Reprinted with permission. Original on FB.

1) A racerback (or convertible, which is good ’cause it also goes strapless in case tube tops come back)
2) For under white shirts, a bra that matches your skin tone
3) Regular black bra for everyday use
4) Sports bra for sports and/or gender panic

A blog post about bras that actually uses the term “gender panic”: excellent.

Similarly, she explains the differences between types of bra cups: Demi-Cup, Balconette, Contour Cup, Soft Cup, Padded, Push-Up, Minimizer, Molded Cups, Plunge. I’m partial to demis and Balconettes, myself. She mentions that they’re good for skinny girls, which is not exactly accurate: my feeling is that they’re better for certain kinds of breasts, but you’ll only know once you wear them. I find they’re sexy and create enough cleavage but not too much: I don’t wear pushups unless I need somewhere to rest my chin.

Trans women often complain about being more nipple than breast in their first year or so on hormones, and padded bras or molded cups should work well for them (as well as for women who are ardently against nipple visibility), although molded cups – as she mentions – “(like most “t-shirt” bras) are expecting to handle a much larger chunk of flesh than I have”. That said, padded bras and molded cups can help women with smaller breasts “top off” to a size that helps shirts fit better (not because breasts are required, but because many types of women’s shirts are made with darts).

Those of you with implants may find you need less support than women who grew their own who are the same size as you.

But DO go get professionally fitted, and DO get re-fitted if you (1) gain or lose weight or (2) start changing your body with a new workout. Bras have to fit your breasts, yes, but also your back and shoulders, which also change with strength training and weight loss or gain. A couple of years ago I lost 20+ pounds in six months and that summer I was getting an awful lot of attention; it turned out I’d gone up a cup and down a band size, which meant the bras I was wearing were giving me almost no support (which breast-loving passersby seemed to notice, let’s just say). I had heard women losing weight complain about losing some of their breasts first, so it never occurred to me that weight loss could result in larger boobs. Also, (3) bra manufacturers – like clothing manufacturers – do change their fit models sometimes, which means even a brand/type that always fits you may not because they’ve tweaked the design. Not all bras from the same manufacturer will fit the same, either.

She’s got choices in different types of bras, although she seems to focus on mid-market types, & not the really good bras that make me happy — I should own stock in Wacoal. I still miss the days I could go without, and the days I could wear less expensive bras, and I miss not needing a Ph.D. in bra design when trying to wear all the cool variations in tank tops, halters, and translucent shirts that come with summer. Alas, those days are long gone.

Still, lots of useful info, no heteronormativity assumed.

Here are some other useful links about bras:
Bitch PhD’s Ultimate Bra Post
lifescript’s quiz to help you figure out if you’re wearing the wrong size
Lady Grace has hard to find sizes

“At first people probably thought it was crazy,” said Supamas “Jean” Sirimoungkalavanit, owner of Tom Chic shop. “It was quite understandable to get such responses because tomswear was something new to them.”

“People often misperceive [sic] that we want to be like men,” she says. “We have a different taste, lifestyle and identity, and so tomboy clothing is different from what men wear.’’

Indeed what we categorize in the states more often as lesbian chic than tomswear does have a unique aesthetic it has quickly spread to tween boy idols and throughout the fashion world. And though Sirimoungkalavanit tries to make it clear that her shoppers do not necessarily want to be like men there is certainly an aspect to her line that many trans-identified people can relate to.

How cool is that?

Just as boys were once clothed in dresses, they were also once swaddled in pink. Historically, in many European countries, pink was the dominant color for boys, and blue—the official hue of the Virgin Mary—was the popular girls’ color. (emphasis mine)

which appears in an article by Brian Palmer at Slate about gendered clothing for young children, and whether or not Shiloh isn’t just a trendsetter (or retro, depending).

(Which forces me to admit: I was surprised the author of the article is male. Ah, gendered expectations always bite in the end.)

What I find amazing is that on Joe.My.God’s post about it, there are people who don’t seem to understand that butch women are women.

Sometimes the cluelessness in the LGBTQ community about gender identities and expressions blows my mind.

Thus the new protest also speaks to the societal aspect of Iranian women being forced to accept a dress code, according to Dabashi.

“Proud to wear my late mother’s rusari, the very rusari that was forced on my wife in Iran, the very rusari for which my sisters are humiliated if they choose to wear it in Europe, and the very rusari that the backward banality that now rules Iran thinks will humiliate Majid Tavakoli if it is put on him — He is dearer and nobler to us today than he ever was.”

