A new startup is selling “trans,” “non-binary,” and “gender non-conforming” underwear for up to $88 apiece.
Founded by Mere Abrams, a “prominent non-binary influencer, social worker, activist, and gender researcher,” and Anna Graham, a fashion entrepreneur, Urbody “is committed to inspiring acceptance, self-love, and gender freedom.”
According to a recent feature with CNBC’s Make It:
Abrams and Graham spent two years doing market research and developing their line. First, the co-founders put out surveys to members of the LGBTQ+ community and hosted fittings in their homes where people could share their experiences shopping for underwear and bodywear.
The collective knowledge that Abrams and Graham gleaned from the surveys allowed them to settle on seven garments: a boxer brief with an internal pocket that can hold a prosthetic in place; a thong that has ample room to accommodate all types of external genitalia; leggings with a “power mesh” layer of fabric to smooth the body; a bikini brief with a thick waist band and double layer of fabric for additional security for those with external genitalia; a compression top; a boxer brief without an open fly pouch; and a bralette that’s specifically engineered for people with small busts.
According to the group’s site, the seven products are respectively selling for $48, $45, $88, $48, $49, $40, and $55 apiece.
Urbody is also selling a $45 t-shirt featuring the “Periodic Table of Identities.” The back of the garment shows several gender identities and sexual orientations — such as “biromantic,” “feminine of center,” “two-spirit,” and “demiromantic” — arranged similarly to the periodic table of the elements.
As Abrams explained during the feature, “the clothes that we put on our body actually have a big role in our self-esteem, our body image, our self-expression and our sense of identity and affirmation.”
Abrams also said manufacturers had a “super limited understanding of what we were doing and the goals we were trying to achieve,” and the “education process of trying to get someone to understand what we were doing felt insurmountable.”
The startup launched amid rising acceptance of transgender ideology in the United States — and a growing movement of gender dysphoric individuals speaking out after reversing their transgender therapy and “confirmation” surgeries.
“As I write this, the mastectomy scars are twinging on my chest. 4 years later, I’ve grown older, wiser, and way more cautious. But the scars remain,” wrote Grace Lidinsky-Smith, who underwent a male-to-female transition in 2017. “When I realized that being a trans man wasn’t what I wanted anymore, I fell into despair. My body was permanently changed. The surgery was the hardest thing to deal with. The scars hurt. I missed the feeling of having an intact, unscarred body. I was convinced my life had been ruined.”
Walt Heyer — who resumed living as a male decades after a male-to-female gender reassignment surgery — said that “hormones and sex change genital surgery couldn’t solve the underlying issues driving my gender dysphoria.”