When I say the word “nonbinary,” who comes to mind, and what are they wearing? If your brain conjures up an image of a gender-ambiguous person draped in conventionally masculine clothing, you’re not alone. In fact, many people I’ve discussed this with have a similar internalized association. Patterned button-down shirts, baggy shorts, oversized blazers — somewhere along the line, these masculine-coded styles became encoded in our collective consciousness as the de facto “nonbinary look.” 

I’m not talking about how nonbinary people view or approach our own gender expression; I’m referring to how many cisgender people expect us to look. Nonbinary people — myself included — understand the expansive, highly personal nature of our fashion and beauty choices. We also know that you can’t make assumptions about a person’s gender by looking at them. Unfortunately, that is sometimes lost on cis people, who often conflate gender identity (a person’s internal experience of gender) with gender expression (their external display of gender, including clothing, makeup, and accessories).

Western, patriarchal society privileges expressions of masculinity over femininity. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that conventionally masculine styles emerged as the stereotypical nonbinary look. Are there many nonbinary people who dress this way? Yes! In fact, I’m one of them. Again, that’s totally valid. What I take issue with is the widespread misconception that being nonbinary means dressing a certain way.

Others have written about the pressures many nonbinary people feel to dress androgynously — even if they’d rather wear conventionally feminine styles — as a means of signaling their identity in a way cis people will understand. It’s something nonbinary designer MI Leggett of Official Rebrand has witnessed and experienced personally. “We often feel like we have to be mindful of how we perceive ourselves versus how other people are going to perceive us,” they tell me. “Like, yes, we're dressing for ourselves, but also, fuck getting misgendered constantly.” This is a byproduct of the same phenomenon I’ve named: a tacit, masculine-coded nonbinary look.

This specific aesthetic was inadvertently enshrined in popular culture by early media depictions of nonbinary people. Billions star Asia Kate Dillon — who broke ground in 2017 with their portrayal of Taylor Mason, the first nonbinary lead character in a U.S. television series — was styled in masc button-up shirts, suits, and ties. Ditto with Bishop, Bex Taylor Klaus’s nonbinary character in the short-lived Fox show Deputy.

Granted, there are exceptions. Nonbinary actor and singer Alex Newell was styled in colorful outfits for their role as genderfluid Mo in NBC’s Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. I was glad to see this because the American public needs more diverse media portrayals of nonbinary individuals. By definition, nonbinary people experience gender beyond the binary of male and female; the ways we style ourselves are subsequently wide-ranging.

There is no one nonbinary look. I find this aesthetic expansiveness liberating, but I see how some cis people might find it confusing. It also presents a unique challenge for brands who want to market their products or services to nonbinary people (or attempt to signal their support by doing so). If you’re targeting a group that inherently lacks uniformity, it’s easier and more cost-effective to cater to a stereotype than reflect that complexity.

Nowhere is the latter dilemma more evident than in the complex world of genderless fashion. When fashion retailers realized the potential for profit in the late 2010s, “every [brand] was like, ‘Oh, we should do a gender-free collection,’” recalls Leggett. “And then they were like, ‘Okay, let's just make menswear and say it's gender-free.’” Zara’s 2016 “genderless” collection — consisting of, you guessed it, generic, masc-leaning sweatpants and T-shirts — is a notable example. The fast-fashion retailer was dinged for greedily treating gender expansiveness as a trend, and rightfully so.

Trans and nonbinary designers like Leggett are pioneering genderless designs that intentionally reflect the aesthetic diversity of our community — and actually fit our bodies. For Official Rebrand, Leggett “rebrands” discarded or sustainably sourced textiles with unique alterations and hand-painted designs. They describe their statement-making clothes and accessories as “gender-free” instead of “gender-neutral,” a semantic shift I love because it reflects how no designer or design choice is ever truly neutral. (On the contrary, the phrase “gender-neutral” has arguably become synonymous with the masculine-coded nonbinary look.)

“One of the most beautiful things about being nonbinary in general is that it's so spacious,” Leggett muses. “Gender is a huge spectrum, and you can fall and express yourself anywhere on it. The thought that ‘neutral’ is just masculine by default is very lazy.”

Official Rebrand’s offerings are vast: Some garments like the RASPADITOS x OR?! deadstock tank tops are cropped or form-fitting — a stark contrast to the boring, baggy silhouettes that still dominate genderless clothing lines, especially in the fast-fashion space. As trans designer Pierre Davis of No Sesso told Women’s Wear Daily in 2022, retailers “still mix up unisex as being big, [oversized] clothing instead of anything you want to wear.” Case in point: H&M’s T-shirt- and sweatpant-laden “Unisex Shop,” which is just as uninspired as Zara’s genderless collection from six years ago.

There are some pros to oversized items. Baggier clothing can fit a wider range of sizes and bodies, which is more accommodating for nonbinary folks who are experiencing gender dysphoria or whose bodies are changing sizes during their transition. “You don’t need to be trans to understand what it’s like for your body to change shape over time,” Eden Loweth of Art School noted in a 2020 interview with Harper’s Bazaar. Since they’re more capacious, these garments are typically simpler and cheaper to make.

But that doesn’t mean all clothing marketed as “genderless” should be oversized or masculine-coded. If brands earnestly want to appeal to nonbinary people, they should honor the myriad ways we express ourselves sartorially with a wide range of garments — and yes, that includes cropped, skin-tight, and conventionally feminine silhouettes. Because we wear those too.

They also owe it to us to thoroughly consider fit and functionality. Consider queer designer Becca McCharen-Tran’s swimwear brand Chromat, one of my favorite genderless retailers. Its form-fitting, high-saturation swim tops and bottoms aren’t categorized by gender. Instead, Chromat offers many of the same pieces in “narrow” or “wide” sizes designed to fit people with different body parts. To me, this approach exemplifies inclusion because it suits a wide spectrum of trans and nonbinary bodies. Anyone who wants to experience the singular joy of wearing a smoking-hot bikini to the beach should be able to access that.

It bears repeating: There is no universal nonbinary look. Conflating being nonbinary with looking masculine or androgynous arbitrarily limits the possibilities for gender expression. Our community is beautiful for its expansiveness, and we shouldn’t have to worry about the clothes we wear rendering our gender identity illegible. We’re not the problem; our femmephobic, cisheteronormative world is.

Plus, when it comes to personal style, “there's no right answer,” adds Leggett. “‘All transmasc people must do this, all nonbinary femmes should do this’ — like, no, everyone is so individual. It’s just about finding what’s right for you.”