Hello There,
Just wanted to have a quick chat today about how I almost made a huge mistake at work. At my last job I tended to feel REALLY bad gender dysphoria because there were separate uniforms for men and women. Since I'm gender fluid I didn't feel dysphoria all the time, but when it flared up at work it was exacerbated by the separate uniforms. Well I was trying to think of ways to help ease my dysphoria but unfortunately due to the nature of my job my options were limited. It was a pretty physical job so if I were to wear either a bra or panties under my uniform their outlines would almost certainly be seen at some point. Part of my uniform were shorts, which is why I am unable to shave my legs (even at my current job), this also meant that I would be unable to easily hide pantyhose under pants. However, my gender dysphoria was getting so miserable that I needed to take action, something had to be done. I have read online several success stories where men have worn shorts with nude sheer pantyhose on underneath without anyone noticing, so I figured they would have to be my best bet. I bought myself a pair at Walmart, and was ready to start wearing them at work. However I felt that they were just a little too shiny, and therefore noticeable, so I decided to wait and find a less noticeable pair.
Not long after I decided to temporarily wait, my coworkers and I were at lunch in the employee cafeteria and I noticed my coworkers talking to each other in hushed tones and pointing at another employee who worked in a different department. Well I looked over to see what they were all chatting about; It was an older man, in his regular uniform wearing shiny pearlescent tights under his shorts. My job was not in a cold climate and he wasn't one of the entertainers working for my company so there was really no reason for him to be wearing them outside of pleasure (I don't blame him they were really cute, similar to what Zendaya is wearing below). Once I understood what all the hullabaloo was about I turned back to my coworkers to start listening to what they had to say about him. All of them were calling him weird and strange, and wondering what was wrong with him. I chose not to chime in but was silently horrified. That could have been me receiving all that ridicule if I had gone through with wearing the pantyhose!
Needless to say I did not ever end up wearing pantyhose to work. While I know that some of my coworkers would have been fine with me wearing them (I'm out to them), it would not have gone well with the all the others. As awful as to watch them ridicule that man, I'm glad it happened because it saved me potentially the same ridicule. Just goes to show you that sometimes people's fears of coming out can be justified. Thankfully at my new job the uniforms are gender neutral so my gender dysphoria is not triggered nearly as much!
-Carly