“Wearing the dress made Otoh carry himself gracefully” (pg. 121).
This sentence contains many interesting aspects of Cereus Blooms at Night; Otoh is a biological female but has always presented and been regarded as a boy by the community. Even his parents forget that he is biologically female and consider him as their son. What then makes this interesting is Otoh’s lack of reservation about changing his appearance to present as female, for the sake of sneaking in and visiting Mala. This is significant, as it says something about Otoh’s character; it implies that Otoh is comfortable switching back and forth between male and female, though he prefers to present as male, and does not view male/female as a set binary. Otoh simply grabs the dress off of the clothes line and puts it on without any apparent psychological distress.
Wearing a dress highlights the novel’s emphasis on non-binaries and the power of gendered objects, especially dresses. Earlier in the novel, Tyler, another character that is implied to be transgender, puts on a dress and shows himself off to Mala. Wearing the dress allows Tyler to begin to explore the space between the male/female binary, where he considers himself to belong. While Otoh is comfortable exploring this space, Tyler feels uneasy at some points, like he was wearing the dress as a mere joke. Tyler and Otoh both experience powerful effects from putting on the dress, however, where Otoh “carries himself gracefully,” which could be taken to mean in a more feminine way, and Tyler feels more in tune with his true identity. Male/female genders are considered to be on a spectrum in this novel, and objects, like dresses, that are heavily associated with one gender allow non-binary individuals to explore this spectrum.