"If I want to wear a dress, I'll wear a dress"
About this Quote
Context matters because Rodman didn’t say this from the margins; he said it as a hyper-visible NBA star in the 1990s, an era when sports culture sold masculinity as a uniform. Athletes were supposed to be brands for a narrow idea of “real men” - stoic, aggressive, legible. Rodman made himself aggressively illegible: dyed hair, piercings, tabloid spectacle, and, yes, dresses. That wasn’t just personal style; it was a refusal to let the league, sponsors, or fans dictate the boundaries of acceptable identity.
The subtext isn’t “men can wear dresses” in a tidy, progressive PSA way. It’s a challenge to the audience’s need to categorize. Rodman understood that fame is a cage built from other people’s expectations, and he used fashion as bolt cutters. The quote also carries an athlete’s pragmatism: performance on the court is the only credential that should matter. Everything else - the policing, the panic, the jokes - is noise.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Rodman, Dennis. (2026, January 17). If I want to wear a dress, I'll wear a dress. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-i-want-to-wear-a-dress-ill-wear-a-dress-48766/
Chicago Style
Rodman, Dennis. "If I want to wear a dress, I'll wear a dress." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-i-want-to-wear-a-dress-ill-wear-a-dress-48766/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"If I want to wear a dress, I'll wear a dress." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-i-want-to-wear-a-dress-ill-wear-a-dress-48766/. Accessed 4 Feb. 2026.








