Steps to become a Bootblack

STEP 1 - learn how to do a shine STEP 2 - get the basics for your kit STEP 3 - Start bootblacking privately as part of kinky hookups. STEP 4 - Start bootblacking publicly in bars. STEP 5 - Get to know more bootblacks STEP 6 - Realise how much gender diversity and expression exists in the bootblack community. Realise how many bootblacks are trans or nonbinary. As you learn more about all the ways people can experience their gender identity and express gender, start to think deeply for the first time how you feel internally. Start to realise how you feel internally doesn't match up to what a lot of other people experience with their gender. Sit with that a bit. Wonder if you are more on the nonbinary spectrum. Learn about different gender identities outside the binary, and one description resonates with you. Is that a right fit for you? Look around you and feel like a fraud for not being gender-nonconforming enough. Decide to add they as secondary pronouns, but just as a show of support and to help normalise it in society, or course. Slowly, start to talk about how you feel with close friends. Start to test the waters by low-key slipping your duel pronouns into bios. Grow more comfortable thinking yourself as nonbinary, even if you mostly still present as your birth gender. Start to talk publicly about being nonbinary. Have friends tell you helped them by being openly nonbinary, and they are now going through their own journeys of self discovery. Feel like a fraud because you don't feel ready to be an example to others. But you're also happy, you can help. STEP 7 - Get into the habit of cleaning your brushes more often