I hope all of you had a great holiday season! I am finally back from my travels abroad and have some great new ideas for articles that I want to write.
As the title of this one implies, I celebrated Christmas, but unfortunately in jeans. The reason for this is simply because there were family members present from the deep south of the United States and wearing a skirt would have caused a scene that would have destroyed the mood and atmosphere.
While I don’t condone their closed-mindedness, it wasn’t worth the fuss it would have caused which just goes to show that activism of any kind has its limits in everyday situations. Normally, I wouldn’t have cared, but it would have destroyed Christmas for the whole family in this particular situation.
Do I regret not having been able to? Of course! Would I have worn a skirt in a different situation? Definitely. Am I happy about the bigotry? Of course not. But I still had a great time anyway and was happy to see everyone again.
New Skirt
A few weeks ago, I released a poll asking if you got any skirts or other gender-non-conforming clothes for Christmas. I answered “no”, but I did take advantage of being in the United States to buy myself a wonderful new skirt from Skirtcraft after Christmas. I bought the Tellurian model in black:
The skirt is high quality and very comfortable. My only regret is that I bought it a size too small, but didn’t have time to send it back and exchange it before leaving the country again. It still fits since it uses an adjustable strap to close, but the strap is pretty well at the end of its length.
Otherwise, you can expect some great new content in the coming weeks. I’m looking forward to continuing my skirt-wearing in the new year and I hope we can get even more men on board as the year progresses!
Welcome back, Alex, to the Untied States – if only for a while. Glad you had a good, if unskirted, holiday. It’s difficult to balance family peace and our own comfort. I wholly understand and appreciate your choice there. I am more fortunate, despite my Virginia family members’ provincialism, they tolerate my difference from their habits, even at our holiday gathering. Keep up the good work! As more of us confidently demonstrate that we look good and feel good in one-hole lower garments, the world will come along.
Thank you! It was nice to be back in the US for a while, but it’s also always nice to go back to your own home again, which happens to be in Germany for me. I’m glad to hear that your family tolerates it! The more exposure men in skirts gets, the more even archconservatives will accept it since it will become more of the norm. We’re still a long way from that though, unfortunately.
I love the Tellurian skirt. It’s kilt like enough to be accepted but not kilt like enough to be heavy and dragging. Pockets rock. Took me a little while to figure out the straps and what not but all good now.
I understand the need to avoid ruining Christmas for all. You’re a better man for doing so. Even though I know you’re jonesing to just be yourself. I wore a kilt over Christmas with my family for the first time. Have one member who’s a bit close minded but didn’t used to be. It wasn’t a positive experience but wasn’t negative either. Basically was just what it was. She posted it on Facebook and someone said that they wish more guys would wear kilts.
I agree that it’s an excellent skirt that has a more “masculine” flair like kilts do. I also love the pockets!
It’s great that you wore a kilt for Christmas! Too bad it wasn’t a more positive experience, but it’s great that the post on Facebook got that comment!
Well, although I haven’t visited my “further” family nor anyone visited me, I went for official suit during 3 days of Christmas – I probably regret not being truly myself, but the motivation was probably similar to yours so avoid any discussion about how this “look” is not appropriate to the “situation”.
This kinda sucks when your family has bigger problem with how you look and what you wear than people you see when you’re outside. On the other hand, strangers do not care about you, while family does, even if this might result in actually hurting you than helping you, or just trying to make you as ordinary as possible and then complain about you being “so ordinary”.
Yeah, unfortunately, during important family events like that, it’s just not really worth all the problems. Of course, if your family already knows about it and accepts it, then that’s an entirely different thing. If it weren’t for my family from the deep South of the United States, I would have worn a skirt because the rest of my family knows about it and is fine with it.
This is so true about family, my relationship with my parents is completely disfunctional at the moment, just because of the lack of a seam! It is so sad when you have “We love you unconditionally, but you need to wear trousers”. Over the last 2 years I’ve been struggling with this to the point of depression and going to very dark places mentally, and I’m coming out the other side, but I’ve taken the stand that it shouldn’t matter to them, and staying my ground. The “generational” argument is just one of laziness as they quite happily use technology that is not of their generation.
I think what I’m saying is kudos to those who bend and accommodate, and kudos to those who don’t and challenge the stays quo with those harder relationships. Neither path is easy, but at the end of the day, we need to look after ourselves first. Mental health in men is real and we should be able to talk about it.