In a speech before his arrest, Tavakoli played on the theme of the day’s historical significance in light of current anti-government protests.

“We Iranian men are late doing this,” Dabashi said. “If we did this when rusari was forced on those among our sisters who did not wish to wear it 30 years ago, we would have perhaps not been here today.”

(thanks to Jade Catherine for the tip)

At Wesson Attendance Center, a Mississippi public school, just that sort of fight erupted over senior portraits. Last summer, during her photo session, Ceara Sturgis, 17, dutifully tried on the traditional black drape, the open-necked robe that reveals the collarbone, a hint of bare shoulder.

“It was terrible!” said Ms. Sturgis, an honors student, band president and soccer goalie, who has been openly gay since 10th grade. “If you put a boy in a drape, that’s me! I have big shoulders and ooh, it didn’t look like me! I said, ‘I can’t do this!’ So my mom said, ‘Try on the tux.’ And that looked normal.”

Shortly thereafter, students were informed that girls had to wear drapes for yearbook portraits; boys, tuxedos.

The Mississippi chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union wrote to the school. Rickey Clopton, superintendent of Copiah County schools, did not return phone calls. Last month he released a statement affirming that the school’s decision was “based upon sound educational policy and legal precedent.”

Last month, Veronica Rodriguez, Ms. Sturgis’s mother, paid for a full-page ad in the yearbook that is to include a photograph of her daughter in a tuxedo.

At Skirt Cafe (www.skirtcafe.org), skirt-minded men and people of other genders get together to talk about hemlines. As Bob explains:

At SkirtCafe, we are dedicated to the idea of “Fashion Freedom” for men. The basic idea is… if you want to wear a skirt, just do it; now you’re a man wearing a skirt. Men might want to wear skirts for many reasons. Some guys just like to be different, some want comfort, some want to look and feel beautiful, some have experienced gender dysphoria in one way or another. But whatever the reason, we are committed to the idea that we can just do it, as a man wearing a skirt.

We don’t need to go through elaborate makeup routines, or emulate a stilted notion of femininity, or consider changing our body through strong drugs and surgery, or orient our lives around our fashion choice, or call ourselves “Suzi” for the evening, or hide from everyone we know. There is no closet, and no secrets. Unlike the CD community, we really are no different from the woman who decides to wear a buttondown, described in your introduction. It’s just a fashion choice.

We have demonstrated, again and again, that a guy wearing a skirt in public is no big deal — a “non event.” We’ve experienced little or no rejection or discrimination, and we don’t bother much to hide our identity or fashion choice from the world.

Over at New Male Fashion, the blogger asks:

Wouldn’t it be likewise fair for us males in need of displaying our creativity, sense of style, and flare, who enjoy keeping in touch with our “feminine side”, to have the freedom to adopt styles, colours, and garments that were once considered too “feminine”?

Public opinion is moving tardily but steadily in that direction. Designers come up with innovations and creativity in their masculine lines, as opposed to the dullness and uniformity that has been so far the main feature of male garments. New proffers include not only more daring colours and designs, but also male skirts, high heels, dresses, and other garments that used to be kept at the other side of the aisle.

A “New Male” is under construction. Hopefully, a more balanced, understanding, sensitive, creative male.

The statement is beautifully underlined by the photo of the coy “new male” model that accompanies this post, & there’s a lot more like them there, including clothes by Westwood, Pugh, and Baratashvili.

(Ana de Gregorio styled by Ash Stymest, photographed by JM Ferrater.)

The dress-wearing ban is aimed at a small part of the private college’s 2,700-member student body, said Dr. William Bynum, vice president for Student Services.

“We are talking about five students who are living a gay lifestyle that is leading them to dress a way we do not expect in Morehouse men,” he said.

Before the school released the policy, Bynum said, he met with Morehouse Safe Space, the campus’ gay organization.

“We talked about it and then they took a vote,” he said. “Of the 27 people in the room, only three were against it.”

There has been a positive response along with some criticism throughout the campus, he said.

Senior Devon Watson said he disagrees with parts of the new policy, especially those that tell students what they should wear in free time outside of the classroom.

I’m wondering if someone needs to tell them about straight crossdressers, and about pre-transition MTF trans people. Hopefully Morehouse’s Safe Space already does – but I doubt it.