Length, width, fabric type, looseness or tightness — there are a number of reasons why a clothing item doesn't work for a person.
For trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming individuals, ill-fitting clothes present another issue: causing, or exacerbating, gender dysphoria.
With LGBTQ well-being in mind, two transgender entrepreneurs of apparel companies — Kylo Freeman, founder and CEO of For Them, and Finnegan Shepard, founder and CEO of Both& Apparel — decided to create their own product lines for, and with, the queer community.
"A business is just solving a problem, right? You find a problem that you care enough about yourself, and that your community cares about as much, and you drive at that problem," said Freeman, 35, in a Google Meet interview with the Bay Area Reporter.
"And that's really all this company [For Them] is. I actually see it as quite a simple thing because we don't manufacture needs. We find problems in the community and then we just do our best to solve them," he added.
Freeman, who is Black, queer, nonbinary, and trans, is the creator of For Them, a queer wellness-oriented company based in New York City that sells environmentally friendly chest binders made from recycled nylon. Since its launch in 2020, the company has sold over 60,000 binders.
For Freeman, the conceptualization of For Them stemmed from his own less-than-ideal experience with binding.
"My chest binder was super painful. I'm an actor, and so I was on set a bunch. And I just felt either super unaffirmed, because I couldn't wear it and breathe properly, or I'd wear it and I felt like my performance wasn't very good, because I couldn't breathe comfortably," he shared.
Freeman, who has appeared on shows such as "The Blacklist" and "Inventing Anna" and co-hosts the podcast "Good Boys" with trans comedian Motti, was frustrated with the circumstances.
"My girlfriend at the time, I felt like she had like 800 options for bras, and I was like, 'Why do I have one uncomfortable binder? This feels unfair.'" he said.
Freeman's personal discomfort prompted him to reach out to the queer community for their perspectives on, and experiences with, chest binding.
"I found friends that had ribs fractured and their skeletal muscles had changed and just some really dangerous stuff. And that made me feel even more passionately about it. My thing was, 'How do we make a safe binder?' That was my first challenge. And that's sort of where the company started," he explained.
Shepard, 32, also used his personal experience as fuel to identify a problem and pursue a solution. Disappointed in the fit of cis clothing and limited masc (masculine style) apparel options for those assigned female at birth, or AFAB, he developed his own brand, Both&, in 2020. The brand's website reads, "Not all bodies fit the binary. Not all clothing should either."
"We've kind of turned fashion's normal structure on its head in the sense that it's not a designer who's coming up with their own kind of creative vision and then putting it out in the world to generate demand for it. Instead, we started with, 'What is there already a demand for, what is already the need or problem in the community, and then how do we solve around that to make something that will improve people's lives?'" Shepard, who identifies as transmasc, said in a phone interview with the B.A.R.
At the time of the interview, Shepard was based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with plans to move to New York this month. He said the headquarters for Both& is wherever he and his laptop are.
Shepard is also a writer, public speaker, consultant, and the founder of Limns, an etymology-centered Substack publication, with a master's degree in philosophy from the University of Cambridge to boot. He decided to reach out to the queer community for its insight and spent a year interviewing people and obtaining feedback.
"I spoke to over 2,000 people to really verify, 'What do we struggle with? What do we wish existed? And are the ways in which we are struggling with clothing similar enough that we can solve them from a design perspective?' Because I knew what my problems were, but if I went out and talked to 100 people, and we all listed really different things, I'd be like, 'OK, well, that sucks, but I don't really see a viable product here to solve for that.' But that was not the case," said Shepard. "Pretty much everyone I spoke to had exactly the same problems," he said.
Creating the product
With personal apparel issues realized and then queer community-confirmed, the next step for both entrepreneurs was product development.
"Even though my background wasn't in fashion, when you hear thousands of people in a row saying, 'Yeah, men's T-shirts are always too long and narrow and bunch at the hips and the shoulders are too wide,' etc, etc., it's like, 'OK, we just need to get the right proportions and create a fit system,'" Shepard remarked.
And he did just that, connecting with nonbinary and transmasc community members to create a proprietary masc fit system for AFAB bodies. It includes features such as reduced body length, narrowed shoulder length, and a raised collar to cover binder lines for shirts and a shorter inseam and proportional design for pants.
