioned. “However I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m so scary with my on a regular basis flannel and kitty cat t-shirt.’”
Whatever the reasoning behind the garments, Rotter mentioned trend within the queer group is about having enjoyable and self-expression, qualities the consultations take critically.
“There’s no proper or flawed solution to do it. It’s only a playful, pleasing expertise,” Rotter mentioned. “Pleasure is resilience proper now. And if trend and gender expression is bringing folks to play, and that’s our resilience proper now, then extra f—— energy to all people who’s wearing the way in which they wish to gown.”
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