Like an onion. So many layers. Love this. You go girl!
In my first year of UNI - I got my grandmother, a seamstress of note, to make me a yellow and grey billowing cotton shirt-tunic with no sleeves.
Went to a nightclub and got into a fight for being called ‘gay’, since then I have always defended gay rights.
It’s a horrible thing to be attacked for what you wear or who you are. You seem to have overcome it brilliantly.