Having identified as trans for a few years - it's exhausting. You are encouraged to pick apart everything you wear, everything you like , to see whether it properly reflects your inner sense of self. It encourages the worst kind of rumination. Nothing is 'just' anything - it all takes on this like quasi spiritual significance.

I think you see it the most with how this video talks about tattoos and piercings - a lot of the time it's about looking alternative, not necessarily androgynous. I was always so concerned with people not seeing 'the real me' and often really what that meant is I want to look slightly edgy, but I would be so torn up about the fear of being inauthentic. Once I got into the world of work, I realised that looking edgy gets old really fast and I don't really want everyone I meet to know 'the real me'.