Tops-wise, there's "Romeo" ($44), a muscle tank described on the Both& website as being "fit tested on trans men, lesbians, nonbinary, genderqueer [individuals] and cis women who want a masc fit;" "Jude" ($42), dubbed "the post-top surgery muscle tee;" and several other short and long sleeve shirt options.
Both& pants include "Jo" jeans ($99) with "less length and more room at the hips" and "Ki" denim shorts ($79), with a similar fit. There's also a swimwear collection featuring a sleeveless top ("Romeo Swim," $79), "Elliot" swim trunks ($89), and a lightweight swim-friendly packer ("Emmett," $35). Youth apparel offerings include jeans, shirts, and a hoodie.
The Both& website has a fit guide as well as a "See the difference" side-by-side image comparison of the "Both& fit" and the "cis fit" of shirts and pants.
The privately held company, with several Both& mission-aligned investors such as Douglas Aitken, Linda Choong, Kev Glynn, Allen Gannett, Jeremy Heimans, and Stacy Tarver Patterson, has received positive feedback from the queer community.
"I've been a customer of Both& since 2021 when I was fairly fresh in my nonbinary identity. I struggled to find clothing that fit my body and style, and Both& managed to accomplish both," Jess Magnan stated in an email to the B.A.R.
Magnan, nonbinary, transmasc, and a lesbian, is now a customer service representative for the company. They emphasized the importance of its clothing in relation to gender identity and expression.
"Having Both& staple pieces lets me get dressed in the morning without distress or the threat of gender dysphoria once I put some clothes on. I really feel like myself under their layers, so seeing the brand and its product line expand over the years truly excites me," they shared.
For Freeman, there were a few considerations on his whiteboard for a safe trans binder. His previous business experience, including working as a CFO at Prehype, a venture development firm, lent well to the project at hand.
"I was like, 'It can't not fit everybody in a community. We cannot create sizing that is not inclusive. We won't launch it unless anybody can buy one,'" he said.
Freeman also set out to do away with the typical "toxic sizing" (think: XS to XXXL) that affects people's perceptions of their bodies and weight. "We tried to spin that on its head and created our own size range. So it's not male or female, but rather we built it out and we named them [the sizes]," he explained.
The For Them binder names are based on a person's apex measurement, with 10 names in total, including "amethyst" for sizes 28-30; "fire" for sizes 40-43; "illusion" for sizes 52-55; and "kindred" for sizes 60-63. There are two binder types available to purchase: the "All Day" binder, $55, and the "MAX" (offering "maximum compression"), $64. All binders were fit-tested on members of the community, on all body sizes, during the development process.
"To this day, there has not been someone that has come to our website that could not purchase a binder. It fits every single human that has visited our site," Freeman shared.
The For Them website offers information on binder fit, including a roughly 30-second instructional video for apex measurement and the prompt, "Where are you on your binding journey?" The three selections that appear underneath — "I'm new to binding + not sure where to start," "None of the binders out there are doing it for me," and "I wear a binder daily + am looking to get a new one" — provide further guidance as needed.
For Robin Zabiegalski, a writer and editor at Kinkly.com and a yoga teacher, wearing a For Them binder was a vast improvement compared to their previous binding experiences.
"I spent so much money trying to find binders that fit me — huge chest and fat — and the only ones I found were super uncomfortable or I had to double bind, which is really not a good idea. But my chest dysphoria was so bad I did it anyway," stated Zabiegalski, queer and transmasc, in an Instagram message to the B.A.R.
They described wearing a For Them binder as "totally different."
"It fit more like a really tight sports bra. More movement and mobility, but also more coverage. ... It also got me flatter than any other binder I wore," Zabiegalski stated.
The binder also "felt like it was made to fit fat people," Zabiegalski noted.
"[T]hat's so important for fat trans folks. Most of us have large chests and it's so hard to find relief from that dysphoria before top surgery, if we can even access it," they commented. "The fact that For Them is actually making binders for fat people that fit fat people is a gift."
For Them, a privately held company, has had four seed funding rounds, with the most recent round, in December 2023, raising $234,300, according to Crunchbase.
"I provided money to make the binder, and once we made it and sold it, then we raised some venture capital. ... We are majority owned by a Black trans person [Freeman] and investors have been super, super supportive," said Freeman.
