By David Kettlewell
CENTER STORY
At the far end of the Kent State Ice arena a skater practices their edges. You hear the crunching of steel blades cutting ice in wide arcs. First, inside and outside edges on the left foot, then the same on the right foot.
As the skater approaches closer, you see immaculate white skates, suntan- colored tights, a brilliant blue skating dress, and a trim black jacket with a rhinestone name pin attached.
The skater approaches, he holds out his hand and says calmly, “Hi, my name is Steven.”
It is a male voice, it is a man, dressed, well, in a dress.
Steven Arness is a 35 year old male who has determined to skate on the ice, in public, in a dress.
As he puts it, to be accurate, they are not “women’s clothes,” but instead are clothes originally made for a woman, but which are now his, so they should be referred to as his clothes.
One would expect that a male skater wearing a dress on the ice, on the same ice that hockey skaters call home turf, would be the target of considerable criticism.
You would be right.
Kids in bleachers hoot as Steven skates by, figure skaters’ parents careen their kids to supposedly safer ground, and most people simply refuse to interact in any way.
To say that his wearing a dress affronts some in the conservative fish bowl of rink life would be an understatement.
“Some people pick on me. Some have accused me of being a pervert or a voyeur in wait for children, some accuse me of being in defiance of the bible’s commands, but I put up with it,” says Steven, because wearing a dress is what he wants to do.
Steven has had great difficulty finding a coach who always offer one excuse or another for why they cannot teach him, is oftentimes treated poorly by skating club parents and club officers, and occasionally finds someone willing to hear his views on dress, or dressing.
So why go through all this to wear a dress?
THE FIRST TIME
For Steven, unmarried, a computer and telephone cabling contractor in winter, and manager of a Go-Kart track in summer, the first step into women’s clothing was wearing a leotard at age 11.
“I was 11 or 12, and I got a black leotard which I wore at home. Did you know that leotards were actually developed by a man for use by acrobats and other performers?”
“As a child I’d seen the beautiful outfits that females wore and thought, ‘Why do they get to wear such beautiful outfits while the guys wear such bland and ordinary styles?’” He determined that if and when he learned to skate, he would wear whatever he wanted, be it pants or a dress.
“My mom thought I should wear a wig and makeup and pass as a woman, (she thought it would be less controversial,) but I couldn’t do it. It’s not me. I’m not a woman in a man’s body, I’m a man, but a man who chooses to wear what I call non- traditional attire,” said Steven.
The first dress he wore on ice was made by a New York woman. When she learned that Steven himself intended to wear the dress, she refused to alter it. “She lost a lot of business, because it’s one of my favorites in terms of cut and style.”
Steven has about 100 skating dresses, from plain white to brilliant blue, to tie dies, in many hues of colors. Blue is his favorite color.
He says that women’s clothing offers him so many styles to choose from.
“Open a skating catalog, what do you see? One page for men’s fashion and a hundred for women. I’m built different from a woman, so most of my outfits are custom made with a long girth. I’ve been told that a V-waist is most becoming for me, and I prefer a longer rear skirt because I don’t want too much of my cheek to show!”
I asked Steven the question so many impatient men ponder: just why is it that women take so long to shop for clothes?
“It’s simple. There are so many different styles and colors, it takes time to see them all, to try them on,” said Steven.
Do clothiers allow him to shop for clothes?
“Yes, they do. I go to a shop in Cleveland and they treat me well. I also buy some dresses by catalog, but prefer being able to try them on.” (Steven seldom wears a dress in public, primarily at the ice arena.)
WEARING A DRESS IS NO BIG DEAL
Said Steven, “Look, my wearing a dress is no great whoopee. I don’t think of myself as a crossdresser, I am who I am. I see no problem with wearing a dress on the ice and I don’t understand the stigma. Women wear pants and men’s shirts and no one thinks anything of it. I can be feminine in male pants, or masculine in clothing made for a female. These are just labels, what I wear does not change who I am on the inside.”
He points out that we live in a world of breast enhancement surgery, tattooing, and body piercings, which to his way of thinking are equally “diverse.”
“I think that too many people are more worried about what’s on the outside (how people see them), than on what’s on the inside,” said Steven.
“I don’t care how others dress, I really don’t. I look at somebody and I may feel that what they are wearing is goofy, but I still let that person express themselves, until such time as they express themselves in a negative or dangerous manner.”
On February 6th and 7th of 2004, Steven marched in the Million Skirted Men March in New York City. “About a hundred of us marched, we were fighting for the rights of men to wear skirts. We marched from the Guggenheim Museum to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”
For Steven, skating was a chance to wear the clothing he enjoys and to lose unwanted pounds.
“I weighed about 210 before I began skating, and now I’m closer to 170.”
“Skating was my first sport, the first time I used my body as an athlete. I never was into baseball, football or basketball.”
“Skating has a different kind of power and energy to it, I like the footwork and spins and jumps and it’s so exciting to go across the ice!”
“It’s been a different thing for me.”
SOCIETY’S MIRROR
There is a darker side, explained to me in detail by a grouping of individuals who all requested their names be withheld.
“He’s a pervert and I don’t want my kids anywhere near him,” said one woman with two children who skate. Her views seem to reflect the views of many.
They view his peculiar dressing habits as something to be feared.
One ice arena manager said, “We don’t care what he wears, we’re a public facility and as long as he follows our rules, we have no problem. But I’ll tell you that many parents have come to me and asked that he be thrown off the ice.”
A minister said his wearing a dress went against the teachings of the bible, although he had no success in finding an applicable passage.
Steven’s legal rights are definitely not on slippery ice. He says that attorneys have told him he has every right to wear exactly what he wants, where he wants to wear it. To not allow him to participate in skating would be tantamount to saying that someone can’t participate due to their race, age, or sex. It’s illegal and he knows it.
“One skating club wanted me off the ice but they contacted an attorney at the United States Figure Skating Association. They were told to let me wear what I want.”
While overt discrimination has been rare, he does find making his way in the skating world a hard go.
“It’s been hard to find a coach who will teach me, and most skaters warn I’ll never be able to compete in a dress. I have a tunic which is close in style to a dress, but I would have to wear pants underneath. I haven’t decided yet how much I want to push the issue.”
Steven had hoped to participate in a fundraising calendar featuring men in dresses, but it never got off the ground. His hopes of being part of an endeavor with those of like mind evaporated like ice on a warm day.
BEFRIENDED BY SOME
There are people who can accept Steven the way he is, who almost seem to cherish him.
Chandra Morgan-Henley is one such friend.
“I was morbidly obese for much of my life, I weighed about 500 pounds. I would walk through the grocery store, which was work for me, and kids would stand up on shopping carts and scream, ‘look how huge she is!”
“People would either ignore me or make fun of me. People in general should be able to live without others passing judgment on what you wear, or the color of your skin, or your body size, or hair color.”
Roger Thurman, a luthier in Kent, Ohio, summed up his thoughts, “People just don’t like what’s different. It scares them, and I’ll tell you what, they can be dangerous.”
Thurman served in the armed forces in Vietnam as an interpreter.
He continued, “Oftentimes how people respond to someone who is different, like Steven, says far more about the person being critical than it does the subject of the criticism.”
Another individual said, “Steven is important and of value to each of us. In him, we confront something we cannot relate to, and so the question becomes, “how do you relate to those who are different?”
In this sense, Steven is a mirror and it is we who are reflected.
Steven has hopes for the future, on and off the ice.
“I hope someday to find a woman who can accept me for who I am.”