Black Tie Blues

Last week was an absolutely insane time to be in Washington DC. To be completely honest, if I didn’t live here I never would have come for the inauguration madness.
One of the unusual things about being in DC during the inauguration were all the fancy events that were going on all week. There were ten official inaugural balls, and countless other similar black tie events throughout the week. I somehow found myself with tickets to two of them.
For me (and maybe many of you) the first thing that comes to mind when I think about a black tie event is what the hell am I going to wear? I even wrote a piece recently that was published in the latest edition of Sinister Wisdom: Latina Lesbians entitled Black Tie Blues.
What I’ve learned from my limited experience with black tie is that there isn’t much in-between when it comes to black tie. It’s pretty standard: girls wear dresses (fancy preferably long ones) and men wear tuxedos. Period. For me, a woman who hasn’t worn a dress in almost three years and has no plans to in the future, it’s a definite predicament.
This time around I decided to bite the bullet and rent a tux. There are so many criticisms to be made about these kind of events, about the standards created by “black tie,” how they reinforce gender norms and we should get rid of the practice all together. How it’s extremely classist. But the bottom line was that I wasn’t willing to miss out on celebrating the Obama victory at these events (which I didn’t have to pay to get into, thanks to my job) and I wanted to feel comfortable. That’s what these kind of anxieties boil down to, wanting to feel comfortable in whatever I’m wearing and appropriately dressed.
Renting the tux was definitely an experience to remember. Unfortunately for me I don’t know of any tux rental places in DC that cater to queer people so I had to go the conventional route. I picked the Mens Wearhouse near my job. I was pretty nervous about the whole thing, so I asked my girlfriend to come with me, which definitely helped. The employees at the store were overall more accommodating than I expected. I had to go back numerous times for different issues and by the last time I went they all knew me by name. For someone with my frame (I’m 5’2″ and not skinny) it wasn’t easy to find a good fit. What I ended up with was rather boxy/baggy but I felt good.
At both events, the most me and my girlfriend got were a few double takes and sideways glances. Nothing too terrible, much tamer than some of my previous experiences. The only other women wearing tuxedos were the servers. I found one other woman (shout out to Melissa!) at the second event we went to who was also wearing a tux and she awesomely came up and introduced herself, giving me props for also wearing a tuxedo. Solidarity!
Have any of you readers had similar experiences?