The beginning: The Lipstick Incident

I am Leon, 26 years old... well... 3 weeks off from being 27. I grew up in Hengelo, Overijssel, in the Netherlands. And even though I have always lived there relatively pleasant, I noticed at an early age that I was completely different from my friends and most other guys. This had to do with my passion for fashion and colors. Let me take you back to the beginning.

The year is 2000. I was 4 years old. It was early in the morning and my parents were still asleep. That morning, I scared the hell out of my father. I often watched my mother using lipstick to make herself pretty, and this morning I decided I wanted to be pretty too. So I found my mothers lipstick, put it on my face, 'just like mommy', to make myself pretty. The lipstick ended up everywhere except on my lips, and when my father woke up, he thought it was blood dripping from my face. What a hell of a way to wake up right? You could say I did not get the desired result, but this need of expression was always there!

I still remember a year or two later, I think I was five or six. Just like every other kid I had to go to school in the morning. We had a few hair dyes that came off after one shower. Bright blue, bright yellow and bright red. My mom used to dye our hairs a little on special occasions because we liked it. I always had a spikes-haircut, and the tops got a little color, and my sister got a few tufts of hair dyed. But again, early in the morning, before my parents woke up, I decided I wanted my hair dyed for school. I got myself the dye, and started coloring my hair. And not just the tops, but my entire hair yellow, blue and red. I can't remember if I wore it to school or if I had to shower, but here again, was this same desire for expression. In a way, I was a handful.

I can keep recalling examples like this through my entire childhood, but I want to skip over to the time I was 15. At that age I started to express who I really was. Even though my parents never forbid me to do this, they were not a fan of it either. But I bought my first crop-top. I still remember it like yesterday. It was a ZARA crop-top with shiny leopard print. Maybe most people in this situation would start with black or white, but not me. I started to wear it proudly to the mall, to my family etc. I got so many strange looks from people, but I didn't care, I felt so good and so free! I even got to a point where I started wearing them around friend, when we were drinking on Saturday-nights. I started to wear them around the football-club I played at the time. In all these cases it was tolerated, but never really accepted since I got so many nasty comments.

Over the years I had this freedom stolen again. New people, new situations, and you start thinking: "what if I wear it here, what would they do?". Also, since I'm an active christian I started wondering: "is God okay with this?". And in these years I grew a depression, and I started disliking life. It really started feeling like an obligation to wake up in the morning. I came to the conclusion that it was not God or the Bible holding me back. But I lied to myself for a very long time. I said I didn't know if God was okay with it, but in the end it was all fear of people.

A few weeks back I made a radical choice. I wanted to be myself again. I wrote an apology to myself, proving that neither the Bible nor God is holding me back in this, and that all these restrains were just fear of people. So I made the choice, that every time I want to wear something, and I feel fear to do so, I put it on and go outside. It didn't take long until I got used to it. I bought 2 pairs of ankle boots with a 14cm heel. One black pair and one white pair. Often when I wear them and go outside I get compliments, and right now I feel so free! This was, and is my goal. Just a man looking good. Now normalize it for straight men. I can recommend this to any man holding himself back. Just do it, and you will feel so much better! I'm going to wrap up the story now. I hope you enjoyed the "pilot"!