| Description: |
I recall this moment when I was admonished by a supervisor for wearing capri pants to the office. I remember this clearly, as if it were yesterday. The pants were powder blue, and it was a warm day (as days in Arizona usually are). It turns out, my supervisor’s supervisor—a White nontrans man—took issue with my clothing and instead of addressing me directly, had my supervisor do so. I recall, in our conversation, asking why I was being reprimanded when the office graphic designer wore shorts and graphic T-shirts year round. “He needs to express himself creatively for his role,” my supervisor told me. I, however, was not a creative, and despite there being no dress code policy forbidding men from wearing capri pants, I was made into a bad employee for doing so. Our exchange that day brought into clarity how the extension of cisheteropatriarchy as a function of the supervisor(y relationship) was not just a task/tool for men, that White nontrans women also were invested in surveilling and admonishing gendered behavior they deemed out of alignment. In other words: race (Whiteness) plus gender (nontransness) created a race/gender discourse through which gender transgression was supervised out of me. |