The queer community continues to support For Them and Both& as well by providing both companies feedback on their current product lines and offering suggestions about new products.
"I call us a 'user research-based grant.' We still crowdsource our product pipeline — the community upvotes and discusses their most requested styles and categories. We have a very active discourse," Shepard said.
"In general, we always start from this expansive space of talking with the community and figuring out what people want and then doing our best to systematically tackle those problems," he added.
Beyond the product
The two companies' consideration of the queer community extends to free resources on their websites — specifically, content written by and for queer and trans individuals.
In 2023, For Them acquired Autostraddle, an online queer magazine founded in 2009. The articles, which are free to access and read, focus on all things LGBTQ, including culture, history, Pride, and community perspectives.
Both&'s website includes a "Journal" page featuring TGNC-themed articles such as "What it is like to be Trans" by Amelie Au, "AFAB meaning," a thoughtful unpacking of the term "assigned female at birth" by Shepard, and "Transitioning: Tips, Stories, and Information," a multi-authored piece that discusses top and bottom surgeries, hormone replacement therapy, and other relevant transition-related details.
Shepard's and Freeman's queer community-centeredness applies to company staff as well, with both employing trans and queer individuals. For Them has eight full-time staff, plus numerous freelance writers who contribute stories to Autostraddle.
Shepard is the only full-timer at Both&. He employs six part-time staff members working remotely in cities throughout the U.S. such as San Francisco, Chicago, and Colorado; the company's primary photographer is based in London.
"We've been a really scrappy, really lean team from the start. I built this amazing network of part-time or consulting or freelance folks who we tap in for as much as we can afford and as much as the business needs," he shared.
Magnan shared their positive experience with the company.
"Working with other queer and trans people makes working in general so much easier, and that's one of the many things I love about working with Both&," stated Magnan in an email to the B.A.R.
Magnan also commented on Both&'s inclusive work environment.
"My identity, pronouns, relationship, etc. is all a nonissue and I can just focus on my job, which is primarily addressing questions and concerns from other queer and trans people as it relates to the brand," they wrote.
Shepard hopes to increase staff size as the company progresses over the next few years.
"I can't tell you how many emails I get every month about people wanting to come work for Both&. It's one of my ethical goals to be the largest employer of trans and nonbinary [individuals] at some point," he said. "But we've got a ways to go."
What lies ahead
Going forward, Freeman sees For Them's community-centered "AF" and "AF+" memberships ($4 and $8 per month, respectively), which offer certain perks such as discounts and access to special content, expanding reach-wise as the company grows. There are currently about 7,000 AF members.
For Them is also launching an underwear line this month that has been in the works for over a year. The new line, based on community input, will feature unique, built-from-scratch designs and tucking and packing products.
"It's been really exciting to build these things with our needs in mind," said Freeman.
Shepard, too, anticipates good things to come for Both&.
"[W]e surpassed seven figures our second year in business, and are now on a clear path to profitability," said Shepard, who declined to share specific numbers.
On Instagram, Both& also recently announced its first-ever residency, happening at Fibers of Being, a queer-owned and -operated retail shop located at 645 Divisadero Street in San Francisco. The Both& residency program involves a one-month stay in a selected retail space, where upcycled Both& pieces will be available at 30% off.
Queer community joy
When clothing items do fit well, align with one's gender identity and expression, and are coupled with supportive resources, there's ample room in (or out of) the closet for something significant: gender euphoria.
That idea is not lost on either entrepreneur.
"We're not only a queer company, but we're a queer company that really stands for joy and empowerment, and there's just such a desperate need for it, so I feel a lot of the weight and responsibility of trying to create as big of a space with as many different vectors as possible," Shepard said.
Freeman, too, commented on his company's "big picture" aim to have a positive, far-reaching effect on the community during a time of anti-LGBTQ legislation and rhetoric.
"It's really tough out there for queer and trans folks in certain spaces and states, and so I'm trying to find this balance with the idea of well-being, giving people all the resources and education that they need, and being prepared for what life is going to throw at them, which right now is a lot of not ideal stuff," Freeman said.
"We deserve joy; we deserve happiness; we deserve to feel really good," he said.
This story is part of the Digital Equity Local Voices Fellowship lab through News is Out. The lab initiative is made possible with support from Comcast NBCUniversal.
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