Last weekend, my wife, son and I traveled to Regensburg for an afternoon. The reason was because we had a couple of appointments there, but it ended up turning into a nice afternoon spent with the family meandering through the narrow, cobblestone streets of the old city center. Amongst all of the fine Baroque architecture, I had a couple of interesting encounters that I thought would be worth writing about.
The first was an older gentleman who was walking around one of the main plazas, Neupfarrplatz, with a woman who I assume was his wife. He had longer gray hair, a gray t-shirt and was wearing a black hiking skirt that appeared to be from Jack Wolfskin. The woman he was with was wearing a white denim skirt.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to talk to him as I didn’t have much time before my appointment. I did look multiple times, however, to confirm he really was wearing a skirt and it wasn’t just some loose bifurcated garment that appeared to be a skirt from a distance. It definitely was a skirt.
The second, and perhaps more interesting, encounter happened in one of the grocery stores in the old city center while looking for ice cream for my son that I could buy without cash (for those who don’t live in Germany: you still have to carry cash with you because lots of places still don’t accept any other form of payment). As I was pushing my son’s stroller through the aisles, I turned a corner and was confronted by two people who, in their heels, were quite a bit taller than me (I’m 6′ 2″, or 189 cm). That immediately struck me as unusual as most women, even when they wear heels, aren’t taller than me.
Upon closer inspection and hearing their deep voices, I quickly realized they were men. Both were wearing cosplay outfits that included dresses, corsets, wigs and heels. One was dressed in a gothic style in an all black, lacy dress, black corset, long black wig, ripped fishnet tights and very high heeled platform boots. The other was more “cutsey” with a pink bob cut wig, white shirt, pink corset, short pink a-line skirt, white stockings held up by white garter straps and very high, glossy pink pumps. They also each had a full face of makeup.
In fact, they looked so feminine that if it weren’t for their deep voices and height, I wouldn’t have known whether they were men or women. Since they were just standing there and I had time, I did approach them and had a chat. At first, they were a little standoffish which I can understand, but then they realized that I, too, was wearing a skirt (I wore my black a-line skirt from Skirtcraft as seen in the terrible photo above). That was the icebreaker.
It turned out that they were a couple in their early 20s highly into the femboy and cosplay scenes. They hadn’t dressed up for any particular reason other than for the thrill and enjoyment of going out in public dressed up in female cosplay. While they both identified as cis men, they said they enjoyed breaking out of the “gender matrix” and pushing people’s limits of what’s acceptable for men to wear.
Everything about that made me excited to have run into them. I talked about wearing skirts out in public myself and the psychological satisfaction I get from that beyond just the physical comfort. The conversation didn’t last terribly long, but we did talk about our intentions with going out in public dressed in clothing from the women’s department. Of course, I pointed them to this blog which they promised to check out and whose goal they were excited about.
So if you’re one of them reading this now, hi! And also, I forgot to say how much I admire your ability to walk on those rough, uneven cobblestone streets in very high stiletto shoes without breaking a heel or your ankle!
Later, I told my wife about both encounters because she hadn’t been present for either one. She was excited about it too. Sometimes, I think she gets excited either because my excitement is contagious or because it means having a husband who wears skirts in public is becoming more common to see. I’m not sure which, I’ll have to ask her.
Either way, the main point of this post is to show that the number of encounters I have had with other men wearing gender-non-conforming clothing seems to be steadily increasing. Regensburg, for some reason, seems to be a very diverse city with lots of gender-non-conformity. I used to live in Munich, a much larger city, and am regularly still there to visit the in-laws, but rarely see much in the way of divergence from the norm.
I thoroughly enjoy seeing others feeling free enough to be themselves and the fact that we, as a society, are far enough along to mostly accept it is amazing. I just hope we don’t regress as some leading politicians are aggressively trying to accomplish. Let’s keep getting out there, being seen and encouraging others to do the same!
That was an interesting story, Alex. Yes, I can fully understand your excitement at having met men who prefer alternative clothing, especially those cosplayers, in a way, I’m more than a little jealous because I’ve yet to encounter gents like them. Perhaps one day I will.
I feel like it’s becoming a lot more common to see men not conforming to gender norms here in Germany. You see men with painted nails and makeup (especially eye makeup) so often that it doesn’t even stand out much anymore. It seems that clothing is following suit.
Yes, it is still not very often, but it happens occasionally that I encounter other men in skirts, dresses or high heels.
Just today, e.g., I was taking part in a bicycle demonstration for mobility change in Aachen (Germany): https://aachen-mach-weiter.de/demo/en/
And there just for a few moments I saw a man wearing a full-length dress combined with a cape. Unfortunately I didn’t get the chance to come closer or talk to him.
Last weekend, when I was for two days and one night in Amsterdam (Netherlands), one of the personnel at my hotel working at the reception desk was a man wearing a skirt (over trousers). I complemented him on the looks of his skirt, and in revanche, he complimented me on my piercings (he didn’t mention my dress though). We didn’t go further as our relationship was purely professional.
By the way: I now also wear high heels (of medium hight, a few centimeter) quite regularly. This works quite well for me. When I was in Brussels a few weeks ago, I decided to wear flat shoes (with my dress) for the sightseeing. But I also packed high-heeled stiletto pumps in my suitcase and wore them in the evening when having dinner. Unfortunately, I lost the base of one of the heels somewhere in Brussel’s cobble stones and didn’t find it again. By now, I have bought the same pair of shoes again and try to avoid walking on cobble stones or being extra careful there.
Yeah, encounters don’t happen very often, but I’ve found they happen more often here in Germany than in the US. In fact, I’ve never run into another man in a skirt, dress or heels there.
It’s great that you saw one of the male employees wearing a skirt in Amsterdam! I can imagine that Amsterdam, much like Berlin, has a comparatively large number of people that are gender-non-conforming. Also, kudos to the hotel for letting him wear a skirt at work!
Cobblestones are very tough to walk on in heels, even blocky heels. I’ve done it several times and you really have to pay attention to where you step.
It’s indeed always a pleasant surprise to encounter other men wearing a skirt. You remember those occasions very well, as these are very encouraging though also still rare. As a ‘beskirted man’ you may more often spot fellow skirt wearing males, because you are very keen on it, while short skirts aren’t so easily recognized by most people. In the Netherlands I ‘ve seen a few guys in skirts in the last years, while I don’t count men who are clearly trying to present as women (the wig, bra and high heel wearing type, with lipstick and necklaces). In London UK, there are much more skirt wearing men, as it’s very multicultural and there is the Scottish influence as well. My absolute record is when I met three other beskirted men at an assembly point before the World Naked Bike Ride there (I’m a nudist and that’s a huge event). OK, they took them off but we had a pleasant exchange of our thoughts on the common preference to wear skirts as men. Likely, nudists easier choose gender non conforming clothes that make you feel so free and unrestricted.