My favourite transfem meme. Post a video or GIF of yourself spinning around wearing a dress and having the dress billow out beautifully around you. It's simple and joyous and it's the real, secret reason some of us transition.
I didn't care very much about my clothing in my twenties. Some of my t-shirts had fun things on them. Some of them didn't. I had boring pants and boring sweaters and overall dressed like I was trying to fade into the background. My wonderful wife eventually convinced me to try wearing button-up shirts instead and that was a nice change; I liked being a little bit fancy. Then, things changed a lot.
Once I'd asked myself the right questions to find out that I'm trans, and been comfortable enough with that to say so, the question came up: what do I wear now? How feminine a woman am I, really?
Shortly after my coming out, my wife was going away for an overnight visit. They found a dress in their side of the closet that fit them a little small and left it for me, in case I wanted to try it on. It turns out that I did, but I'd also just spent decades purposely not wanting to do feminine things, so the prospect was a little scary. More than a little, really; I spent six hours sitting in my underwear and agonizing before finally putting the dress on. I don't know if I was more scared I'd like it or that I'd hate it.
Once I put it on, though, I didn't want to take it off. My reflection was showing me something I'd been wanting but had just known, deep down, wasn't supposed to be for me. I didn't look like the "man in a dress" I was fearing, I looked like... me! But a little more so than before. I was so excited to show my wife when they got back.
I didn't do anything purposely spinny with that dress but I remember the twisting, turning quality of the fabric as it hung off my shoulders being very comforting. The next day when my wife saw me in the dress it became my dress, the first of many to come. It turns out that I really wanted to be feminine.
I don't find it surprising that trans women with feminine style are drawn to the spinny. We'd all spent time pretending to be men and wearing clothing that doesn't move in fun ways. With how clothing is treated in our society, we'd had to suppress not only our gender but our preferred presentation too!
The transgender experience for most of us involves finding freedom in our new identities and expressions. We spin because we are free of the rules that hurt and the expectations that didn't match. And it looks pretty!