Hi!

I’ve been an occasional lurker on here since I was a kid. I’m a trans woman, and I’ve been “out” for four years now. Throughout my adolescence, I had an intense fascination with kilts that, in retrospect, I recognize to be deeply intertwined with my repressed feelings of wanting to be a girl. To summarize, I think my early development went something like this:

  1. Wanted to be a girl
  2. Wanted to wear skirts and dresses
  3. Was told it was “wrong” to want this
  4. Found out what kilts were; in my early-childhood brain, thought of kilts as an “acceptably masculine” way to satisfy this desire
  5. Fixated on kilts for this reason


Before I go on, let me preempt some criticism of this post by stating a few things:

  1. I’m obsessed with Celtic heritage regardless of my history of gender feelings. I’d love kilts even if I weren’t trans.
  2. I am in no way implying that the wearing of kilts for reasons of unresolved gender feelings is at all common. I’m simply checking to see if this seemingly rare (and therefore lonely) experience is something that anyone else shares with me.
  3. While me opening up this topic is not technically “about kilts”, it’s potentially about members of this community, and it’s at the very least about my relationship to kilts… so I hope it’s not seen as “off-topic”.


But on to my main request: If you’re reading this, and you relate in any way, I’d really like it if you reached out to me. If you feel like your interest in kilts originates — even only partially — in private or painful feelings related to your gender identity, I’d love to get a DM about it. As a side note, I’m very serious about privacy.

The reason I suspect that I’m “not the only one” is that a couple years ago, a man I knew who was really interested in kilts confided in me that he contemplated transitioning in an earlier (and less tolerant) time. He told me that kilts are really all he has to help him feel OK about his life, which I found heartbreaking but also relatable and deeply moving. Because this garment that tons of people are passionate about for a hundred different and equally compelling reasons is quite possibly even secretly saving lives.

If you prefer email, mine is margal[at]protonmail.com

Thanks, everyone, for your openness to this unconventional and potentially sensitive topic.

—M