ABSTRACT
The rules for how to dress do not have to be formalized and written down in law or workplace, school, or club policy to be powerful. Unwritten, or informal, rules for dress are based on generally accepted expectations for what certain people "should" wear. The informal rules of dress based on gender may be the most widespread and accepted, and thus overlooked. Clothing covers people's genitalia, the physical parts of their bodies that are often used to socially categorize them into the categories of male and female. For transgender women and men, clothing is central in the process of being defined by others as the appropriate gender. As psychologists found in a study of how women and men use clothing to change their appearance, "Clothing is an everyday body-modification practice that may not be as dramatic or permanent as plastic surgery" but has the same outcome.
