nonbinarytips:

This is seriously a great question but a hard one!

In order to look completely androgynous, we should live in a society where the binary isn’t so deeply engraved in everything we do. When you meet random people on the street, they look at you and the first thing their try to figure out is whether you’re a boy or a girl. And when you go to a clothing store, the first choice you must make is whether you’re shopping for womenswear or menswear. To be honest, this sucks and makes it super hard to strive towards looking gender neutral.

Keeping this in mind, I can only come up with a few tips to help you look androgynous.

Option A: Avoid all gender markers.

1. Start with your face. Do you have a face traditionally considered feminine/masculine? If so, this is the first thing you need to do. Certain parts of your face are most commonly the ones giving away false gender markers. Think about using makeup to shade the shape and bones of your face to look less feminine/masculine (there are multiple videos available on instructions to do this). This can also be done with a correct hairstyle that borders your face altering the shape of it. Another common gender marker are your eyebrows. Let them grow out or pluck them to a certain style to work as a counterweight for other gender markers of your face.
2.  Write down a list of the body parts that give away gender markers as they are. Examples could be your hands, feet, waist, shoulders, chin… These are the problem areas you need to find ways to hide/alter/modify. Do this with clothes, compression garments, makeup. Let’s say your biggest problem area was your feet. Hide them with long and/or flowy pants. Choose whether letting your leg hair grow or shaving it off completely would better benefit your cause. Choose shoes that hide your toes, ankles, or other parts that give away markers. Write down a second list of different options and solutions to alter/hide your problem areas.
3. When it comes to clothing, you’re probably going to have a few ideas already based on the lists created in the second step. If not, shop for unisex clothes. Choose to wear something bold and different, or something neutral and simple based on your personal style. If you manage to make your face and body work for you in a gender neutral way, the clothes will only work as further assets.

Option B: Use different gender markers to your benefit in order to confuse people.

1. If you come to the conclusion that you don’t have enough unisex clothing stores available/your face will never look completely androgynous/you still get misgendered a lot, start spicing things up by intentionally adding small gender markers to your appearance. These markers are supposed to confuse people when they’re trying to figure out your gender. If your face is very masculine, make yourself look as androgynous as possible, and then add for example mascara/eye liner to confuse people even further. If your voice is quite feminine, use some more masculine pieces of clothing to balance the markers. It’s going to be extremely hard finding a presentation that stays completely neutral in the eyes of a passer-by. Don’t be afraid of using gender markers to your benefit.

I’m sorry I can’t do a better job in answering this. Does anyone else have better resources or tips to share?