sub/Cultural semiotics of clothing

So a few weeks back I acquired the twinkiest jeans, as discussed: blue metallic sparkly "super-skinny" jeans with an enormous blue faux-rhinestone button fly. I was wearing them for the interaction with the splendidly queer nurse, and I mentioned to my mother that part of the reason I'd thought it might be even a tiny bit okay for me to ask him about his partner was that I was wearing clothing that read as sparklegay too.

My mother, who had been great up to that point (and as we know is generally great these days), said something to the effect of "Ugh, I don't think it's fair that any one group should get the monopoly on bits of clothing and what they mean."

That's the context; this is my attempt to put my thoughts in order enough to e-mail her an explanation. (It's extremely focussed on the context of choosing to make legible otherwise invisible characteristics; obviously I'm leaving a very great deal out for the sake of Explaining Stuff To My Mum.)

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