Dysphoria and clothes

A week after coming out to my partner "Himself" in early September, he and I went into Officers Club to look at shirts for me. The assistant just came up and asked what size we were looking for. Himself therefore said to me "what size do you think you need". I didn't know. I felt flustered, said "I'll leave it, thanks" and went for the door. Outside the shop Himself said "Women buy and wear men's clothes all the time, you know, nobody bats an eyelid". I did before when I shopped for work clothes and I don't doubt that's true still. What got to me was that inside the shop I was thinking "oh hell, don't look at my chest, I don't want reminding of it not being flat".

It wasn't entirely about the flatness (or not) of my chest, of course, the real situation was that I didn't want reminding that my body says "female" and I'll be assumed to be female gendered because that means that I'm not being recognised as myself. I can see I have changed because I haven't always been so concerned about it I used to have a very "don't care, I know who I am" attitude. I suppose I had to have that attitude when there was no medical option open.

This week I was looking at a casual everyday jacket. I spotted one in a dark red in the boy's section, it was too small and there wasn't one in the men's size. I went to the checkout to ask if there was a larger size, the (female bodied) assistant paused only for a split second. "sorry, no, there's black or grey" she said.

I don't need to dress male to feel 'myself'. I feel the same in unisex clothing, but like this I am read as a "Tomboy". At the moment I want to prevent an assumption about my gender being female being made. I don't want to be read as a butch lesbian, nothing wrong with that at all but it isn't what I am so I don't want to be read as that. I don't think I could be read at my age (55) as me without T. I don't even know if T would work to give me a male presence though because I have very fine, almost invisible, body hair. To look male would change how my partner sees me and would bring about the end of our relationship. This seriously messes with your head, as I was just thinking, well what if I did 50/50 the other way round and presented as female at home? A GIC would just love that.