While visiting Saudi Arabia, Adam Graham offhandedly confessed his admiration for the Arabian thobe. Adam’s friend immediately took him shopping. “To be honest,” Adam writes, “it never dawned on me that I could buy a thobe. […] I was so pleased with it that I decided to wear it for the rest of the day while touring the city.”
Adam’s full account is equally applicable to men who envy skirts for the sole purpose of practicality or aesthetics. Wearing a garment does not signify anything. As was explained to him that “thobes aren’t religious—they’re just what we wear here to stay cool in the desert heat,” so too the skirted man is not trying to be feminine—he’s just seeking comfort in his (geosocial) climate.