In Pride Parades: How A Parade Changed the World, Katherine Bruce writes that “having fun in a new way -- counter to one that is prescribed by society -- can be a method to urge society to change. In this way, fun is prefigurative, meaning that it acts out the world that activists hope to make a reality.” The same applies with fashion: dressing in ways which contradict societal expectations of gender or heterosexuality, acts as a critique. [...]
Stonewall represented a radical departure from this appeal to respectability. According to a contemporary account by writer Lucian K Truscott IV, “the sudden spectre of ‘gay power’ erected its brazen head and spat out a fairy tale”. The day after the riots, protestors took to the streets in as much a spirit of revelry as anger. At the time, fashion wasn’t seen as something frivolous or separate to the serious business of political protest: Truscott writes, "if Friday had been pick-up night, Saturday was date night”, complete with ‘posing and primping’, and ‘flaunt[ing] it’. Drag formed a crucial part of this visual spectacle but, looking at Fred W. McDarrah’s photos taken at the time, not all of the fashion on display was outré. Much of it doesn’t even read as particularly queer: many of the rioters are wearing over-sized white shirts, striped black tees, short-shorts or sensibly cut trousers. [...]
For many queer men Pride offers an occasion to dress in a more “feminine” style than they normally would. But Pride fashion also has a tendency towards hypermasculinity. Leather has been a mainstay since the 70s, not to mention constituting a rich subculture in its own right. If leather culture emerged as a response to contemporary stereotypes of heterosexual masculinity, it has become a look which signifies, above all, its own queerness. This is also true of harnesses or mesh, two other staples of Pride fashion, with the former being explicitly drawn from the aesthetics of BDSM. Wearing these clothes conveys an exaggerated masculinity which is just as performative as going in drag. After all, if you wanted to be read as masculine in a straight way, you’d be better off turning up in a plain white T-shirt and a pair of shorts from Superdry (which, sadly, all too many do). The fashion of leather and harnesses, then, represents both a celebration and a parody of masculinity. [...]
I ask Robin whether he would dress differently at Trans Pride. “Yes, I’d be more comfortable being visibly trans there. But at the mainstream event, I almost want to pass as a cis man, simply because I don’t want the hassle of trying to claim space. This affects what I wear: hiding my surgery scars, not wearing trans colours, assimilating more into cis gay men fashion. Part of me wants to be more visibly trans at Pride as a ‘fuck you.’ But, on the other hand, I’m also really tired of having to make these defiant gestures.”
